The photographer: Mimi Chakarova.

Guguletu township, South Africa, 2000.

When we enter to the personal web-site of Mimi Chakarova we see this photograph with the following interesting dialog:

Can I take you a picture?
For what?
To show others how you live.
Will they come here and make it better?
I don't know.. Probably not.
Why you want to shoot an old man anyway?
Because history is written on your face.
Go ahead if it pleases you.
What pleases you?
I don't remember.

Mimi Chakarova is doing documentary photography, but she has very nice aesthetics in here photographs. The following photographs are some of her photographs from the personal web-site.

Beijing, China 2005.Moldova 2004.

Moldova 2004.

Psychiatric ward, Srinagar, Kashmir 2003.

Delhi, India, 2003

Ghana, 2002.

Cuba 2001.

Port Maria, Jamaica, 1999.

From this screen shot from the video: Dubai Night Secrets we see Mimi Chakarova (right).

A short biograph of the photographer Mimi Chakarova is from here personal web-site:

Mimi Chakarova has been teaching photography at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism for 10 years. Chakarova is the recipient of the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for documentary photography and the 2005 Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award for her photo work on trafficking in Eastern Europe, which she has reported on for the last four years.

Looking to Mimi in the photograph I was curious to find out her age which is not mentioned in her biography. Searching to internet if found also this biography:

When Mimi Chakarova's family left her native Bulgaria and migrated to Baltimore in 1989, the teenager felt alone and out of place. Desperate to find a niche, she saved her money, bought a simple point-and-shoot camera, and started taking pictures. "Baltimore was a very segregated town, both economically and ethnically," recalls Chakarova, now a lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism. "My family was both poor and foreign, so we struggled. Since I couldn't speak English, I used the camera as a way to communicate." Her unique ability to communicate through photography has earned Chakarova the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship. ...

So we read that Mimi was Bulgarian and in 1989 was teenager, thus today is around 30-35 years old. Also she has been grown up in the ex-communist regime of Bulgaria.

Watch the video Dubai: Night Secrets but also the amazing slide-show with photographs from Moldova (very beautiful photographs). The photographer combines excellent photographs with documentation.

• Dubai: Night Secrets, The oldest profession in the newest playground.
• Moldova Price of Sex: Slide Show with narration.
• Moldova Price of Sex: Slide Show without narration.

An interesting quote of the interview of the photographer about her silde show "Moldova Price of Sex" is:

"To be successful, my photos must not only educate people, but motivate them to take action." Mimi Chakarova

Inside the video Dubai: Night Secrets we can see the film camera of Mimi Chakarova. It is a Leica M series (we cannot see the exact model).

This is an example of Leica M7 film camera. The body of this camera cost around 2.708€ and a lens for that body, ie. SUMMILUX-M 50 mm f/1.4 cost around 2550€.