Two of my images received Awards of Excellence in the 2010 Visual Culture Awards. Along with the award, the pictures are on display now at the Charleston Center for Photography at 654 King Street, Suite D, Charleston, SC, USA. Congratulations to the other winners.

An imam speaks at a small mosque in Pingliang, Gansu, China.

I’m leaving today for western China for a few weeks. I’ll be in Xinjiang and Gansu working on a variety of stories: the ancient city of Kashgar, the changing face of Urumqi, Tibetan New Year, snow in Xinjiang, a Hui minority wedding, and others. Internet connection will be a problem for some of the trip, so please contact me by phone at +86-13770324102.

Images from Young and Abandoned selected for the China Youth exhibit at Feztiv Art Shanghai.

My series, Young and Abandoned, was selected for the Grand Prize at Feztiv Art this past Friday. The festival continues this week at Art+ Shanghai. My thanks go out to the jury for the festival included: Agnes Cohade, Co-founder and Gallery Director of Art+ Shanghai Gallery, Ana Gonzalez: Co-founder and Gallery Director of Art+ Shanghai Gallery, Diana Freundl: the art director of Art + Shanghai Gallery, , Sylvie Levey: Film Director in China, Luc Buono: Metersbonwe Asia Pacific Vice-President, Jean Loh: curator at Beaugeste Photo Gallery. Patrick Wack was awarded second place. There was also an amateur division featuring strong photography, but I don’t have the names of the winners names at hand, unfortunately.

As part of the grand prize, I will take part in an exhibition later this year and will receive a distribution contract with myfab.com. More details about those will be announced here as they become available.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the festival, especially Marie-Christine Moreels and the rest of the French Junior Chamber International of Shanghai, and the staff and owners of Art+ for their tremendous generosity.

M. Scott Brauer interviewed at the NPPA Visual Student Blog

I’ve been interviewed for the “Working Abroad” series of articles at the National Press Photographers Association’s Visual Student blog. Kevin Martin, the man behind the blog, deserves a big thanks both for including me in the series and for creating such an wealth of information at that blog. Other interviews in the series are so far are: Michael Rubenstein, Kevin German, Dominic Nahr (who was also part of the Fader bicycle fashion spread a little while back), and Andrew Henderson.

Men fish in the Yangtze River as barges pass by Chongqing, China. Increased river traffic and nearby manufacturing in the area has threatened the river's long-term ecology.

I’ve added quite a number of photos to the Recent Work section of my portfolio site, and I just realized that I hadn’t announced that here. There’s a lot to see from the past half a year. Take a look at:

• the streets of Pingliang in Gansu Province
• two hours spent in Chongqing
• the ranch operations behind Big Sky Montana Beef
• the dunes of the Gobi Desert
• outtakes from a Fader fashion shoot
• the Haerbin Snow and Ice Festival
• Butte, Montana’s Evel Knievel Days festival
• the streets of Shanghai
• hordes of tourists on the Great Wall at Badaling outside of Beijing
• some details of Washington, Idaho, and Montana
• the Lantern Festival in Haerbin
• the streets of Beijing
• more dogs than you’ve ever seen in one place at a no-kill rescue farm and shelter in China
• scenes from the Vietnam/China border in Yunnan Province
• the dried-up end of one of China’s early important railway lines
• the rice terraces of Yuanyang County in southern Yunnan Province

While in the city of Pingliang in Gansu Province for an ethnic minority Hui wedding, I got the chance to explore the streets a bit.

Waiting for a plane, I had a couple hours to kill in Chongqing.

Last summer I had a great couple of days shooting on the Malek Angus Ranch in north-central Montana for Big Sky Montana Beef, a free-range, grass-fed, high-quality line of beef jerky. Ty Malek’s a great guy and the shoot was a blast, though I did have a close call with a rattlesnake. The jerky’s great if you can find some, by the way. Currently, Big Sky Montana Beef is available in a few locations in Montana, online, and at fairs throughout the western United States.