New work for an activist’s website

A recent job had me creating new images for the stellar, human rights activist and  radical feminist Farah Tanis. Cool, minimal design by Betta Lang.  Check out the new site here. Check out some of her projects including a museum in Crown Heights devoted to promoting Transnational and Black Feminist histories and traditions as well as this activist…

The Badass Tattooed, Tribal women processing your Ethiopian coffee.

While in Ethiopia a few years ago I was invited to photograph at the facilities of a prominent coffee exporter.   Addis Exporter sources and exports green coffee beans around the world (that day by chance, two of the best coffee purveyors in the US were there cupping the offerings; Intelligentsia and Counter Culture Coffee). The space was…

Two Brooklynites experience Timkat, The Ethiopian “Day of Epiphany”.

Two Brooklynites do Timkat by Nina Granados (Nina and I travelled together for two weeks in Northern Ethiopia in January of 2015 when I was working there on a Getty Images/Lean-In.org grant.)  Most of us westerners have a romanticization towards what is foreign from our daily scraps of living in an industrialized landscape. For a…

Madagascar images used for NYC Subway art proposal.

The MTA, the NYC Subway transit authority, has a call for artists to design installations for several stations.  I submitted these images with the concept of taking people on a journey thru Madagascar with a  dynamic, color filled dose of nature, culture and adventure while they hustle along underground.  The images, mostly shot on a point and…

Video on the Ethiopian coffee ceremony

In Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, the daily drinking of this ancient beverage is part of a ritualized cultural ceremony rich in history and sometimes hours in length. The beans are freshly roasted, incense is burned and multiple cups are passed around.  The 30 minute video I recently completed for an Ethiopian nonprofit has this 2 minute video about the ceremony with-in it….

Ethiopian Coffee Country

In January of 2015 I spent a week photographing  in the Ethiopian coffee regions for Green Mountain Coffee.  Here is a small sampling of the 3000 images I made.  The job called for mostly landscapes (to be used on the boxes of a new product) but I couldn’t help but to capture the workers as well and also show the…

Walking the streets of Addis Ababa is extremely dangerous!

Ethiopia is a million different things and tastes, affronts, foibles and wonders.  One thing it was not was a place you felt threatened by personal violence.  Ethiopians were fun, interested, helpful and cool.  Ethiopia is considered to be one of the safest countries for tourists in Africa.No muggings, no assaults, no rape, etc.. But, taking a stroll…

Film images from a short trip to Kenya

After three months in Ethiopia (https://instagram.com/joshuakristal/) I was in bad need of some beach time.  Diani Beach, which is two hours from Mombassa, Kenya on the Indian Ocean was bucolic, relaxing, affordable and the scuba and snorkeling was damn good. It was working as I could feel my brain sinking into a more relaxed state but…