Howard W. French is a Senior Writer for The New York Times, who has spent most of his career in journalism as a foreign correspondent, working in and traveling to over 100 countries on five continents.

He is currently the chief of the newspaper's Shanghai bureau. Prior to this assignment, which began in March 2004, he headed bureaus in Japan, West and Central Africa, Central America and the Caribbean.

Howard is the author of A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2004 and cited as a non-fiction book of the year by several newspapers.

Howard has had a lifelong interest in photography, first taught to him by his father, who built him his first darkroom somewhere around fifth or sixth grade.

Since then, as a journalist, he has had the pleasure of working alongside a great many highly skilled and generous professional photographers, eagerly learning from them as he has gradually, steadily honed his own art.

Howard's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia, and personally made prints are sold both in numbered editions and in specially boxed portfolio collections.

The works that appear here are primarily black and white, Howard's preferred form. Although he works with a variety of cameras, the lion's share of images that appear here were shot on medium format film, using a 1956-vintage Rolleiflex 2.8. Other images were shot on film using the Konica Hexar-RF, the Yashica Electro GSN, and the Olympus XA.

Although the Rolleiflex remains his preferred tool, Howard is shooting a growing body of work using digital equipment, as well. In this category, the cameras include the Leica M8, and the Canon 20D. The one color portfolio that appears here for the time being, Four-Oh-Four, was shot in Ethiopia in May 2007 using the Leica.

Other color galleries will occasionally follow.

Howard is currently seeking representation. Commission proposals and gallery inquiries are also welcome.

You can email Howard French at globetrotter@howardwfrench.com.