Photo Of The Day: Indian Pilgrim

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Today’s excellent and colorful portrait shot comes to us courtesy of Flickr user SoumishD. Soumish was in the Indian city of Haridwar, an important Hindu pilgrimage site along the holy waters of the Ganges River, when he captured this mysterious woman, cloaked in a translucent pink veil. The depth of field focus on her face, the vibrant hue of the pink fabric and the look of concentration all contribute to a sense of intensity and intrigue to the image.

Taken any great portraits during your own travels? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

[Photo credit: Flickr user SoumishD]

Photo Of The Day: Indonesian Dancers

by Jeremy Kressmann on

There’s a wonderful sense of pattern and repetition in today’s photo by Flickr user don.wright. Shot at a dance ceremony in Banda Aceh, the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the photo’s subjects each carry a unique expression that adds personality and charm. Some break into a bashful smile, some are expressionless, some – like the woman in the center of the frame – look deep in thought. I wonder what they’re all thinking?

Taken any great photos during your own travels? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

France’s burqa ban goes into effect

by Meg Nesterov on

Today France has taken a controversial move and instated a burqa ban, aimed at the traditional religious covering worn by conservative Muslim women. The ban will potentially affect up to 2,000 women who wear a full-face veil in public, though it is unclear how the enforcement will work as police cannot remove the veil. Women who refuse to lift the burqa or niqab may be taken to a police station for an identity check, threatened with a 150 euro fine, or forced to attend “re-education” classes. Men who force women to wear the veil will face a 30,000 euro fine and up to a year in jail. So far only a few women have been arrested for protesting the ban near Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral.


Jacques Myard, a Parliament member and supporter of the ban said “The face is a dignity of a person. The face is your passport. So when you refuse me to see you, I am a victim.” France has the highest Muslim population in Europe, estimated between four and six million, though only a few thousand women wear the full-face veil. Belgium has passed a similar law but hasn’t enforced it, and the Netherlands is considering a ban as well.

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Veils and YouTube trigger Canadian security investigation over passenger identification

by Tom Johansmeyer on


Score one for social media: some guy popped a video of two fully veiled women boarding a plane on YouTube, and now the Canadian authorities are investigating. The video is said to show passengers hopping onto an Air Canada flight to London from Montreal on July 11, 2010. The beef isn’t so much the veils as ensuring “that airline personnel are verifying the identity of all of passengers before they board a flight,” according to the AFP.

In the video, shot by a British traveler, the women were not required to show their faces before boarding, which Canadian Minister of Transportation John Baird called “deeply disturbing” in a statement released Sunday. He added that it “poses a serious threat to the security of the air travelling public.”