View allAll Photos Tagged IntimatePortrait
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Model: Pamela
Photo: @giovanni_contarelli
©2025 All Right Reserved Giovanni Contarelli
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The Dao Thanh Phan are an ethnic minority group in the Binh Lieu district of Quang Ninh province, north Vietnam. They are known for their elaborate traditional costumes, which often feature red colors and intricate embroidery. The women wear red box hats with tassels and silver ornaments, red patterned scarves, and shirts and pants with decorative motifs. Married women shave their heads and eyebrows, and cover their teeth with gold.
I conclude this chapter on Bangladesh with some of the amazing people I was privileged to photograph. The essence of a culture is in its people, so the pinnacle of travel photography for me are intimate portraits that reveal the soul and character of a country's people.
This woman caught my eye when I visited a rice drying factory outside of Dhaka. She was using a broom to gather up the dried rice grains so that it could be packed into canvas sacks and sent for dehusking. After she finished her task I asked her to pose for me. She was a bit shy at first, but after a bit of encouragement she began to open up. I love how her hijab naturally frames her face, and she had a great smile as well.
Shots from my portrait workshop
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The complete shooting on my Instagram and Facebook profiles.
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Photo: @giovanni_contarelli
©2025 All Right Reserved Giovanni Contarelli
Follow me on Flickr and
www.instagram.com/giovanni_contarelli/
www.facebook.com/giovanni.contarelli/
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A rim light portrait of a young monk in Bagan. You can almost sense the depth of his spirituality in his eyes, and the earnestness of his supplication in his posture.
Her name is An Phuoc, and she is 17 years old. She lives in south Vietnam and belongs to the Cham people (a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority group of Malay origin). She has a rare genetic disorder that results in a lack of pigment in her irises, hence the piercing blue eyes. Her sister has the same condition, and has one blue and one brown eye (heterochromia). Piecing together her facial features and her family history, I think it is likely that she has Waardenburg Syndrome. Regardless, it makes for a stunning and unexpected photo to see a Vietnamese woman with blue eyes.
A Vietnamese woman in a traditional white ao dai stands at the threshold to a Chinese temple in Ninh Binh.
A novice monk in Mandalay. Entering monkhood is a rite of passage for many boys in Myanmar, even though most of them spend a few days to a few months as young monks rather than making a lifetime commitment. However, many children from poorer families and orphans spend most ot their lives in the monastery, where they are supported with food and education. Monks are not obligated to stay in the monastery and may leave of their own free will at anytime.
in the heart of paris, nestled at place d’estienne d’orves with a view of the majestic eglise de la sainte trinité, a man sits quietly at café du mogador. the soft light gently frames him, bringing out the contrast between his vibrant red beanie and the calm café ambiance. absorbed in his thoughts, with a glass of water and orange juice at the ready, his world feels distant from the bustling parisian streets. the scene captures a peaceful, intimate moment of pause in the city of lights, against the backdrop of historical beauty.
An adolescent monk with his Tibetan Horn. This is probably the most widely used instrument in both Tibetan and Bhutanese Buddhist culture, and come in various lengths, some of which are telescoping and can be shortened or lengthened accordingly.
She may not be a fashion model strutting her stuff on the runway of Milan, but this Suri woman is every bit as poised and confident as she posed for me in the woods behind her village.
A quiet, contemplative portrait framed by dry branches — a moment where emotion and nature blend softly at dusk. Subtle, intimate, and beautifully raw..
Lauren channels the timeless glamour of classic Hollywood starlets, evoking the captivating allure of Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic presence. The rich red tones and her poised gaze make this portrait truly unforgettable.
Portrait of a Kazakh eagle hunter and his bird. The close bond between hunter and eagle is palpable, and the birds appear to reciprocate the emotion. Although eagles can live for thirty years, the hunters keep each one for only about ten years, then release it to live out its last years in the wild. The bird is taken far away, and the hunter sometimes has to hide, or wait for darkness, to keep it from following him home. An old Kazakh hunter who recently released his bird was quoted as saying "I think about what that eagle is doing; if she’s safe, and whether she can find food and make a nest. Have her hunts been successful? Sometimes I dream about these things.”
An elderly Hmong gentleman smoking a bamboo pipe in his village courtyard. His outfit reminds me of the drab Mao era clothing that Chinese people used to wear decades ago, though his headpiece is more traditional Hmong.
This is the patriarch of a family of Kazakh eagle hunters in western Mongolia. The Kazakhs immigrated to Mongolia in the 1850s from what is now Xinjiang Province in western China, and carried with them their traditional hunting method with the golden eagle. The eagles are captured as chicks and trained for 3-4 years. They then stay with the hunters until a maximum age of 8 years and then let go into the wild to continue with the rest of their lives. The birds are all females as they are larger, fiercer, and make for better hunters. The Kazakhs only use these eagles to hunt foxes for fur in the winter, and it generally takes 4-5 foxes to make a fur coat. I saw how the hunters treated their eagles with remarkable care and tenderness, so I tried to capture some of that dynamic between hunter and eagle in this portrait.
These Balinese triplets look pretty regal in their traditional outfit. I tried to get them to show some facial expression, but they were pretty stoic and at most gave me a curious or quizzical look.
Lost between worlds, she lingers at the edge of a dream—half here, half beyond. The veil of time softens her presence, yet her gaze remains, searching, knowing, calling you closer.
In the silence of light and shadow,
a story unfolds without words.
Lines carve across the skin
not prison bars,
but open roads of imagination,
leading us into places the eye cannot see,
but the heart remembers.
This is what I seek in Dublin.
To frame the moments where emotion hides,
to let stillness speak,
to let contrast sing louder than color,
to discover poetry
not in what is shown,
but in what is revealed.
Every shadow whispers secrets,
every highlight breathes confessions.
Between the two,
I find truth
fragile, fleeting,
yet eternal once captured.
Art is not only taken,
it is given,
it is uncovered slowly,
line by line,
like light carving meaning into darkness.
So here I am,
ready to create,
to chase these moments across this city,
to turn simple light into memory,
to turn faces into stories,
and stories into echoes
that linger long after the shutter closes.
If you feel these words,
if you see yourself in this vision,
if you want me to tell your story,
let me take your picture.
Let me show you
how beautiful silence can be
when it learns to speak through light.
A Bhutanese man poses with his prayer beads. The primary use of prayer beads is to keep track of the number times a mantra is recited. A typical prayer bead contains 108 beads, corresponding to the sacred number in Buddhism. As practitioners recite mantras, they pass each bead through their fingers, helping them maintain focus and count the repetitions without distraction. If you recite the mantras 108 times, then you have counted through all the beads on the string. The prayer beads often have knots or rings that accounts for every hundred and thousand rounds that the faithful has gone through the prayer beads.
🇬🇧 Elegance is never accidental here.
Every line is restrained, every movement measured. Control becomes a language — quiet, precise, irresistible.
🇫🇷 Ici, l’élégance n’est jamais un hasard.
Chaque ligne est contenue, chaque geste maîtrisé.Le contrôle devient un langage — discret, précis, irrésistible.
Suri men engage in elaborate body painting using white clay skillfully applied with their hands and fingers. The practice is done as an expression of their individuality, identity, masculinity, and for daily aesthetic pleasure. I watched them apply the clay on themselves and on each other, and a still photograph really doesn't fully capture this dynamic living body-art, where beauty is temporary, identity is fluid, and the body is a canvas for creativity and social dialogue.
Of Vietnam's 54 ethnic groups, the Tay people in the north are the second largest group in the country. They are known for living in stilt houses and for their dark indigo clothing which are often plain with little ornamental motif. The Tay are also known for their folk songs, which are
by a musical instrument called the lute. This woman was clearly a master of this instrument as she demonstrated during the portrait session.
Lost in a quiet moment, leaning into the texture of time.
A blend of calm, vintage charm, and soft light.
A young woman belonging to the Kayan (long neck) tribe in northern Thailand poses for a portrait. The Kayan people are originally from Myanmar, but often cross into Thailand due to the economic and political situation in their home country. The brass coils are wound around the neck of girls starting with 9 coils at age 9 and increasing by one coil per year and topping out at about 24+ coils. Since this woman has 21 coils, I am guessing that she is of the same age.
A festival dancer holds up his mask for the camera. There are many types of festival masks in Bhutan, including elaborate masks depicting saints, sages, deities, legendary figures, and animals. This particular mask depicts a rather scary looking supernatural deity with small skulls adorning the upper portion of the mask.
A Bhutanese boy peers out of a gap in a brick wall at a park. In a different context he might easily pass for Chinese (or perhaps Korean or Japanese). Yet interestingly enough, Bhutan has aligned itself with India since its independence in 1947. Being a small Himalayan mountain kingdom sandwiched between two great powers - China and India, the resulting geopolitical tug of war is fairly predictable. Both countries want to pull Bhutan into its orbit, and at the end of the day you have to choose one side or the other. Today Bhutan has strong diplomatic, economic, and strategic ties with India. If Bhutan were attacked or invaded by another country today, India would likely come to Bhutan's aid.
A man from the last gun toting Hmong tribe in China poses for an intimate portrait. He is wearing indigo blue clothes and his queue (pigtail) in a top knot on his head. Traditional Hmong clothing is dyed an indigo blue that is so dark that it almost becomes black. The dye is sourced from the Indigofera plant and the process of dyeing, hanging, and drying is repeated twice a day for one month.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably seen all these pictures of men in Bangladesh with reddish orange beards and wondered if there was some meaning behind it. Turns out the beards are dyed with henna powder in barbershops, and the dye gives it that reddish-orange hue. There are multiple reasons behind the practice. Some Islamic traditions suggest that the Prophet Muhammad used henna to dye his hair and beard, and many Bangladeshi men try to emulate the Prophet’s practices and express their religious devotion. It is also done for aesthetic reasons, as henna effectively covers gray hair, giving the person a more youthful appearance. Finally, henna has long been a part of South Asian cultural practices, especially during weddings, where intricate patterns are drawn on the hands of the brides and grooms. Beard coloring extends this tradition, reflecting a broader cultural appreciation for henna’s aesthetic qualities.
Portrait of a Kazakh woman and her eagle. Shot inside a ger with mid morning sidelight streaming in through the doorway. You can even see the the reflection of the doorway reflected off their eyes and the catch light in the eagle's eye.
A woman belonging to the Yi ethnic group in north Vietnam poses for a portrait in front of her village's rice field. In Vietnam they are also referred to as the Lolo people. The Yi have a rich tradition of oral literature, shamanistic practices, and a unique script used for writing. Their traditional clothing is black with elaborate and almost garish embroidery.
This girl was busy pushing a broom at a rice drying yard when I caught up with her. I love her mischievous smile and her wild hair matted with sweat and dust. While child labor is a real thing in Bangladesh and often done out of poverty and necessity, children are children and their playful spirit lies beneath the work and heavy responsibility placed on their shoulders at such a young age.
A novice monk in Mandalay. Theravada Buddhism is the main religion in Southeast Asia and is embedded into the historical, social and political life of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. It is expected that young boys and men be ordained, usually before the age of 20 or before being married. It is regarded as a way for him to repay his parents by making merit through ordination. Monks must give up all materialistic possessions and are only allowed to have three robes, a girdle, a bowl for receiving alms, a needle, a razor and a water strainer.
Light and shadow reveals what time has written through the years - a man who has mastered the art of aging with quiet strength and wisdom.
A Balinese girl carrying a flower basket on her head. Canang sari offerings are part of daily life in Bali, representing the devotion of Balinese Hindus to the gods and maintaining balance with the divine.
A young Kayan woman at a hill tribe village in northern Thailand. She is posing behind some locally made souvenirs that she is selling in her stall. The thanaka paste on her face is a dead giveaway that she is originally from Myanmar. The Kayan people have been migrating to Thailand for better economic prospects for a long time, but it has accelerated in recent years due to the ongoing conflict in Myanmar.