photographylot

The Climate

2009-12-11T22:58:00.004-05:00

I don't seriously see how anyone can deny the fact that human activity in this industrial and electronic age is having a dramatic effect on our environment and is a major (actually THE major) cause of the climate changes and associated problems we are witnessing today. You know what I'm taking about; rising sea levels, shrinking ice caps, holes in the ozone layer, deforestation, desertification, pollution, despoilment, destructive mining, species extinction, CO2 production, resource consumption, greed, overproduction, unequal distribution, migration, disrupted weather patterns, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, floods, population explosion, the poverty gap, war, pestilence, famine, death....

Cheery stuff right? Maybe that's why some people won't or can't admit that it's their (our fault). I'm as guilty as anyone. I consume too much. Buy things I don't need. Waste water. You name it. I just hope - still hope - it's not too late for us to slow down and reverse the effects. That's what our leaders are discussing this week in Copenhagen. Lots of things going on, and a lot of political hot air.

For now though, and on a photography tip - I suggest anyone interested in the issue of climate change (or as I said to a friend the other day, perhaps we should use a slightly less tame sounding term - maybe climatic apocalypse...) should check out the Consequences by Noor website and the UNDP picture this competition. For starters. Maybe after looking at those the urge to reduce, reuse and recycle, grow your own, eat seasonal, shop local, become energy efficient, demand biodegradable plastic, use solar, wind and wave, walk more, go green, live in peace and avert disaster will be stronger in you than it appears to be in our illustrious leadership.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to get some sleep before catching a flight which I haven't bothered to offset my carbon emissions for. Shame on me.

Stop and Search

2009-12-03T15:11:00.004-05:00

In a couple of weeks I will be spending some time in the U.K. I will be taking photographs. I might be threatened with arrest. Nothing new there. I have been confronted by Police officers in the U.S. and the U.K. and had the anti terrorism laws of both countries cited to me. So it helps to read in the British newspaper 'The Independent' that recent legislation that has been used to harass everyone from professional photographers to tourists taking snapshots is being clarified by no less than Craig Mackey, who speaks for the Association of Chief Police Officers. He states in this article that: "It goes back to the issue of briefing and training of staff and making sure they are clear around the legislation we are asking them to use. There is no power under Section 44 to stop people taking photographs and we are very clear about getting that message out to forces."

Let's hope the message gets through, because it's been a long time coming. For more on this see this earlier post..

Who Shot Rock & Roll

2009-11-19T01:54:00.011-05:00

Madonna, Danceteria, New York City 1983
Photograph by Maripol

I cut my photographic teeth in the late 90’s while living in London. A lot of my friends were heavily into their music (as was I) and I would spend night after night in a smoky room with a rotating cast of characters and very very loud music blaring from soundsystems that sometimes needed whole rooms dedicated to their setup. This was usually jungle. I couldn’t DJ or MC, but I took a lot of photographs. When not in some South London flat or a local boozer, weekends (and often weekdays) would be dedicated to going out to clubs, where my camera gave me something to do when I got tired of dancing, drinking or shouting to my mates over the music. It got me in free to many places or helped me skip the queues. A good friend of mine wrote reviews of club nights and chatted with promoters to often get us free or discounted entry. I published a few but that wasn’t really what I took pictures for at that time. I always thought that one day the photos would be an important document of the culture and the times – or at least my perspective and view of them – but didn’t really try and hustle to get them published or shown as much as perhaps I should have. For me, I was simply entranced with the vibes. A sampled vocal from a popular tune of the time went “Music is my life, and it helps me through the vibe.” And that is exactly how I felt. Photography was my way of recording the memories, the times and the atmosphere that the music was the touchstone for.

I am certainly not alone in this. Many photographers and visual artists are drawn to and inspired by music. Is it because music is the greatest art form possible; the purest expression of emotion? Some of the longest surviving (human) vocal communication in the world is more closely related to birdsong than any modern day language. We learn to understand and express ourselves in sound long before we learn any visual communication like writing or drawing. In fact, our very first expression in life is a cry or a scream. Music and sound drive primal instincts in a way that other art forms often fail to do and struggle to achieve.

It is really no wonder that music attracts such fascination, and therefore the people who perform music become a focus of our attention. I went to photograph a concert once for a band that was doing pretty well on the club circuit around the UK and were selling a decent amount of albums. I happened to have spent time at college with the drummer many years previous and this particular gig was a fan club only, no press ‘secret’ affair that he sneaked me into via the back door (very rock & roll right?). The atmosphere was absolutely electric. Maybe two or three songs into their set, one of my cameras had already stopped working from the humidity in the club and I was cleaning condensation from my lens constantly. I was pressed up against a monitor speaker, right at the front when the swarming fans exploded like a wave onto the stage, crashing through the singer and guitarist and into the drumkit, sending everyone and everything flying. I somehow managed to keep my feet and get a couple of shots off as this happened and after everyone had sorted themselves out the band carried on to play a blinder of a set. Raw, emotive, visceral and not just audibly stimulating but a visual treat.

So anyway, from this you can probably gather that I love photographs of musicians, and fans, and gigs and the whole culture. A music concert or a club night is a chance for people to perform, and for a visual artist, that is exciting.

This is the subject of a book and exhibition currently at the Brooklyn Museum entitled ‘Who Shot Rock & Roll’. No one can deny that rock stars are some of the most charismatic, magnetic performers of music. Rock & Roll (done well) has such vibrance and energy that it cannot help but possess those who take to the stage and channel it through to the audience. Think Mick Jagger strutting about, Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, Kurt Cobain unleashing his demons, my mate’s band sparking an ecstatic explosion in a basement club in London.…you get the idea.

The book, compiled by Gail Buckland is presented as a photographic history of Rock & Roll from 1955-present and has many astounding photographs printed on its pages. The introduction is well written and engaging, and sets the tone nicely for the platform of the book and the role of photography in shaping the myth of the Rock & Roll star. A goal of the book seems to be to represent the photographs as works by the photographers, rather than photographs of the performers, but I’m afraid to say that ultimately it’s the performers who steal the show. Of course, there are music photographers whose work is famous and are more well known than some of the musicians depicted in this publication, but they are very few. However, it is great to see the authors of so many iconic images being given top billing as it were.

Unfortunately for the photographs, the design of this book lets it down. The layout of the text that accompanies the images seems often careless, and many of the accompanying anecdotes and captions are cut short, only to be continued in a 12 page section in the rear pages of the book. This is completely unnecessary and destroys the flow. Why if I am on page 161 should I have to turn to page 288 to finish reading the text? This is just terrible design plain and simple and as a result I ended up skipping over much of the writing and just focusing on the pictures. I wish the whole book would have been more like the introduction, where text and image were interwoven and complemented each other. As it stands, the book is presented as not quite a scholarly review, nor a coffee table ‘art’ book with plates, but an odd hybrid of the two. The section of album covers at the back seems random and tagged on (There are whole books out there dedicated to that subject alone) and even some of the picture selections seem to owe more to Buckland’s personal taste than to her academic rigour; 5 pages of Barry Feinstein’ s photos of Bob Dylan, and Glen E Friedman’s Public Enemy photography relegated to a thumbnail in the album covers section? A throwaway photo by Mark Seliger of Puff Daddy and Jay-Z playing on their cell phones and no photos - none whatsoever - of Ice-T , Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre, Ice Cube or N.W.A. If we’re going to include well know Hip Hop stars under the Rock & Roll banner, at least represent with some of its more interesting performers (we do get an excellent LaChapelle shot of Lil Kim to make up for it though). Oh, and plenty of photos of the Beatles but not one mention Michael Coopers shot for Peter Blake’s Sgt Pepper album cover, which was a historic Rock & Roll photoshoot in so many ways.

But regardless of some may I say glaring omissions, a general feeling of randomness and a design that baffled me many times over, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There is the work of some amazing photographers here (Maripol, Jean-Paul Goude, Jill Furmanovsky, Glen E. Friedman, Jean-Marie Périer, Ian Dickson, Laura Levine are just a few that have stand out shots in here). There are also plenty of images of the musicians not performing, or at least not performing music anyway - and it's a joy to see work like Edmund Teske's contact sheet from a shoot with Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson and Stephanie Chernikowski's shot of Debby Harry at CBGB's in 1978, where the personality of the musician as a person comes through. (But do we really need two pictures of Amy Winehouse, especially when neither of them are that good?)

So not quite comprehensive or well put together enough to properly deserve being called A Photographic History, but as a collection of (mostly) great photographs (and some incredible ones) of people who help us connect to what I regard as a raw and pure emotive experience, it is a damn fine set of pictures. As any music photographer should tell you, photographing musicians is actually a lot harder than it might appear. A friend of mine said the other day that she hates photographing bands. Why, I asked. The reply came, ‘Because everybody photographs the band.’

Right, but not everyone does it as well as the people in this collection.

Salão Escola de Beleza Afro (Salon School of African Beauty) by Tiana Markova-Gold

2009-11-24T15:16:00.002-05:00

Tiana Markova-Gold is a friend of mine who has recently worked on a project on the Salão Escola de Beleza Afro (Salon School of African Beauty) in Rio De Janeiro on behalf of Excola Center for Research and Action on Childhood and Drug Use. Like many worthy causes, the Salon is in need of funding to continue doing it's work.

Below are some images from the project and an accompanying text by Tiana. See more images on the Photophilanthropy website and on Tiana's own website along with more of her fantastic work.

Centro de Estudos e Ação Excola
(Excola Center for Research and Action)

Salão Escola de Beleza Afro (Salon School of African Beauty)

Tiana Markova-Gold

Home to some of the world’s most beautiful beaches and luxury hotels, Rio de Janeiro is also a city of the starkest inequalities imaginable. In addition to the four million people (one third of the city’s population) living in favelas, there are thousands of women and children who make their home and their living in the city streets. The instability and dangers of life on the streets have created a complex subculture that is little understood by the rest of society. Women and children living in the streets are easy targets for police brutality and other forms of mistreatment and exploitation. Many sniff glue, called cola, or smoke crack to give them a temporary escape.

Founded in 1994, Centro de Estudos e Ação Excola empowers women and children living in the streets of Rio de Janeiro to make long-term positive changes in their lives. In 2003 Excola began the Salão Escola de Beleza Afro (Salon School of African Beauty) program which trains and certifies 20 young women as beauticians each year. These women also received counseling, access to condoms and health information. The women are continuing to meet in the small salon space Excola rents in central Rio, and many of them have started offering hair and beauty treatments in their neighborhoods.

In the spring of 2009 I traveled to Rio de Janeiro as the recipient of a fellowship from Global Fund for Children and the Nike Foundation to document Excola’s Escola de Beleza program. I spent time with the women in the salon and in the streets where many of them live. Among the women I met were Glauciette, a 24 year old mother of six who has been living in the streets for five years, Juliana, who is 22 years old, HIV positive and the mother of three children, and Roseli, a 35 year old mother of seven who grew up in the streets with her mother and sisters, all of whom are still homeless. The hairdressing skills these women have learned provides them with the possibility of becoming economically independent, creating a viable alternative to begging or prostitution and increasing their self-confidence and self-esteem. For many of the women, the salon also provides their only reprieve from the dangers of the streets.

Unfortunately, at the time of my visit, the program was in dire financial straits; the rent for the salon was two months behind and no funding had been secured for the next step in the training in which the young women would learn how to use the skills they had acquired to run a successful business. It is my hope that the photographs I took can be used to help bring attention and continued funding to this incredible program.

Note: I was able to do this work through a fellowship from Global Fund for Children and the Nike Foundation in partnership with the International Center of Photography.

The Jazz Loft Project

2009-11-15T01:16:00.007-05:00

Years before multimedia became a buzzword, Photographers were recording audio to accompany their pictures. Mixing film (video), audio, stills and written testimony is nothing new...Just about to be released is one such project by the giant figure from the history of photography that is W. Eugene Smith.

I came across this project earlier this year and have been eagerly awaiting it's completion. Check the website for full info....

The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

2009-11-04T08:27:00.004-05:00

Coleridge was onto something. Now we all have an Albatross round our neck.

Photograph: Chris Jordan

Gihan Tubbeh - Noches de Gracia

2009-11-03T22:48:00.004-05:00

The other day I was looking over the work from photographers shortlisted for an award with a good friend and we were discussing style vs substance. Some of the pictures were visually stunning, but did this detract from the content? Was the drama and sensationalism necessary or is it more of a gimmick, one that ultimately detracts from the important issues the photography claims to address. It is my belief that the style of a photograph - it's aesthetic qualities - should compliment the content. I don't want the content to be hidden under layers of visual trickery. I want to be drawn into the world the photograph depicts and to find it rich with meaning, not just a glossy surface of visual stimulation.

Later that evening I came across the work of Gihan Tubbeh, a photographer selected to participate in this years Joop Swart masterclass - a prestigious workshop run by the World Press Photo. Her Noches de Gracia series is for me a perfect example of style mirroring content. Here the aesthetics are as visceral and decadent, as disturbing and alluring as the world they depict. The visual tricks in this series are not employed gratuitously, but with apparent purpose.

Writing about the series, Gihen states:

"Eyes are nothing but slimy beasts looking from behind"

Ricardo-Ayllón

The project presented is not intended to tell a story, it is rather an assemblage of photographs that form a grid, a puzzled group of soiled images that are read among each other, without beginning or end. If I could sum up the series in one word I would say it's about transgression. The photos document the most primitive and instinctive conditions of humanity. The tone is acid: it talks about the vulnerable excess of desire, the insatiable hunger for pleasure on the edge of suffering, about violation towards the flesh, joy throughout offense, the eternal return towards the visceral, the morbid by wounding and being wounded.

For transgression to exist, there must be awareness of good and evil, guilt, and condemnation of sin. But this knowledge is left suspended, hidden in our consciousness as a thumping secret that causes greed and temptation towards the forbidden. The body is the battleground between Eros and Thanatos, between desire and destruction; the woman is mother and destroyer, which represents masculine desire. This way, we break life’s boundaries with our bodies, resisting thirsty to nights´ pain, moving in between crime and repression.

“And the nature of pain, the pain is twice

and the status of martyrdom, carnivorous, voracious,

the pain is twice

and the role of pure prairie, the pain

twice

and the well of being, hurting us doubly”

-César Vallejo

Roy DeCarava 1919-2009

2009-10-29T00:36:00.004-04:00

I remember the first time I saw DeCarava's book - “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” a 1955 collaboration with Langston Hughes. I was entirely absorbed and dumbstruck. From there I discovered the wealth of his photography. A big inspiration.

RIP.

Lay Flat 2

2009-10-27T22:59:00.002-04:00

Lay Flat is currently putting together their second issue and looking to raise funds to cover the costs of printing and distribution.

It is Edited by Shane Lavalette and Michael Bühler-Rose and the following photographers are to be included...

Claudia Angelmaier, Semâ Bekirovic, Charles Benton, Lucas Blalock, Talia Chetrit, Anne Collier, Natalie Czech, Jessica Eaton, Roe Ethridge, Stephen Gill, Daniel Gordon, David Haxton, Matt Keegan, Elad Lassry, Katja Mater, Laurel Nakadate, Lisa Oppenheim, Torbjørn Rødland, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Joachim Schmid, Penelope Umbrico, Useful Photography, Charlie White, Ann Woo and Mark Wyse

Their work will be accompanied by the textual contributions of Lesley A. Martin (Publisher/Editor, Aperture Foundation), Adam Bell (Co-editor, The Education of a Photographer) and artist Arthur Ou.

If you feel like supporting Lay Flat above and beyond actually buying a copy of the publication when it is released, visit http://www.layflat.org/ to find out how.

Iwase Yoshiyuki

2008-04-04T22:31:00.005-04:00

In researching a project I am hoping to be able to do later this year I came across Iwase Yoshiyuki's photographs. Here is a selection, one from each of the four galleries on his website.

A Daughter of the Occupation, 1950

Harvesting Seaweed 1956

Boat & Mooring Post, 1950

Modernist Nude #2, c1955

If I owned prints of the last two images above I would hang them together on my wall. Like this.

Michael Najjar - High Altitude.

2009-10-26T00:43:00.003-04:00

I stumbled across Michael Najjar's work in the Bitforms Gallery last week.

netropolis | berlin, 2003, 180 x 120 cm, edition 6

These days I'm a bit of a photo snob, like my pictures to be 'real' and don't normally go in for photo illustration but I liked the graphic beauty of his Netropolis series on display in the Bitforms project room so I went downstairs and checked out High Altitude.

Here he has taken photographs from a trip up Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, apparently the highest mountain in the Americas, and the highest in the world outside of the Himalayas. But he has done something very simple and clever, if not very original. We've all looked at graphs and thought that they look like mountain ranges, so it's no great leap of the imagination to actually make mountain ranges out of graphs. By taking data from stock market charts and mapping them onto his photographs, he has created a wonderful series of strange looking mountain ranges, something akin to what you might see in some illustrators idea of an alien world.

hangseng_80-09, 202 x 132 cm, edition 6

I didn't do more than skim read the accompanying press release as I can't handle most art speak at the best of times, but it did get me thinking (again) about how the financial system we are pretty much all in thrall to is having an effect on us and our world. many of the mountains in these photo illustrations look like they have been hit by severely corrosive acid rain, stripping away the rock and leaving precarious vertical spikes.

These graphs we see in the financial pages of the newspaper represent a system that is messing with us and our planet. Michael Najjar's high Altitude series gives us a good visual reminder of how the abstract and the real connect.

Billingsgate Market

2009-10-22T10:13:00.003-04:00

I love fish. And markets. So do these guys. In my 10 years of living in London this market was always on my list of places to shop. Shamefully I never made it down there..

In any case, some good simple audio drives this slideshow, and the fish photos are mouth watering...

Rinko Kawauchi at Mountain Fold

2009-10-20T08:14:00.005-04:00

Rinko Kawauchi at the opening of her show at the mountain Fold Gallery

The Mountain Fold Gallery has a suitable name for a show by Rinko Kawauchi. The actual title of the show is 'Condensation' so if you say "Condensation at Mountain Fold", it sounds a little like a line from some sort of zen Koan.

I'm a big fan of Kawauchi's photographs (Her book 'Cui Cui' is one of my favourite pieces of published work), so despite a long day and a distinct lack of sleep I went down to the opening of this show, getting the opportunity to catch up with some friends in the process.

I'm glad I did, as this concise show of old and new work is a delight. There is an essence of something very peaceful and life affirming in her work. I began to think that she exemplifies the idea of the democratic image much better than Eggleston ever did. His work often seems to be forcing everyday objects to become equal to each other, whereas in Kawauchi's photographs I truly get the sense that a plastic bag brimming with goldfish is as important a part of life as a baby suckling and the bright sun glaring through a tunnel of trees. Though some of her photographs feel a little too casual - like a blurred shot of a bullfight taken from in the crowd - there is still an emotive power to these images. Looking at a couple of the pictures, I thought to myself, 'I would have edited that out for being too blurry, or the focus is not quite where I would have liked..." but I also thought that perhaps I would be wrong to do that. I have pictures I have taken which are not crisp, well composed, or sharp, but that I still love.

Life is not always something that is well defined and clear, so why do we try and make photographs that reflect the fact that it is. Talking about a slightly different subject, someone said to me that evening that if you are not open [minded] you don't ever learn anything.

Too true. thank you Rinko Kawauchi for having an open mind.

Rinko Kawauchi / untitled, 2009
C-Print

Rinko Kawauchi

2007-11-01T01:57:00.002-04:00

I recently bought this book of photographs by Rinko Kawauchi.

I first saw her work at a show at the photographers gallery in London where this became one of my favourite photographs.

So much so that it inspired me to take this.

Anyway, I have a real respect for her work. I feel like she seems to be always there, moving around and in the action, both an participating insider and an invisible observer. While many of photographs often seem very banal and simple - the watermelon on the cover for example - in the company of other photographs in the book they become important parts of a intimate whole. I find so many of them to be very delicate, respectful and beautiful images.

I mentioned her to Shiori, who pointed out to me that her editing is really amazing. This is true; going through the book there emerges a real story and images that at first seem random and out of place slowly fall into sync. This is something that only really works when they are viewed in a sequence and is somewhat lost when the photographs are exhibited. She currently has work on show at the Cohan & Leslie Gallery on 10th Ave in Manhattan (until mid November I think, I haven't been down there yet myself).

Which brings me to my next thought; she is considered a fine art photographer. Yet this book (Cui Cui) in particular is in my opinion a documentary work. There is a definite set of themes, a story and a message.

A good artist, a good photograph, a good piece of journalism; all these should make you see differently, think differently and feel differently. Certainly her work does this for me.

Artist or documentarian?

Why not both eh?

Ressurection of the Polaroid.

2009-10-13T09:57:00.003-04:00

I just read this report in the British Journal of Photography. It seems that production of Instant cameras is to resume. Maybe now everyone can get rid of that damn iphone application that mimics the look of Polaroids.

Film is dead. Long live film.

Now all we need is a viable hemp based plastic base for film and some non toxic, eco friendly biodegradable processing chemicals and film using photographers can well and truly get ( even more) self righteous about it all...

Ayuni Images: Please help.

2009-10-06T15:22:00.004-04:00

Here is a forwarded message from a friend of mine, photographer Alinka Echeverria. She has facilitated workshops for kids in Mexico and India and is just about to embark on another one in Cuba. I saw her yesterday and she told me they could really use some more cameras - anything that works will help. As she pointed out - the more cameras she has, the more kids can be involved.

Check out the following and please help if you can.

Dear friends,

I wanted to tell you about a photography workshop for kids that I am organizing in Havana. I have now set up a paypal account to make it simple to donate and support the workshop. You can donate by simply making a payment to ayuniimages@gmail.com through paypal. If you don't have a paypal account you set one up at the time of donating. For those of you who have already donated THANK YOU !! I really appreciate your support and would be grateful if you could pass this email onto whomever else you think would like to support this initiative. The more we raise the more children we can invite to participate !

......the idea

An ' Ayuni Images ' team will run photography workshops for kids from inner city Havana in collaboration with the ' Fototeca de Cuba ', the photography center of Cuba. I have given such workshops in Mexico as well as India. Kids' imaginations and creativity always exceeds our expectations. In India we used paper cut out cameras to 'snap' and the kids enjoyed it just as much as with real cameras. On the last day we made a trip to the source of the Ganges river and were able to lend them our cameras to take real photographs. What they had learned and practiced with the paper cameras was put into action and they produced some amazing images. The idea is to teach the kids 'to see' - to observe, compose and choose what to capture and reveal to their future audience. In Cuba the workshop's goal is to produce a 'a day in my life' photo essay of each participant. After a week of fun exercises we will give each participant a camera to take home over a few days and produce a visual diary of their lives. We will produce a slideshow of these photos so the kids can talk about their images, we'll edit together and the best images will be printed and exhibited at their school.

........your support

As this is my initiative I am planning it without financial backing and relying on donations from family and friends who support photography as a means of creative development for children. All donations will go towards buying cameras, film / digital memory cards, developing and printing for the exhibition. Every donor, no matter if you donate $10 or $1000 will receive an 8x10 inch print of the best photos from the workshop (which I will pay for so the donation money is not used) and will be mentioned on the Ayuni Images blog (under construction).

Please donate through pay-pal to my account: ayuniimages@gmail.com and email me with your address so I can send you your print. If you prefer to donate by cheque or by making a deposit directly into my account please let me know.

Also, if you have any old cameras - film or digital- in working condition that you would like to donate please let me know as these would also be a great help. If you are in Mexico or New York I a pick them up in person in the next few weeks.

Please contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.
Thank you very much, I can't wait to see what beautiful work comes out of this ;)

Best,

--
Alinka E. S.

www.alinkaecheverria.com

G20 in Pittsburg - Jason Andrew

2009-10-03T10:50:00.006-04:00

You may already have seen Jason Andrew's photographs from the G20 in Pittsburg over at B agNewsNotes and No Caption Needed with accompanying commentary.

As I noted in this post, the G20 travelling circus can be truly absurd at times. I asked Jason to send me some photos of the police there (most all of which are in the slideshow on BagNewsNotes) and here are a couple of my favourites.

Personally I don't think they look threatening, just ridiculous. Their armour (while no doubt effective) looks like something from a sci fi spoof. Even with the kevlar vests under their shirts I'm sure I can spot the stereotypical donut induced paunch on a few of them. I'm more scared of the dog, and even that's muzzled. (Incidentally, that shot reminds of Pieter Hugo's Hyena Men series - another travelling circus...)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'd like to be on the receiving end of a baton charge by these guys and I know all too well the effects of tear gas and other 'crowd control' techniques but seriously, I'm starting wonder if the power of laughter could be harnessed as a weapon against oppression.

Here's another couple of shots, this time showing the general populace. There's a shot of the lady and young girl gazing out the window with a look that seems to be a combination of concern and bafflement and one of some youth looking for all the world like normal kids on a normal day. I used to do the exact same thing on many a bored evening with my mates as a teenager. Hanging around just waiting for something to happen...

Finally, I liked this shot most of all. For some reason, after seeing it I couldn't get Dr Dre's 'The Watcher' out of my head...

Media Evolution

2009-10-01T18:33:00.004-04:00

David Campbell, on his Photography, Multimedia, Politics blog has just written a series of interesting posts on the subject of Revolutions In The Media Economy. Well worth a read. There is much sensible analysis contained in the articles and even, usefully, some reasoned and workable solutions to the current problems of how why and who this new media economy will pay for itself.

Of course, web content will have to be funded, at least until we make the real revolutionary leap of actually doing away with money and having everything (including information) available free, with everyone provided for, everywhere, not one human being excluded. But that's one for the future Utopians to pick up on - back to today and Campbell's essay.

Here is a sample paragraph from part one relating to the content of journalism itself:

"...there is the assumption that journalism, as routinely practiced in traditional news organisations, is a public good essential to democracy because of its history of challenging authority. To put it mildly, this is viewing things through rose-tinted lenses. It’s easy to think that each and every news organisation is run by people who see Bernstein and Woodward’s pursuit of the Watergate scandal as a template for daily reporting. But recent history suggests that much reporting promotes the interests of those in power (think about The New York Times cozy coverage of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, which subsequently prompted an apology of sorts from the paper) or recycles PR material (see Nick Davies critique of “churnalism” in the UK, and the “10 ugly truths about modern journalism.”). For sure, we need critical journalism more than ever, and there are some good existing examples, but overall it is something to create as much as it is something to protect. With survey’s showing Americans barely trust what they read or see, journalism’s belief in its inherent social value is ill-founded and needs to be re-established."

And this one, which relates to the problem of how the internet publishing can be used to pay for journalism:

"The first thing that is necessary in answering this is to resist the temptation (again) to look back on an allegedly golden age that has been lost. We have to recognise that news and probing journalism has never made money by itself in order to pay for itself. We should not, therefore, be judging the social media future for reporting via the flawed assumption that we are looking for a business model that will do what has never previously been done."

As I say, much of worth here. I could easily quote the whole 4 part essay, the two paragraphs above are just a taster. If you have not already done so, I well advise you to check out parts one, two, three and four. Do it now.

Money

2009-09-29T22:50:00.004-04:00

Money. The root of all evil. When the current financial crisis took hold of those who didn't expect it last year I wasn't surprised. I didn't believe anyone who said no-one could have predicted it (because so many people had been practically screaming predictions) and I routinely said that the banks should have been left to go to the wall. What I find amazing is the fact that people think that this financial chaos is the exception. It is the rule for at least half the world's population. Financial Crisis? My whole life has been a financial crisis but by comparison I am secure and wealthy. I have known what it is like to run out of food and electricity and have no home, but I have always had friends and family to provide when I could not. For many, when they have nothing, neither do their friends, family or neighbours.

What has this got to do with photography? Actually everything. Money seeps it's greedy little debt stained fingers into every aspect of our lives and I wish we were all free from it. I recently sat a table with several photographers, one of whom said that the job of a photographer was difficult for many reasons and to be a good photographer often requires a degree of competence - expertise even - in a vast range of subjects. I wholeheartedly agree. One reason I love being a photographer is that it gives me an opportunity and excuse to learn about the world. A photographer - especially a photojournalist - should be hungry for knowledge.

Even more recently I sat at a table with other, non photographer friends (who joke when they see my cameras that they all have them on their phones so why do I need that hulking great antique thing...) and discussed many things, as old friends often do. Weddings, kids, sex, food, future plans, old exploits, jobs, politics, economics, rude jokes and serious intimate exchanges all formed part of the conversations happening at the table. It was a truly great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

A few days before that another friend lent me a book entitled 'Confessions of an Economic Hit man' along with the recommendation that it is "Fucking Amazing". That recommendation was served up again at the table that Sunday, which prompted a discussion that lead to debate on the current financial situation and the possibility of an alternative system (They do exist).

Today I sat down to watch Zeitgeist Addendum. A documentary that I truly recommend. My hatred of money is once again fueled.

So what has this all got to do with photography again?

I want to make the world a better place, for myself, for my family, for my friends and - fuck it - for everyone else as well. Why not. The real question should be:

"How the hell do I use photography to do that?"

Step One: Identify the problem....

The Apocalypse

2009-09-23T09:49:00.005-04:00

Dust blankets the Opera House at sunrise
Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters

The apocalypse will probably not be an amazing cinematic event occurring in minutes or seconds and accompanied by orchestral music and a handful of stoic heroes battling against the odds, rather it will be a drawn out series of seemingly unconnected random events that can only be averted with the efforts of billions of people working together....

But then again, it's quite possible that we shouldn't bother connecting the dots between economic crisis, climate change, oil extraction, earthquakes, resource mining, poverty, disease, cities, pandemics, greed, war, consumerism, weapons, profit, politics, corporate strategy, the entertainment industry (and so on and so on) because maybe, just maybe, a super massive solar flare will burn the planet in an instant after all....

....or not, as the case may be....

On yer bike fatty

2009-09-10T10:16:00.003-04:00

I saw this in a gallery of winners from the Ciwem environmental photographer of the year 2009 competition. The environment and the way we affect it is often a difficult subject to photograph without resorting to cliche's and usually a theme lacking in humour. Some great shots from the winners and important subjects highlighted, but this one made me laugh and think, both things we should probably do more of.

Burn Fat Not Oil by Pornrutai Lohachal, England

Photograph: CIWEM

G20 in Pittsburg

2009-09-24T21:00:00.004-04:00

Ok people, you know the drill: massive Police presence, protesters of every ilk (for representation in the media; prefferably with odd coloured hair, shabby looking clothes and some sort of banner or instrument), boarded up Starbucks/MacDonalds/Gap, etc etc etc.

These G20 meetings seem to have become some sort of bizarre travelling circus, however I had not realised that the future of the world as portrayed in the 2006 movie 'Idiocracy' had actually already come about...

Photo: Damon Winter/The New York Times

Building on the past

2009-09-15T17:58:00.003-04:00

The start of this month was marked as the 8th anniversary of the destruction of the twin towers of the world trade center in New York. While the event has lost none of it's awesome power (and I use the word awesome in the original sense, not the sense American teenagers use it) I can't help but feel that the legacy of this day is much bigger than the thing itself. Just before watching a compilation of footage called 102 minutes that changed America I watched a Dispatches program by David Modell on British Soldiers struggling from varying degrees of Post Traumatic Stress on their return from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq then a few days later I find myself reading about the English Defense League.... And so it goes on.

In any case, the mess that the world is currently in with regard to the 'War on Terror' involves a lot of backward looking and backward thinking. Not many people are looking forward - or so it would seem - and it is refreshing to look at photography that documents some positive moving on from the events of that September 8 years ago. That is the case when looking at the work of Nicole Tung, who has been documenting the rebuilding of the WTC site. I was introduced to Nicole earlier this year and have been meaning to post a little about her work for a while. The other day she posted a few photos on her blog which seemed timely. They are taken from inside the building site at the WTC, looking out through the fencing onto the street and the passersby with their curious stares and cameras, or even their indifference to the whole thing.

Photographs by Nicole Tung

Fashion

2009-09-27T23:32:00.003-04:00

Don't get me wrong. I understand the need - no wait, I think the word I mean is desire - for fine fashion. Food clothes and shelter are the human necessities right? And who wouldn't want to look good while keeping the elements at bay. For someone like me who usually wears clothes until they fall off from from being literally worn out then the world of fashion is a foreign entity only experienced through TV, magazines and the discount rack at the factory outlet store. My wife is forever holding up items of clothing that I usually respond to with a look that ranges from confusion to outright distaste.

I also find it interesting that when fashion weeks roll around, magazines and newspapers burst with heavyweight supplements. Must be all that advertising revenue. Let's hope it funds reporting on the more serious issues.

Which leads me to 'War Photographer Shoots Fashion'. The phrase has an intriguing ring to it, something that might appeal to the business side of Marcus Bleasdale's mind. This English photographer who traded a career in economics and banking to become a photojournalist (now why didn't I do that...?) has spent much of his time covering conflict but has just spent a month covering the international fashion scene for New York magazine. I think Marcus' work from the Congo in particular is fantastic so was naturally curious as to what the result would be with his lens trained on the catwalk. He does seem to make the whole spectacle look fairly dark and cold, but that could just be because that is what my perception of the fashion world generally is and also due to the fact that I am aware of his previous work. Some people might find it slick and glamorous, but to me it looks - to quote the sex pistols - pretty vacant. Check it out for yourself here.

Shooting for The Fader

2009-09-01T02:25:00.002-04:00

The Fader is one of those cool magazines. Great photographs, hip music coverage and lots of 'I've got my ear to the underground' writing.

One of my close friends Gabriele has written a series of blog posts on what it's like working on assignment for them. Check out parts one two and three.

I know he works really hard but it sounds like a blast to me.