Viewbook Photostory 2012

Suspension

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:00:08 +0000

WINNER

In this story, the Casa Famiglia is a place of limbo and transition. Not knowing their fate, the young people who live there only have their imagination to draw a picture of their future. This state of mind is beautifully visualised in Deprit's photographs of daily life. His particular angles and lighting turn these ordinary moments into sometimes surreal and cinematographic images. – Ineke Smits 'Life has been thrown into the world, light into darkness, the soul into the body. It expresses the original violence done to me in making me be where I am and what I am, the passivity of my choice-less emergence into an existing world which I did not make and whose law is not mine.' – Hans Jonas, Zwischen Nichts un Ewigkeit This work seeks to explore the special psychological moment of adolescence traversed by foreign minors in juvenile communities and the impact of their individual experience in the passage to adulthood. For them, it is a time suspended between past and future which sees radical changes in their space; a passing phase in which tensions, reflections and life expectations are concentrated. In Italy, each year the 'Case Famiglie' (literally 'Family Homes' – family-type communities located in residential buildings), welcome between 7,000 and 8,000 unaccompanied non-EU citizen minors from different continents – young people who have travelled thousands of kilometres, even at the risk of their lives, fleeing war, poverty and uncertainty. They can be defined as survivors, having faced, in some cases, a voyage which in its final phase brought them to the extreme limits of their means. Now in the 'Home', they live suspended between two worlds, in time and in space; they are on hold, waiting for what will come. However, during this welcoming phase in which they have found a dimension of tranquillity, the sense of uncertainty does not come any less, as once they reach adulthood, they will again find themselves facing the external world outside the home, often without any sort of purpose.

Julian and Jonathan

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 21:00:58 +0000

Throughout the last few years I have been photographing my half-brother Jonathan (20 years younger then me) alone or together with his (and my) father. I'm interested in the 'triangular' relationship between the three of us. My memories as a young child, of the relationship with my father, are now in a way mirrored in my half-brother. By photographing my half-brother I try to approach our unusual sibling-relationship which I am part of at a physical distance. This work is very much about me, and this part of my family, as well as the relationship between a relatively older father and his young child.

The Hidden School

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:30:54 +0000

With the outset of Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former republics faced the task of restructuring and redefining their educational systems. On the 6th of December 1990, in the Belorusian capital Minsk, the first evening classes started in what would become by 1992, the Belarusian Humanities Lyceum. The country's most prestigious school, composed of around 500 students, was where at the start of every academic year, the Minister of Education gave a speech. In 1994 when Aleksandr Lukashenko won the presidential elections, problems started to surface, as some of the programs and teaching methods did not fit in with the Presidents views. Meanwhile, the fledgling school had already begun contacting schools from France, Belgium, Poland and Lithuania to promote student exchange programs. In 2003 an intention to replace Uladzimir Kolas, who had been the school's head from the start, by a Russian speaking principal, was made by the Authorities as a way to change the Belarusian language and the reviving Belarusian culture into Russian. Teachers, students and parents protested against this but to no avail. By the end of the year the school was banned. Activities continued in private apartments, but this did not last long as the authorities constantly threatened them. They then moved to the basement of a catholic church but after 3 months and immense pressure on the priest, they were forced to leave. In 2005 Belarusian Humanities Lyceum reached a stable situation, settling in a house on the outskirts of Minsk and supported by the polish government, receiving tuition in Poland and scholarships to graduate students for polish universities. Today about sixty students and a little more than a dozen professors attend lessons in classes ranging from 9 to 15 students. In 2011, the Belarusian Humanities Lyceum was officially registered and recognized at the University of Gdansk in Poland.

Code Unknown

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:00:56 +0000

The 'Code Unknown' explores the inner state of a person in the period of loss of childhood and transition to adulthood. For the first time in, the person faces the social world and its difficulties, not as a child, but as an 'adult', but an adult who have not yet formed the experience of overcoming them. The first disappointment of the new 'adult' world gradually eradicates childrens spontaneity and the ability to truly feel. The formed sense of duality and inferiority, and the loss of contact with yourself and others makes one wear masks. Gradually childhood, with all its images and magical worlds, is enveloped in mist - ridiculous and unnecessary.

Russian Interiors

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 19:30:22 +0000

The market of 'brides online' has exploded since early 2000, and rooted in the past decade worldwide. Russian women seeks a foreign partner, different and unknown. A phenomenon that crosses all social and economic status, spreading through the vast territories of the Russian Federation, affecting all ages, personalities and aspects. Everyone hopes to win a ticket to a different life, an ultimate act of desperation that often fails, dragging the woman even more deeply in a pathological depression. I worked in Moscow as freelance photographer for single women who need a picture for their online accounts. I offered low-cost portraits at home, with the profits I can manage to survive in the expensive and frosty Moscow. My interest on this growing archive is the loss of identity through the catalogue, that normally is used to sell goods. A catalogue of still life human products set at home, the intimate and personal place. 'The woman then turns to the moon, ravishing, searching for illusions in an another life elsewhere, to justify the present bleakness.' – Lev Tolstoj

The Chechen Refugees

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 19:00:33 +0000

My project wants to document the daily lives of the Chechen refugees living in the Pankisi Valley, Republic of Georgia. They came to Georgia about 12 years ago following the wars that ravaged the Republic of Chechnya in 1994-96 and 1999-2000. Ever since they have been trying to relocate to a third country or to start a new life. Some of them managed to be relocated to Northern America or to some European states. Some others stayed behind and were left in a legal limbo. It takes about 10 years to be able to qualify for Georgian citizenship. Some of them still have no documents: as a consequence it is difficult to be integrated, find a job and live a normal life.

The House

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:00:29 +0000

This project depicts an old house in Saint-Petersburg, almost of the same age as the city itself. Famous and noble families lived here, but now the building is in a very bad state and waits for renovation, so all the regular dwellers are gone. The house in the city center still doesn’t stay empty. The temporary inhabitants form two big groups: immigrants from Middle East and young artists, musicians, actors and alike.The house isn't squatted, everybody pays the rent, and a high one. The immigrants pay because they have nowhere else to go: people are not willing to rent a flat to a group of 3 to 7 people, who often are not legal in Russia. These two groups almost don't interact with each other, and the whole situation seems to be a miniature representation of Saint-Petersburg itself: great but decaying cultural heritage, young artists who continue the tradition in their own way and on the other side – a constantly growing number of guest workers. Almost everybody lives here for quite a short time, some weeks or some months. But regardless of the duration of stay they try to bring their own worlds with them, be that paintings and sculptures or homemade lavash and plov. That was exactly the thing I was fascinated and attracted by: everyone tries to create a place he could call home, may be as a replica of the home he once had, may be an embodiment of the idea of a perfect home. As they go they'll leave some parts of their worlds and their domesticity here, and that will be just another cultural layer of many. But for now, even if temporarily, they live here and try to fix up this little part of a big and unsettling world, make it more cosy, habitual and thus intelligible.

A Place To Be

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 14:00:23 +0000

Juli, Ivo, little Karla and baby Marla are a normal family. But they live in a place where statistics would never usually place them: four years ago, the family moved to the country and settled down on an old, dilapidated farm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the eastern German state which is currently suffering the most from the departure of young, educated people. However, the family has not made a dogma of their alternative way of living. They are neither organic farmers nor hippies, yet their new surroundings have changed their lives in that things have been decelerated. Marcus Reichmann, a photography student from Hannover, accompanied them on their quest for personal happiness. The result is a portrait of a normal young family – or a family that is anything but normal.

Puddle

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:00:09 +0000

'Puddle' is an on-going project about Trasimeno Lake (Umbria, Italy) and the community living on the hills around it. This work is meant to be an in-depth geographical, human and photographic research on the life in that area. Trasimeno is a very shallow lake. It doesn't have any bayous or feeders: all its water comes just from rainfall. Everybody is always waiting for what comes from the sky. That's why I want to show an immobile place. Frozen, rooted and empty. Trasimeno is a timeless place that lets you feel its soul, keeping it hidden at the same time.

The Blind Beast

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:00:05 +0000

"First, we shall slide easily from a place represented to an imaginary place - I mean that these spaces that can, in theory, contain us, become spaces we contain. Those seemingly protective refuges, those precarious shelters, those homes diverted from their role of safety, are nothing more than rickety boxes in our troubled mind - they are mental boxes. Mental worries of the individual constantly torn between the desire to open himself to the world and explore it and the fear of being hurt or destroyed by its contact. Then, we notice great distress in the images of Michel Le Belhomme. We arrive on the scene after a catastrophe has taken place creating a certain traumatism. Everyday spaces have been vandalized by natural (the root tearing through the floor) or artificial forces (the obstruction of the window), or both (fire: accident or arson?). Where thus is one to find hope in this desolate universe? Fascination for these photographs is therefore a result of their strange form as well as their ambiguous discourse. Opposing forces create a dynamic tension that crosses these falsely static places: emptiness and fullness, loss and profusion, outer and private, dream and nightmare, order and chaos, freedom and confinement, etc. This work is indeed pertinent because of its power of suggestion - for nothing is said directly - which takes us from the personal anecdote to the existential anguish that is more universal: no one is safe from the swell that can carry us both towards reason and towards delirium. Beware of the inner storm!" – Eric Van Essche

The One

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:00:25 +0000

Jenny is the only daughter of a wealthy family in Shanghai. Both parents work hard to provide their precious child with all the commodities that this new stage in the country's economy demands. Yet, Jenny is the successful model that all the families in modern China try to follow: a model that has created a generation whose main cause of death is suicide. Suffering from a never seen before economic and academic pressure, Jenny belongs to the generation that will rule the worlds biggest economy in the future and despite the excellence of her preparation some important lacks are to be found in her environment. Only childs are never confronted and allowed to behave as little tirans that rarely empathize with the rest. With no references to what solidarity or charity mean they are prevented to learn from other children their age, and insanely focus on a race to be the first and the best of their huge promotion.

Tunatartare

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:00:55 +0000

Everybody’s Fine

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:00:00 +0000

'Everybody’s Fine' is about the city of l’Aquila, which was completely wiped out by an earthquake in 2009 that caused 308 casualties, 65000 people loosing their homes, and a great part of the huge artistic treasure of the area being swiftly erased. The city of l’Aquila, right in the centre of Italy, has become a metaphor for the enormous contradictions present in the country nowadays. From an historic and vibrant centre it has become a ghostly city, patrolled by the army seven days a week for 24 hours, a battlefield transformed into a media event where appearance has overcome substance. I have been trying to look for this nonsense between the abandoned corners of a place full of history, through silent images that challenge indifference and oblivion. The aftermath was used by the ruling political party of that time, PDL, for its own purposes. Berlusconi tried to use the event presenting himself as the Leader who could solve the problem without the typical Italian delays. But it was only the umpteenth advertisement which covered the reality of what was already happening in l’Aquila. In fact the reconstruction business has seen the participation of mafia ('Ndrangheta, mafia from Calabria) related enterprises on one side and blurry governmental strategies on the other side as resulted in a prolonged state of abandonment and chaos. Nowadays, more that three years after the earthquake and almost 3 billions euros spent, thousand of people are still living in temporary accommodation. The city of l’Aquila embodies the failures of the Italian state. Critics see it as the rotten fruit of a jobs-for-votes culture that, nurtured by the organized crime that is endemic in southern Italy, has systematically defrauded the state while failing its citizens, leaving certain parts of Italy geographically and economically isolated. The whole project has been shot inside the so-called “Zona Rossa” (Red Area), an area as big as the entire historical centre, which should be inaccessible. Despite the prohibition I managed to get inside, and I started wandering between the deserted streets, stepping inside houses left open and unguarded since the day of the quake. Empty motionless houses where the time had stopped, devoid of life, as the whole city.

Jesse’s Life

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:00:44 +0000

Jesse, visual artist, photographer, musician and collector lives in an old little farm in a small village. At his home you step back in bygone times as he tries to lead a simple life. Jesse lives together with his beloved pets: the rabbits Wiet and Witte, the cat Boebie and the duck Habib. He has a special bond with Habib. Jesse pried him from an abandoned egg and single-handedly brought him up. To Habib he now is his mother.

Jamaican Blues

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:00:17 +0000

I moved to Jamaica in 2011, one year after the state of emergency proclamation, after a four-day gun battle at Kingston’s Tivoli Gardens. This event resulted in dozens of deaths.  The military was looking for gang kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who was based in Tivoli Gardens. Violence erupted after several high tensions in the capital caused by the possible extradition of Coke to the United States to face drug and arms trafficking charge. Coke, who in addition to "Dudus" is also known as "Small Man" and "President", is described by the U.S. Justice Department as one of the world's most dangerous drug lords.  Police in Jamaica kills more than 200 people every year, justifying these killings in most cases as the result of shoot-outs with gunmen, especially in the context of gang violence in marginalized inner-city communities.  Jamaica is a small island with a population of a little over 2 million. It is traditionally known as one of the countries with the highest murder rate in the world according to annual data of the United Nations.  In 2005, after years of dismal increment, Jamaica peaked at the top of the list of countries with 1,674 murders and the highest number of kills for a percentage rate of 58 deaths every 100.000 inhabitants.  With the capture of a Don, the ghettos lose every kind of law or regulation, and the number of smaller criminal organisations and little groups of "bad men" increases dramatically.  The personal background of ghetto youth is strictly related to violence and neglect. Indifference surrounds the lives of young people of the ghettos, they born and grow up with revenge in their veins.  They use to align themselves to a specific type of person and something pushes them indirectly to taking decisions and to embracing a lifestyle suited to the context. It is very easy how boys and girls, who never believed in someone, can take wrong decisions.  It's a common thing to kill and to shoot, just to understand how it feels, just to be respected. Just because it is the only way of life they know.  A friend of mine, who is now in prison for illegal possession of a firearm, once told me: "I wish I could be a good father someday, because I've never had one and I never knew what was right and what was wrong."  In this vicious circle, new fathers end up in jail with an incredible ease, leaving a new generation of children to grow up alone. Children who will learn the laws of the street and the laws of survival in those environments that will not let them escape in the future.  These are stories from Jamaican ghettos.

A Hall Full of Cinema

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:00:24 +0000

In a bustling narrow road of Old Dhaka, Manoshi Cinema Hall invites cinema lovers with three shows a day. In recent years, the strong tradition of the cinema halls is diminishing due to several reasons such as cost cutting, improper maintenance, poor production of the films, emergence of new technologies like satellite TV channels, pirated DVDs etc. Even after all these obstructions, 72 years old Manoshi Cinema Hall becomes a ‘house full’ during weekends. Once glazed with the traditional architecture of Old Dhaka, today, the building only preserves torn plaster walls and nearly broken chairs. Most of the audiences belong to lower-income group who prefer to watch action films. Along with its cinema lovers, drug addicts and prostitutes also come and merge in the actions. About 25 staffs work non-stop behind the curtain and some of them lodge inside the hall. It seems that the atmosphere of this place forms another cinema. While I was taking photographs, all these characters inside and outside screen amused me with their actions and reactions. This story is about the people of this magical atmosphere.

A Life Between Brackets

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:00:49 +0000

‘To see a world in a grain of sand And heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour’ Auguries of Innocence From 2006 to 2010 Norbert Mbu Mputu struggled to cope with the stresses and strains of life as a failed asylum seeker. Forced to flee his native Congo he initially lived on the streets in London before being given temporary accommodation and eventually being relocated to Newport, until his asylum application was rejected in early 2006. Dubbed a 'sofa surfer' by many he lived a transient life between Newport and London sleeping on friends floors and sofas, sometimes for as little as 3 hours a night, with no home, no income and no right to work and support himself in the UK. Norbert left behind a wife, 3 daughters and a young son all of whom he has not seen since arriving in the UK more than 8 years ago. He survived these years of uncertainty by sheer determination, ingenuity and not a little luck. A kind and generous man, I hope that these images show a little of the human cost the complex asylum system has on individuals left in limbo for such long periods of time, not only to their physical circumstance but their mental condition as well. Whilst not always a prominent issue in the media, the issue of asylum in the UK has always created a wealth of opinions and the issue has never really gone away, always lingering under the surface in the vacuum created by complex and chaotic government policy. In this vacuum individual stories are often overlooked and it was my intention with this project to bring attention back to individuals and emphasize the loneliness and sense of isolation felt by a vast number of people living in this situation in the UK today.

What Remains

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:00:50 +0000

It was in the afternoon, I was sitting on my grandpa’s couch. The door was slightly open and I saw light coming through, washed out between the white door and white walls. All of a sudden, it all started making sense. I could relate what I was seeing to what I felt. John is 75 years old, currently recovering from cancer. Prova recently had a heart attack. She can barely move. They love the fact that I take pictures of them, because then I spend more time with them and they don’t feel lonely anymore. Here, life is silent, suspended. Everything is on a wait. A wait for something that I don’t completely understand.

Janos Szalai

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:00:02 +0000

Three weeks a year Janos Szalai (58) has a wonderful life. Back in Hungary he sleeps with his girlfriend in a warm bed, he plays with his grandchild in the park and he drinks beers with his friends in the village pub. The rest of the year he wanders around in Amsterdam and five nights a week he sorts packages at GLS in the western docklands of Amsterdam. At GLS, the distribution company formerly called Van Gent & Loos, Szalai earns 7.50 Euros per hour. Excluding tax though. So he scrapes together 250 Euro per week, 1,000 per month. Below the minimum wage in the Netherlands, but three times the average income in Hungary. He never imagined that it would turn out this way. Once Janos Szalai enjoyed lots of respect. In his twenties he began his career with the police. Within a few years he moved up to the Hungarian intelligence service. There he went to work as an inspector. "Janos decided about life and death," says a friend in Hungary. "He was a powerful man." After 25 years of faithful service, on his 51st, Szalai was obliged to stop working, there awaited him a meagre state pension of 100 Euros per month. Of this he could have lived a while, as his wife had not cheated him three years earlier. "One day I came home and my wife was gone, along with our child and 30 thousand dollars, the proceeds of the house she had secretly sold. Suddenly I had nothing: no wife, no child and no home. I was desperate" After Szalai retired the intelligence service he started working with his brother who was a road worker. More adversity followed: his brother died a few years later from cancer. Then a friend gave him the idea to try his luck somewhere over the border, for example in the Netherlands. So with only 200 euros in his pocket Szalai traveled on the first day of spring of 2009 with the train from Budapest, Frankfurt and Duisburg to Amsterdam. His younger friend Janos Sandor (38) went along. Szalai: "I had no specific plan, knew no one in the Netherlands and did not speak the language. I was here just to make as much money as possible." The first four months the pair roamed through the city. They did not have a permanent address. Szalai: "We slept on benches in parks and showered at The Salvation Army. Those first months I literally wore out my shoes and socks. "Then they began a tour of squatting houses from the Lelylaan, Spaarndammerstraat and the Jan Voermanstraat. When they also had to leave the last address they bought a tent and put it on in an insignificant little bush between Sportpark Spieringhorn and the office of Atos Origin, not far away from Station Sloterdijk. Meanwhile the two Hungarians found a job through employment agency Link as a cleaner at the Amsterdam Arena. "Nice work, but unfortunately not full time." At GLS, they could work five days a week. There they are working over two years now. Szalai: "Part of the money that I earn I send to my new girlfriend and my daughter from my first marriage. My daughter has a daughter herself now, so she really needs my help. From the money that I save I want to buy a Volvo and a caravan and travel through Europe with my girlfriend. That is my dream." Earlier this year they moved their tent again, this time to a forest between the rail road and the fields of the Amsterdam football club SDZ. They were not alone. Eastern European migrant workers, pedicab drivers, street artists and homeless people from all over the world made this forest, less than a kilometre away from the fashionable terraces in the Westerpark, their home. Last summer the camp consisted of seven self-built cabins, two teepees and four tents. Villa Negra II was painted on a sign, referring to the self-forming community in the eighth district of Budapest. "The atmosphere was good," Szalai said. "We barbecued every day and drank beers together. It was very nice indeed." Late June the curtain fell for Villa Negra at the Amstel. First a letter came from the municipality, a few days later the camp was cleared by the police. Looking for a new place Szalai met a man who posed himself as an employee of The Salvation Army. "For 400 Euros he could arrange a caravan for us. We paid him but we've never seen him again since and didn't get the caravan." In the end the Hungarians ended up back at their first camp sight near Sloterdijk station. His girlfriend, at home in Hungary, still doesn't know he sleeps outside. Szalai: "If I tell her the truth, I have to come home immediately."

The Story of One Man

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:00:40 +0000

I met Gena in their courtyard, sitting on a bench. We were introduced by Gena’s best friend from the childhood – Valera Pechony. At that moment I was shooting a story about Valera (and I am still shooting it). I had no idea that this brief acquaintance would have such profound consequences for both of us. We were sitting on a sofa, drinking beer and chatting. He told me that he had TB for six years, no idea how he got it. He worked on a fishing boat on Kamchatka, after receiving a letter from his mother telling that she’s dying he returned home, couldn’t find a job and started drinking. He told that nowadays he continues fishing and thus earns his bread. Gena assured me that he will go fishing soon and invited to come along. We saw each other almost every week when I came to Kherson to shoot in its TB dispensary. As time passed, the disease progressed and Gena started using a walking stick. In the hospital I met his mother, it turned out she was alive and well, but she had to sell her belongings and gather bottles for recycling to be able to pay for her son’s treatment and food. Valera Pechony came by to the dispensary a couple of times. Gena’s treatment wasn’t working. He had trouble walking and lost his appetite. He ate almost nothing. I remember calling him prior to my visit and asking him what I should bring, apart from cigarettes he told me to bring some juice and fruit puree. He couldn’t eat anything else. At the time I had to go on an extensive trip to Moscow, then to Kiev and after that to Uman’. As soon as I returned to Kherson I bought some strawberry juice, Gena’s favorite, and cigarettes and went to TB dispensary. He was transferred to surgical department after a lung laceration. The situation was very sad, he almost did not move. We talked for a couple of hours about what I missed in Kherson and my trip to Moscow. Later I asked Gena about his mother. Instead of answering he offered me his cell phone with her number already dialed. She was happy to hear from me and invited me to come by. I promised to, but it was very late when I came out of the dispensary and I never came. That was the last time I saw Gena alive. He died the next day. I was calling him all morning but only got “out of the coverage” message. When I was already on my way to the dispensary his mother picked up. She told me that Gena had died at 08:30 (on 12th of October 2011) and that she was at the hospital picking up his things. I took her, with bags of Gena’s belongings, to the morgue to learn about the funeral and legal proceedings. Afterwards I called a taxi and took his mother, carrying his things, home. I was in the midst of motherly grief. She wept on my shoulder calling for her son, not believing him dead. The next day was the day to order a coffin, to choose a place at the graveyard and to solve problems with receiving death insurance money. In the meantime we sat for Gena’s wake. I was glad to have his mother’s friend around, I don’t think that I could’ve borne all that was happening by myself. At one moment she was showing me family photos, telling stories and smiling, the other she was crying and wailing. I could not imagine the amount of human grief I encountered. The fact that we drank a huge amount of vodka that night blasted the borders of my consciousness. There was a photograph standing atop a TV set, the only picture of Gena and his mother together made in recent years. She looked at it constantly and talked to an image of her son. Valera came by later after work and we stayed late, until the mother did not finally fall asleep, we went home afterwards. The next day seemed the most difficult of all. I had to accompany Gena’s mother to the funeral parlour to choose a coffin, sepulchral cross and wreaths. She wept often and I had to solve most problems myself, arranging for burial time and other nuances. At the end of the day we went to the graveyard to choose a place for the burial. I went with her everywhere and did most of the talking. Probably everybody thought me to be her grandson. Today is the day of the funeral. In the morning we went to the morgue to take Gena’s body home for orthodox funeral service and then to the graveyard. The first surprise was in the morgue – I, together with our driver, had to place the body in the coffin, because we couldn’t find any other able men around. Valera has only one lung and even walking is difficult for him, no question of heaving a body. After we finally placed the body in the coffin and covered it with tulle we went to their house’s courtyard, the very place I met Gena. That was a very modest funeral, I had to ask the neighbors for chairs to place the coffin on and be near the mother, because she had already fallen once. Other people came a little bit later, a total of fifteen I think. I have never before shot a funeral of a single man, only mass burials of miners with lots of press around, never so that I was the only one… Four men to carry the coffin couldn’t be found so I also had to carry it. The border between me - the photographer and me - the man helping a mother to bury her only son was long gone. Gena is dead. He is gone. It so happened that I knew him and participated in his funeral. He called me Maksik and was always glad to see me. He was cheerful up to his final moment. I lost this border. I always told that the photographer should not help people when he is a witness with a camera. But how can you, when there’s no one else around, if you are the only one able to help?

Ocean Beach

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:30:45 +0000

This project is the study of a unique place in the American landscape that appeals to my vernacular taste and sense of style and order. The cottages at Ocean Beach (NJ), some might say, are nothing more than oversized trailers. They are laid out in a symmetrical grid in three units, with the democratic and institutional sounding names Unit I, II, III, that total over 2,000 cottages. The streets, still made up of sand in Unit III, add to the sparse and strong sense of place. Photographing there in the off-season allows me to de-contextualize the cottages from their vacation purpose. From a formal perspective, color, form and spatial relationships are studied. Here, color helps to create individuality among uniformity in the architectural landscape. I have temporarily 'borrowed' select cottage interiors to conceptually create fragmented self portraits using found or personal items. This allows me to explore the project subtexts of time, memory, and identity. The interiors have hardly any decorations creating an abstract time-stamp and few clues as to who the owners are. The bedrooms are utilitarian in nature and minimal in size to where they straddle the line between intimate and claustrophobic. As a photographer I am interested in the cottages still showing signs of a bygone era when wood paneling, vibrant colors, and kitsch decorations were the order of the day.

I’ll Die For You

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:30:10 +0000

Hindu scriptures say a person who commits suicide becomes part of the spirit world, wandering the earth until he/she would have normally died. Over the past 15 years, more than 250,000 farmers have committed suicide in India. Many had borrowed money through government lending schemes or private lenders to plant more efficient crops, but could not pay off their debts. Because of the extremely fast transition India has undergone — from a rural to an industrial, urban economy with an open market — farmers have been confronted by immense social and economic problems. This project explores the epidemic of farmer suicides using still photography and archival documents. It takes as its focus the peculiar bond between man and land, a relationship unique to farmers given their reliance on the land for livelihood and the equal reliance of the land on farmers for survival. It's a relationship based on trust and nurturing and goes far beyond the customary attachment one has with his/her source of livelihood. I chose to symbolically reflect this relationship in close up pictures from farmer's skin juxtaposed against details from the landscape photographed in a way that attempts to blurs the line between man and land to show in this environment the land and its inhabitants are one and the same: When one dies, so does the other. Additionally, the work reflects on emotional loss through a series of portraits of widowed women and mothers who outlived their children.

Wonderland

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:10:24 +0000

These pictures could arise in any other place, which is managed by a man, but I took them in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, in the buildings of the EU institutions. Often incomprehensible to ordinary people, law-making processes which take place in EU institutions shows the mythical 'Capital of Europe' as the bureaucratic behemoth, which spits kilograms of printed paper. It shows it as place where officials earning a fortune generate hundreds of hard to understand, often just stupid regulations. The stereotype of Eurocrats luxury, kindled also in me the desire to learn more about the EU corridors. This is the story of 40 thousands of people, who left their home countries to become part of bureaucratic structure. This is a story about a man and his involvement in space. And finally it is the story about the uniqueness of ordinary things and commonness of extraordinary things. Wonderland is the world of Brussels officials, locked in the quasi-futuristic corridors of EU buildings. The buildings jealously guard their secrets. Their labyrinths require a pretty good skill to navigate, and those who do not possess it can easily get lost...

Flyhouse

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:00:25 +0000

This series of pictures documents the process of breeding maggots. It is a dark series of photos showing the dirt and filth that people are willing to work in to provide a living for their families in the north of England during a recession. The individual photographs give an idea of the foul conditions, but also the spirit and humour of the workers.

Days of Threshold

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:00:01 +0000

'Days of Threshold' narrates the story of a country boy who invents his own dream world. I chose a teenage boy to tell my story, because of the autobiographical component of my project. Having already worked several times with him, we have developed an intimate relationship that allowed me to access his world and his imagination. Through this relationship, I was able to establish a certain consistency and fluidity between the images. Reinterpreting various topics close to adolescence, I punctuated the story-telling with more abstract images, to vary the modality. I decided only to reveal fragments of this period in the life of the boy. The images are at the threshold between childhood and adulthood. My character constantly crosses this line, oscillating between these two stages, yet always keeping one foot in childhood. For this project, like my previous work, I established my own playground, which allowed me to navigate through different photographic modalities such as portraiture, staged photography, documentary and fiction. Even if this entire story has been invented, I like using different photographic writings in order to challenge the viewer, forcing him to question himself. The subject of adolescence is particularly dear to me, because of its aesthetic characteristics, its degree of imagination, satisfaction through excess, and the ambiguity of feelings.

Losing Ground

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:00:31 +0000

Losing Ground is my homage to the disappearing landscape of my childhood. I grew up in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands of South Africa. In my mind it was a sublime landscape, and a sublime childhood. The land has been expropriated. By 2014 it will be flooded, providing a storage dam, pumping water to a city 150 kilometers away.

One

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 20:00:34 +0000

'One' is a personal-landscape project about my native land Sardinia. It is a long-term project, started in 2007, that walks along a personal and a narrative path, and wants to interpret the contemporary Sardinian landscape - from the coastal boundaries to the hinterland. The aim of the project is to describe the intimate relationship between one person and his motherland. I wish to create a personal geography of images using a minimal visual approach in order to focus the narration on the feelings I get from this land. Sardinia carries in its landscapes, and in its way of being an island, my own manner of facing the outside world and relating to others in my everyday life. On a more subtle level the work also deals with issues peculiar to this island, such as fires, pollution, unfinished construction works, slow economy.

Characters of Jante

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:30:01 +0000

Aksel Sandemose wrote 'En flyktning krysser sitt spor' (A fugitive crosses his tracks) around 1930. In his book he created an imaginary small town called Jante where the Law of Jante is practised. At the time Sandemose could not have foreseen that this Law of Jante would find a special place in the mind of Scandinavians. Aksel Sandemose, born as Aksel Nielsen in Nykøbing in Denmark, emigrated to Norway in 1930, and had a breakthrough in 1933 with the publication of 'En flyktning krysser sitt spor'. In this book, the protagonist Espen Arnakke finds himself in a crisis which forces him to examine the past and especially his traumatic childhood in the town of Jante. Espen Arnakke attempts an inner quest - unmistakably under the influence of Freud - to find an explanation for the rage that lead him to murder a friend seventeen years ago. The book itself is not widely read anymore. However most Scandinavians are familiar with the Law of Jante. Ask anyone in the street whether he knows the Law of Jante and you will trigger an affirmative response: 'Du skal ikke tro at du er noe!' ('Don’t think you are anything special!'). The Law of Jante describes the tyranny of the mediocre and requires that those who are above the average have to pay for being so. The renowned Norwegian social anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen puts it this way: 'It expresses (…) an ideology of equality which depreciates the original and the unusual. It is widely held that the Law of Jante is a deeply embedded aspect of Norwegian culture, and that it discourages brilliance and high achievements.' The project 'Characters of Jante' is inspired by the book 'En flyktning krysser sitt spor'. In this project we meet the characters living in the fictional town Jante, surrounded by the silence of desolate landscape.

The Land Left Behind

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:00:24 +0000

When I was a child, my world was a mystical and animistic place where every object was quietly humming with its own existence and life. Sometimes beautiful, and sometimes uncanny. This project is part of an ongoing search for that land of childhood most of us leave behind.

4.10

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:00:13 +0000

View — it is a fact, chaos, uncontrolled space. It just is. I go back. 4 meters, 10 cm. View from the inside. I'm losing something that was outside the window. Blind spot. I see my room, things. They look at me, I know them. I am filled with meaning. 'Place', where the view is born. When something becomes a look AT the view FROM somewhere. This meeting is unavoidable, it always happens. I can not get rid of context. I want to lose myself. I need to do both. I need a landscape.

The Service of Sultan Palace Yogyakarta

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:00:18 +0000

The lives of the Abdi Dalem in the palace in Yogyakarta form a calm oasis in a world that is more and more driven by material ends. The Abdi Dalem live a life of service. They do not work for money and for this reason the images do not depict, as it may at first appear, people ‘at work’, but rather the essence of a social identity. Each image contains a rich narrative and bears traces that point to the identity and the life of its subject.

Hulk’s Toys

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 20:00:39 +0000

This is the story of a man and his self-made toys. It’s a project on the life and art of Franco Bellucci, a poetic tale of his past and present, an examination of his creations in their ambiguity of works of art, toys and creative expressions, documenting a humane alternative to institutionalization of mental problems. Franco Bellucci lived for four decades, since his childhood, detained in an asylum in Volterra, Italy, due to his compulsive destructivity towards objects. For fifteen years, he was constantly tied to his bed, as a means of containing his great force, until, in 1978, a reform inspired by psychiatrist Franco Basaglia closed down all asylums. Franco had to live in the limbo of a decaying asylum, before an alternative to confinement was found: in 1998, he was finally accepted in an open facility in Livorno, for institutionalized people that, like him, could not take care of themselves anymore. At first, they called him Hulk, but there, finally, his condition was respected and his creativity encouraged. Instead of destroying, he started re-creating, making strange objects by tying together all kinds of materials into powerful works of art, that he considers his toys. Since then, his compulsive destructivity has almost ended. The project is ideally divided in three parts: the first one, in b/w, is about Franco's everyday life in the health facility, his brother, his toys. The second one is a collection of colour still life photographs where I examined his toys in their ambiguity of works of art, toys and creative personal expressions. The third part, in b/w, is a short collection of pictures taken in the ex-asylum of Volterra where he lived for fourty years, now abandoned. The closing picture is a photograph of the ex-asylum in Trieste, where Franco Basaglia, as the director of the mental institution, together with his staff, first started the long haul for the recognition of rights of the patients as persons, by opening the gates and letting the patients make their peaceful demonstration in the streets. That was the first public act that eventually lead to the promulgation of the reform bearing his name, in 1978. The question that came after this law was "outside, but where?". Once freed from the tragedy of asylums, new forms of care have to be re-invented for the people affected by mental problems. The question has been only partially resolved, more than thirty years after, and still has to find appropriate answers. My personal opinion is that taking the exceptional story of Franco Bellucci as a positive example, the solution may start only from the fundamentals of humanity, in being humans among humans. Quotes from Franco Basaglia writings on psychiatry and the situation of the asylums in Italy constitute the theoretical and cultural background for this project. Indeed, without a revolutionary law like the one inspired by Basaglia, Franco’s story would not have been possible, as he would still be tied to his bed in an asylum, dreaming of his toys. One can survive his own and others' madness, and taste a better life, only when finally receiving a little humanity, a chance to express freely, and to be considered someone altogether different from the mental sufferings endured, a person before a patient, a human being before his disease. I think that Franco does what he can to change the world as he sees it, he has done it all his life, destroying or creating, always courageously.

Indrawati River Story

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:00:37 +0000

It was very easy for me to get their access, but also extremely difficult to build a narrative. I was thinking how could I tell a story with images of the river Indrawati, a northeastern river of Nepal, and Majhi, an ethnic group of fishermen. There are over 27-crusher industries on the bank of Indrawati, which export river-based items such as crushed stones and sand with heavy mining equipment. For this, the inhabitancy of fishes & other types of marine live are at the edge vanishing. Majhis, people who once lived on catching & selling fishes, are changing their century old traditional occupation & become workers in the crusher industries. I went there without knowing where to stay & eat. The people were very kind to me. They gave shelter & food, even though in some villages people were extremely poor. I can remember Sujan Majhi, a 22-year old worker in the crasher industry & father of 2 kids, telling me at a starry night, when you go back you can tell the story, that you have stayed in Sujan Majhi’s house, from where you can see the Langtang Himal through the window. Or late at night in Sipaborgaw I woke up with a sounds of singing. Young ladies & boys were singing & dancing with ancient spirit. I wonder how these people are celebrating their life without having fear of uncertainty. I tried to photograph this uncertainty of their life. To photograph the restlessness of their life, which dissolves with their blood, like nicotine. And yes! Also their love of life.

Gangsterism

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:00:26 +0000

Gangs in the Cape Flats started to appear in 1966, when District Six and other zones situated in the center of the town were declared "whites-only" areas, due to the apartheid regime. Coloured people living in those areas were forced to move to the Cape Flats after their houses had been destroyed. Double and three storey flats, overcrowding, poverty, high crime rates, drugs and alchol abuse are some of the elements that started to charaterize these communities. Beacuse of the poverty many young people join the gangs by the attraction of money and power, and many times also for protection. Innocent men, women and children have knowingly or not become entangled with gangsters, most have suffered dearly as a result. Many still bear the scars of their involvement. Countless others have lost their lives, usually in a savage manner and sometimes caught in a crossfire. There are about 20 coloured townships in Cape Town, situated between 10 and 20 kilometers from the center of town, all of them are dangerous. Each area could have more than one gang, then the area becomes divided into territories. The gang fights happen over the control of those territories and for the drug sale. Sometimes youth who are friends at school are enemies outside because of the gangs of the territory were they are living. Gangsterism between coloured people is considered as a culture, so strongly rooted within these communities.

The Jharia Coalfields

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:00:20 +0000

In Jharia, in the federal state of Jharkhand, around 600,000 people live in the middle of one of India's biggest coal mining areas. There's nothing in it for most of them. Quite the opposite: the soil, the water and the air are now contaminated, of all things in an area that was previously rich in woodland. The story of Jharia is the story of how the greed for profit, vested interests and the thirst for power have prevailed and led to one of the areas richest in minerals in India remaining so economically backward. For the mining marginalises the poor and deepens social inequality in the name of economic development, from which mostly only metropolises like Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai profit.

Deserted Resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:00:52 +0000

This was not supposed to be a small story at all. This should have been a big one and a pretty loud one, too. With 24 hour buffets, free alcohol and entertainment teams around the pools. But there were no tourists this year in Egypt. Revolutions and tourism don't mix. And Sharm el-Sheikh turned into whisper. Scattered along the coast are dozens of holiday villages in development. All these projects are quiet throughout the day; mile after mile there is no sign of life. Their unfinished state adds to the feeling that you have truly reached the middle of nowhere. The night eerily emphasizes the desolate atmosphere. These villages are completely dark, apart from some occasional street light off the main road. Long exposures make it possible to marvel at the bizarre pueblos and post-bauhaus bunkers. Will they ever be finished?

Portraits of a Tornado Path

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:00:17 +0000

On 22 May 2011, a tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri. The strength and magnitude of the tornado left a trail of destruction of 3/4 wide and 6 miles long. It took lives of 153 people and within minutes thousands of people became homeless. My trip to Joplin was striking. The level of destruction was such that during my five days every morning seemed like the first day. I was intrigued by the fact that within minutes, the familiarity of the people of Joplin and the landscape had turned into inhospitable and unfamiliar zone. This is what initially pushes me to this place and in my work I wanted to show that shift in my subjects.

School - Artificial environment

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:00:37 +0000

The series "School. Artificial environment" is a reconstruction of memory of the first school years and feelings experienced by the author as a child. The author was unable to become a part of the system and its collective spirit, to fit into the frames of generally accepted rules of behavior in those days. So she returns to the school walls twenty years later to deal with her childhood memories. By means of photography the author tries to understand how to relate her personal experience with what happens in the reality of the school and if this reality exists apart from a personal experience. The series "School. Artificial environment" was shot in five days of a school week exactly. Immersion into the environment not only recreates pictures from the past, but also exposes old wounds. Depression, fears, melancholy.

Distant and Close

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:00:03 +0000

A weird and uncomfortable sensation: I sense people who are much more distant from me, both physically and mentally, than my mother is, much more certainly. Our relationship explained to me a sad truth: being related doesn't guarantee being close. Too bad, I remember the situation has not been always the same. In my childhood we were close friends, but when I grew up, we had come to be more and more apart. I thought about whose fault it was, I recalled our disputes, I searched for a turning moment and finally came to realise that it doesn’t matter at all. What matters is that now I want it to change. I want to sense the warmth of her heart anew, like in my childhood, to look closer and get to know my present, mature mother. To fixate, to remember, to feel acutely the moments of the life that I treasure, which is primordially a source of my own. To discern her personal qualities of character, which make her who she is. Wise and not so wise, powerful and weak, young and mature, good and bad - anything she may be. My mom. Distant no more. Close... again.

Rose Garden Pt. 1

admin — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:02:10 +0000

I've been working on this project for the last 5 years. It's been on and off. The images I'm submitting are about encounters related to chance or my own intuitions. It's both close and within a distance but mostly revealing. Images are made while I was living in areas of prostitution, drug traffic, military compounds, places for the elderly people that need care. It's perhaps a long lasting dream or maybe just me walking inside the belly of the night.

Olim Palus: A New City

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:38:17 +0000

On December 18th 1932, Littoria was established. Nowadays the city is known as Latina. Littoria was founded from a will of Benito Mussolini. Pioneers from Veneto and Friuli, two Italian counties, build the city. Mussolini promised them ten hectares to cultivate and a house to live. The city project was realized according the architectural rules of 'Rationalism' from Oriolo Frezzotti, and the buildings inspired by the Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico. Today, Latina has 130.000 inhabitants and it is one of the youngest cities of Italy.

The Warrington Market

admin — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:11:44 +0000

The project focuses on small family shops based in Warrington market, which have had an impact upon both the community and history and have been a part of the landscape for decades. The aim of this project was to portray the everyday life of these shop holders in their natural settings but also to describe the landscape (excluding human figures) as a metaphor for each family shop, carrying the strong suggestion that this is where the most intimate moments have been lived. The project is not intending to be an analysis of the market landscape, but more of a lyrical portrait of it is scenery and people in the way I experienced it through my lens. During my research I have found that Warrington Market does not have the same character which it had in the past, but a number of characters from the past still remain in the building. Today's market is mainly comprised of people whose notions of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

Tortured

admin — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:57:51 +0000

Every person on the presented photographs has been tortured by militiamen, and practically no one of the torturers has been punished yet. As you get into the militia department, you may find yourself in danger of being tortured or beaten for rejection of giving the statements they want you to. You might be innocent or a passerby, or aggrieved, or just being disliked by an officer. You might get tortured in perverted ways (electric shock torture, hanging on scrap, suffocation by gasmask), beaten, deprived of sleep or food, or be locked in a cell where you’ll be smashed by prisoners; you’ll be refused of legal protection and won’t be allowed any visitors: no lawers, no defenders or parents. But most importantly, you’ll be deprived of your personal integrity and dignity. The number of tortured increases year by year, but to estimate the exact number is almost impossible. What is sure is that people are killed in the militia department in Ukraine: In 2009 there were 21 found dead and in 2010 already 51. That is not enough objective measure because many cases remain unknown. Another indicator - the number of calls to the ambulance from the militia department – amounts to two per week.

After Tomorrow

admin — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:47:17 +0000

For 200 years, the Bdoul tribe of Southern Jordan settled in the numerous caves of Petra, nestled in a valley of ancient, massive and magnificent tombs. They lived in harsh conditions, raising stock, growing crops in the dusty soil, and fending off marauding, invading tribes. Then, in 1985, the Jordanian Government moved the tribe to purpose-built housing in order to accommodate the ever-increasing numbers of tourists flooding into the area. 25 years on, I visited the tribe to capture what changes have come about their community due to tourism and modernisation, and how many (or few) of their traditions have survived.

Atomic War In Details

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:20:10 +0000

'Of course we thought about our counterparts in the West... but they did their jobs and we did ours.' - Wladimir (ex-USSR Strategic Rocket force combat crew member) The series is an in-depth exploration of the counterparts of Soviet/CIS and US ICBM nuclear weapons and launch facilities, past and present, through photographic details. These comparisons also expose the sides ethnologically and the minutiae are symbolic of greater political meaning. The humanized perspective and palpability reveal our complacency in addressing an ongoing - if psychological - war, and are an examination of the understated reality of the veneer that protects us from an apocalypse. The small stories of the bumps, scratches and patinas of the actual objects used, and in some cases still in use, invite the viewer to imagine the twin lives of the people who work in these environments. Titan II missiles were active from 1962 with the last flight 2003. AS-4 was active until 2007. The SS-19 and SS-18 missiles remain active. This year the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is two minutes closer to midnight than the year of the Cuban missile crisis.

Kolodozero

admin — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:58:02 +0000

I came to Kolodozero for the first time in Christmas 2011, and I continue to go back to it up to the present day. When I found myself in this wonderful place for the first time, I realized that in addition to the surrounding beauty and interesting people, there reigned a very special atmosphere - thanks to the village temple. I have been interested in religion and faith for a long time, and both have a strong presence there. For me as a photographer it is important to capture the story - to understand not only what an ensemble Kolodozero is, but also that the revival of the village has been possible thanks to the temple and directly to faith itself, in contrast with other villages nearby which are dying.

Gone With the Dust

admin — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:00:35 +0000

Tuvshinbayar Sugirsuren is one of the last nomads of Omongov, Mongolia’s largest province. Together with his family he keeps ancient traditions that are disappearing alive. He breeds camels in a land where there is about no grass left. Erdenchimeg, his wife, takes care of the animals, the food, the children. Tuvshinbayar is proud of the life he leads with his family. He wouldn’t change it, he feels free, even if he is also aware of the transformation that is disturbing the country's form. The climate is changing in Gobi, and seventy years of pro-Soviet Communism are not even a memory. The future is not a desert any longer, but a village overlooking on nothing. Small plots of land with gers in messy lines take the place of boundless areas. What in Mongolia is now called progress is a quick elite development. It is poorly paid work and a cruel and difficult urban condition. An irreversible process, too young to be analyzed, that erases ancient but fragile traditions. The footprints of the last nomads are being covered with dust.

Los Cachorros

admin — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 17:45:52 +0000

La Vida No Vale Nada

admin — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:29:33 +0000

There's a common phrase Guatemalans say about violence in their country: En Guatemala, la vida no vale nada. In Guatemala, life is worth nothing. Fifteen years after the end of its bloody and genocidal civil war, Guatemala elected its first peacetime military leader, a former army general who emerged from retirement shrouded with human rights abuses. During the country’s 36-year civil war, (1960-1996), about 200,000 people were killed and another 50,000 “disappeared” and buried in mass graves throughout the country. It left a brutal legacy of violence on the social fabric of this highly indigenous country. As Guatemalans continue to recover from decades of political violence, the growth of cartel, gang and street violence increase. A hired assassin can earn about $20 per murder. Mexican drug cartels are new players in a complex mix of paramilitary and vigilante groups in the shadowlands between state and organized crime in Guatemala. While today there is no official war, Guatemalans live with 98% impunity, and a homicide rate of 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Some critics say Guatemala is on the verge of becoming a failed state. Population of Guatemala: 14.7 mil Pop. of Greater Guatemala City: 2.5 mil Area: 108,890 sq. km (about the size of Tennessee) Homicide Rate: 5681 (2011); 5960 (2010); 6570 (2009) Crimes: Transnational drug cartels, extortion, domestic violence, robbery, abductions, and gang activity.

The Labyrinth

admin — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:38:47 +0000

Going nowhere. Turning in circles. This feeling that was the starting point of my personal story. I used the photos I took - with no special reasons - at different moments, sometimes years apart, taken in different places and occasions. This is the way I always "write" what happens to me in my life: I keep all my images, rubbish or not, like bottles of wine, waiting for a reason to be opened up one day.

Deutschland/Germany

admin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 20:32:52 +0000

From a very young age…

admin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 10:35:48 +0000

There are 650.000 to 2 million street children in Bangladesh. Others are "lucky enough" to be working from a very young age; very often in terrible conditions which will leave them with a critical health state...

Clean Rooms, Low Rates

admin — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:49:26 +0000

Over the last year I have driven over 22,000 miles around the United States, in search of something. I do not know if I have found it yet though because I haven't worked out what it is I'm looking for. Each day that I am on the road I get up at dawn and drive until dusk. I stop only to eat, fill up with gas, swim, climb, look, or photograph something, maybe someone. When the light of the day is gone, I drive on until I find a motel to rest for the night. For all the uncanny and bizarre sights I encounter on the road, these are the strangest places of all. There is something inherently sad and lonely about a motel room. It is not the loneliness that may be felt isolated in a mountain cabin, miles from civilisation, but the loneliness of the city, surrounded by people, by the sounds of life, literally feet away from you, through the walls in the next room, rushing past on the highway outside. So many people before have shared these four walls, this bed, this television set with you, and so many more after will too. But this only seems to heighten the sense of isolation, for you will never meet them. You may occupy the same space, but never the same time. I always sleep well though. I dream through the night of the road ahead, stretching out, endlessly before me. But when I wake I am wearier than the morning before. It is my mind and not my body though that has lost something to that room in the night. And when I leave, there is something of me left behind.

Polyethylene Fields Forever

admin — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:04:51 +0000

I repeatedly travelled to a resort settlement in Northern Azerbaijan to have a rest in summer. This place is quite popular among the residents of Baku, as it is located not far from the city and is available in the price. Once I arrived there in late autumn, when the tourists were almost not encountered, and there were only local residents in the village. I was impressed by what I saw. Plastic bottles wallowed along the shoreline, the beach was strewn with torn umbrellas, broken trade booths, rubbish and of course the ubiquitous polyethylene plastic bags. The beach turned into a landfill. The same picture was waiting for me when I arrived to the forest. Rubbish laid everywhere: old clothes, abandoned houses choked with superannuated stuff, bags of worthless construction materials, waste pits where working dogs, chickens and sheep dawdled. Mountains of garbage in a beautiful forest. The houses of the villagers are in the precincts of the forest, and it has turned into huge garbage bag for them. These same people went to the sea, bathed in it, fished. They had laid a sewer pipe into the sea, turning it into a dirt collector. One local resident saw what I'm shooting, and said that he wanted to show me, "an interesting place." Having passed a little away from the woods and turned off the road, I saw a large area which extended for hundreds of meters into the depth of the field, and the debris wallowed across the whole area. I was explained by the man that this was an improvised landfill arranged by owners of “recreation areas" and residents of the village. I had never seen such a scene. The mountains of rubbish rose everywhere among the trees, ravines, streams and the river. I started to shoot, but one and the same thought was repeated in my head: how could people let it all? How was it possible to turn a beautiful landscape into a cesspool? I started to shoot the project entitled "Polyethylene fields forever" with an emphasis on landscape photography, so that a viewer could just see clearly and in contrast “the natural landscape - the garbage" and how the theme of environmental pollution is relevant.

Storytellers

admin — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:49:35 +0000

This is a story about windows. It might seem cliché for a photographer to take pictures of windows, but I am intrigued by them. Especially those old ones, which are worn out, have broken glass and tell stories. Stories such as how the glass got broken, how several layers of paint got on top of each other, how the wood got worn out by the sun and so on. I can stare at them for quite some time and not get bored. Some might think of these objects as nothing special, as objects that need to be thrown away or need renovation. I think of them as great storytellers. Every window has a story behind it. Not only a story about itself but about people who surrounded it throughout the years as well. This is a collection of such stories.

Present Simple

admin — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:50:39 +0000

Every morning I get up at half past six. I wash and dress up, have breakfast and go to work. In an hour I usually get to the metro station where I drink coffee from a plastic cup at the pancake kiosk and smoke a cigarette. After that I go to the tram stop, catch a tram and get to the school where I work at a few minutes past eight. The lessons start at eight thirty and last until quarter past two. At around twelve I have lunch at the canteen and smoke two more cigarettes. After the lessons I spent some time in school working with the registers, having dinner or gossiping with other teachers. At quarter to four I leave the school building and go home by two shuttle buses. There I have almost an hour of free time that I spend on the Internet, or I work with pictures. After that I start private lessons. Usually I finish the lessons and go home at eight thirty in the evening. At home my wife and I watch TV or a downloaded movie or series. I read a bit, or work with photos, before I go to bed. At half past one I go to sleep. Five hours later I get up, wash and dress up, have breakfast and go to work. Sometimes I’m a little bit jealous of people whose life tops Michael Bay's and David Lynch's films in speed and passion. Of course, I couldn't describe my life with a couple of words, but three words would be enough. My life is just like anyone else’s – without any special events, joys or troubles. I started taking pictures in order to slice that never-ending Present Simple and mark some points that are important for me. I’m not sure whether I succeeded or not as the photographs became the part of infinite Present Simple instead of cutting it. At the beginning it seemed to me that the camera highlights something special in "l’ecume des jours" but at the end there were to many of those specialties. I realized that my experiment in overcoming the reality suffered a fiasco. These photographs should be viewed just like this – a report of a failed experiment written by an everyman.

Mecca

admin — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:12:25 +0000

I recently went to Mecca and I knew photography wasn't allowed within the mosque but I couldn't resist to capture the atmosphere and share them with non-Muslims, as non-Muslims are not really allowed in. Images do not do the atmosphere any justice but its close enough.

Sabra and Shateela or The Infinite Waiting

admin — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:12:19 +0000

Just 20 minutes south of Beirut and its lights, a hut of old plates, a giant coffin, an open-air prison, and a 60 years old promise. The refugee camps of Sabra and Shateela welcomes you with bullet holes everywhere. Trapped in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, successively three generations of palestinians taste the bitter taste of exile, and humiliation, in a country that does not recognize them. Death is everywhere, pictures of martyrs of the 1982 massacres adorn the narrow streets of this space of timelessness. Paradoxically, this space is full of life, and then those children who have made death the finest argument of life. Sabra and Shateela is the place where life is exalted as much as death is glorified.

In Search of Hope: Climate Displacement in Bangladesh

admin — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 13:00:21 +0000

Located in the corner of southern Asia, bordering between India and Burma. The people of Bangladesh bear witness to the continued destruction that climate change is having on their densely populated country every day. Communities in this poverty stricken, low-lying country have experienced the destruction of two Cyclones in the last five years, this region is prone to severe flooding from glacier melting from the Himalayas coupled with seasonal Monsoon rains. Each year thousands of people are uprooted and forced to take refuge in makeshift shelters along the embankments throughout the country as they seek to escape the wrath of Mother Nature. With the Kyoto agreement reaching its expiration date at the end of 2012 and with global leaders yet to extend the agreement, the future for combatting Climate Change remains unknown. What does remain clear is that communities living on the frontline of Climate Change will continue suffer as the world’s climate becomes even more unpredictable, with rainfall becoming more intense and droughts becoming more extreme. Climate displacement is not a problem for 2030, 2040 or 2050. It is a problem now and one that needs to be addressed with decisive action being taken to provide a solution to these extreme shifts in climate that we all face.

Hungry Heart

admin — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:11:57 +0000

In European Art there is a centuries-old tradition of representation of “cheeky” carnival revelry transgressing all the bounds of decency. But, with all the abundance of holiday spirit around, young people remain hungry for entertainment. The semblance of communications lightness provokes to search more and more pleasure, forgetting themselves. In our days night clubs play the role of carnival, where people are under the influence of night and atmosphere can behave differently from their everyday life. This environment has own hierarchy and distinctive features. Weekly going out for a nightclub is akin to visit to the church at weekends: the place dictates the proper clothes and behavior. The faith that happiness comes on Friday night unites the youth. But even if the merriment is all-consuming there is space for isolation, as there is always a feeling of "feast in times of plague". Youth who loves pleasure and lives with a hunger for unrealizable unending happiness, which could substitute them one-night stand and illusion of general love.

Avoid Naples!

admin — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 02:23:31 +0000

“Naples, Italy must be avoided at all costs by any tourist for any reason. Do not go. Do not even think of going. You will be robbed, mugged, beaten, and perhaps even killed. If you manage to make it out in one piece, you will suffer long term health ailments from exposure to the most polluted environment in Europe. Sodom and Gomorrah was Disneyland as compared to Naples. If you absolutely have to see Capri, Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius ... rent a video!” – Hal Licino My ironically titled series Avoid Naples! blatantly disregards the above admonition. Rather than watching a video while sitting in a comfy chair, I threw myself headlong into the markets, streets, piazzas and subways of this often maligned metropolis. Here, among the boisterous crowds, snarled traffic, rampant graffiti, decaying rubble and endless piles of garbage, I found a vibrant and resilient population. Naples is the most urbanized city in Europe, and its residents spend much of their time in public spaces. As individuals interact with one another and their surroundings, the poetry of the street emerges whenever situations that are unexpected, mysterious, humorous or poignant unfold. A spontaneous gesture, an unusual juxtaposition, a concealed mood or a hidden emotion may suddenly materialize and then vanish in a split-second. Such ephemeral events are often overlooked or quickly forgotten. My intent is to capture these fleeting moments as evocative, richly-layered images that allow each viewer to generate a unique personal narrative. My hope is that these candid photographs will prompt us to pause and reflect on our modern lives. The photos in this series were taken during my wonderful, week-long visit to Naples in April 2011, where I was not robbed, mugged, beaten or killed.

The Edge Effect

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:54:49 +0000

The edge effect rule in ecology: sharp edges between ecosystems are seldom seen, but in transition zones, called ecotones, where environments are more contrasting, biodiversity is higher. The Moscow River exists "backwards": the movement happens outside of it, the life around flows by, avoiding the river as if it was a heterogenous element built in the landscape. It's at the contact points between the river and the life around it where this "biodiversity" appears - new, bizarre behaviorial patterns and cultural strata, as if thrown out on the riverside by the current. There's a small story in every one of them, adding up to create a bigger one. This is an ongoing project, and about half a dozen more spreads will eventually be added.

Happy Dream Train

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:03:21 +0000

Stepan Repin, my great - grandfather from my father’s part had 10 children; the third of them was my grandfather Nikolay, he has already passed away. Because of the breakdown of the URSS accompanied by disintegration, Stepan’s four alive children live now in different villages of Russia and Ukraine. I knew that communication between them was nearly non-existent. Out of curiosity I addressed them to get acquainted and to learn the origin of my family. Victor: the youngest of the brothers. Victor lives in Ukraine, in the village that is about 60 km away from Chernobyl. His youngest son is 25 years old and is coeval of Chernobyl. Nuclear disaster affected him and he feels it with his own body. Nina: the eighth child of Stepan. She has neither husband nor children nor house. That’s why she moves from one of her relatives to another. Lena: The sister of the Nikolay´s wife. One night her husband hit her so hard at the head that Lena, when she woke up, found out that she got blind.

Homeless in London

admin — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 23:23:45 +0000

London is Europe’s largest and most densely populated city, with over 7 million people 8% of which are homeless. A figure that is constantly increasing every year as unemployment rises and government funding becomes scarcer. Homeless in London takes an intimate look at London’s homeless community revealing some of the experiences that the homeless go through on an everyday basis on the streets of London. From Drug addiction to relationships formed on the streets revealing aspects of homelessness normally hidden away from society. We live in a world with seven billion people, yet these people are still alone.

…then you may also like

admin — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:00:03 +0000

Vanguard

admin — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:34:49 +0000

Fifteen years ago, in 1997, I moved with my family from Kazakhstan to Russia, in town Kasli in Chelyabinsk region, and I found myself in class 7A, whose mentor was the director of the school. Specifically, I found myself not just a new place. It was the firing line, where I had to spend five years of painful growing up in conditions of increased demands and expectations. Lessons, elective courses, sports, artistic circles, tourist conventions, dramatics, all academic competitions of the town, district and region, the preparation of school holidays, hiking, swimming and basketball... Faster, higher, stronger, louder — in such a rhythm, almost unable to stop and rest, our class existed up to the graduation from the school. We always had to be at the forefront, ahead of all, in the first place, with the highest scores, with the best results, with the largest number of medals and diplomas. According to our homeroom teacher, it was for preparing us for the best career and life, teaching us to take up. However, working in team competitions and contests, we suffered a complete defeat in personal relationships, and every day of our school life was fraught with alienation, disunity and enmity. In 2012, exactly ten years after graduation, I went back to my school and tried to cope with these memories. The starting point and the operating table for me was another class 7A — new pupils of my former classroom mentor. The only cadet class in Kasli. The first in everything. Named “Vanguard”. Following these 13-year-old boys and girls everywhere, from one competition to another, I've arranged for a trip back in time.

Bridge Back Home

admin — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 11:22:56 +0000

The project “Bridge Back Home” was intended to be a documentary of my grandparents’ daily life, to record how they take care of each other in every trivial ways and to celebrate their marriage over half a century, but in the end, it is something else and indefinable. My 83-year-old grandma got dementia. We’ve discovered this in 2009 but at the beginning, except for forgetting things easily and murmuring things beyond our understanding from time to time, she was no different from a normal elderly. However, when I actually began the shooting in late 2010, things have changed dramatically. Within a year, the disease took over totally. She forgot how to walk, became incontinent and had gone from wheelchair-ridden to bedridden. One evening I peeked from the door when my mum was cleaning her body, when the smelly feces poured out from the bottom on her legs. My mum was freaked out and I felt a strong sense of powerlessness and shame. Neither my image nor I can do anything to help. Later my grandma was sent to hospital. We visit her everyday but she has forgotten us all: my 88-year-old grandpa who has spent 55 years with her, my mum who is her only child and me who is brought up by her and has been living together for over two decades. This is the hardest thing for us to accept. We bring her meals and fruit puree, stroke her face and comb her hair, but many a time she doesn’t even open her eyes. We feel a lack of meaning. Then I bring in the camera and the shooting becomes a therapy for my family, which I sense is helping us to accept the reality and communicate with each other. Actually, it has been some time since I first felt difficult to communicate with my family. I do have the heavy and beautiful feeling of home and am grateful, but I am not understood. Especially with my mum, I feel as if we were in different spaces though physically we are together. Now, the time spent in my grandma's ward is the rare occasion that we are connected emotionally. We share the same concern for my grandma and the same happiness when she responds to our calling. The camera witnesses and enhances this link and becomes the bridge between my family and me.

Black noodle soup

admin — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:16:39 +0000

Black Day (April 14, a.k.a. Unit Solo/Solo Regiment, lee: 솔로부대) is informally when single South Koreans get together and eat Jajangmyeon (짜장면 – white Korean noodles with black bean sauce). Black Day doesn’t apply to me, as I am not Korean, but I wanted to explore this idea of singledom, of being alone and an alien in this country. This project evolved intuitively while I was visiting Seoul for the first time. I felt like a stranger in this city, and the divergence between the rapidly developing culture and me is, I hope, reflected in this body of work. I wanted to engage with the culture and yet I was an outsider; these photographs were born as a result of this dichotomy. The people and places I photographed had a superficial familiarity and yet were unknowable to me. I wanted to use photography to get to know them, and in the process I discovered a subtle connection between this place and myself.

An old couple in Beijing

admin — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:39:33 +0000

In Beijing I had the pleasure of meeting an old couple living in a small house that they built themselves near DaZhaLan Street. At first I only wanted to take a picture of a typical small Hutong house in Beijing. Then an old woman picks me up, talked a lot of Chinese, which I could not understand, and shows me the circumstances of her poor life in Beijing and urged me to take pictures. I followed this couple a few days and then I met their son. He could speak English and told me the story of Liangsheng Zhang (72) and his wife Tunqin Wang (61). His parents have lived for 15 years in a house they built themselves, smaller than a prison cell in Germany. During the Cultural Revolution the government expropriated the property of Mr. Zhang’s grandfather. So the couple lost their own house, which the grandfather promised them after his death, and had to move in to a rental flat. But 15 years ago Mr. Zhang had a slight stroke and has not be able to work since then. So they had to build their own small house, which finally has electricity and water since two year ago. They have been trying to get back their own house, which is also just an old Hutong edifice, but they cannot find proof that they are the owners.

Reflections in Transit

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 03:08:44 +0000

This series focuses on the main system of public transportation in Bogota Colombia: the rapid bus transit Transmilenio. Carrying over 1,400,000 people daily the 1,500 buses can get extremely overcrowded especially at peak times. Despite the physical proximity to strangers, the experience on the bus is often one of introspection and solitude. Most people read books, listen to music, or stair out the window avoiding interactions with their fellow bus passengers. These images seek to depict this disconnect our physical reality and increasingly interior worlds: reflections turn into windows to new worlds; shadows isolate solemn, fragmented faces; public space becomes estranged and foreign. As over 50% of the worlds population now lives in cities, mobility becomes a more important issue than ever. How do we move people efficiently, safely, cheaply, and in an environmentally friendly way?

Salt

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 07:16:22 +0000

Global warming seems to have more severe impact on certain countries than others because of the way it affects the world climate. An immediate effect of global warming is the increased natural disasters like storm surge and flood, while sea level rise is a slow, yet inevitable process. Bangladesh, the largest delta of the world is an obvious victim of global warming. An increase in natural disasters like cyclone and oceanic tidal waves are affecting the coastal area of Bangladesh. The coastal lowlands of this country are inhabited by millions of people who, ironically, are dependent on the sea for their livelihood. Thus, Bangladesh is one of the scapegoats of climate change, a direct function of global warming. Low lying coastal areas of Bangladesh are speculated to be submerged due to sea level rise as the world temperature continues to go up. This situation is worsened by immediate natural calamities like cyclones and tidal floods. Two recent cyclones, Sidr (2007) and Aila (2009) totally devastated the coastal territory of Satkhira, Barguna, Patuakhali, Khulna, and Bagerhat. Gabura, a region adjacent to Sundarbans of Satkhira district, stands as the epitome of how dreadful the effects of climate change could be. Cyclone Aila hit Gabura on 27 May, 2009, and claimed 330 lives on its way while 8,208 or more remain missing till date. The storm wiped away natural resources and shelters, leaving 1 million people homeless. Health officials in Bangladesh confirmed a deadly outbreak of diarrhea on 29 May 2009, with more than 7,000 people being infected and four deaths. In Bangladesh, an estimated 20 million people were at risk of post-disaster diseases due to Aila. Damage totaled a shocking figure of 552.6 million USD. As the rising sea levels and unusually high tidal waves encroach the lowlands of Bangladesh, the coastal areas face increased salinity. In dry season, when the flows of upstream water reduce drastically, the saline water goes up to 240 kilometers inside the country and reaches distant regions. Agricultural activities as well as cropping strength have been changed; now farmers are unable to grow various crops in a year. Food and work opportunities are getting reduced. An additional factor that helps continuous sustentation of salinity in main land is shrimp cultivation – an activity which involves trapping sea water in the agricultural lands for a long time. The Sundarbans is the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world. 60 percent of Sundarbans is shared in Bangladesh, covering major parts of Satkhira and Khulna districts while the rest of it lies in West Bengal of India. Sundarbans works as the shock absorber of natural disasters in the coastal regions of Bangladesh, partially protecting the communities from the surge of tidal waves and gust of cyclone. However, as agricultural lands continue to diminish, a lot of people are being forced deeper into the jungle for procuring livelihood by means like honey or firewood collection. This makes them victim of deadly Royal Bengal Tigers, which often break into the nearby localities, too. These unfortunate fortune seekers are also often kidnapped by pirates roaming inside Sundarbans. This cascade of events triggered by climate change robbed the coastal community of Bangladesh off their right to live a solvent and peaceful life. Hope is what keeps us alive, but it is not possible to avoid the harsh reality. A lot of these people turned into what we call ‘climate refugees’. Many moved to nearest cities and many of them trespassed the Bangladesh-India border at the Bay of Bengal. A silent climate migration is going on. The fairy tale of the king and his daughter teaches us that everything becomes tasteless without salt, even love. However, for the climate refugees, this is definitely not the case. ‘Salt’ is what made their life simply bitter, salt is the tragedy what they are left with; on their lands and in their tears. It is never too late to take the proper action. A significant number of national and international policies must be directed towards mitigating the effects of climate change on the lives of the people. Small countries like Bangladesh must be provided with adequate international support so that they can rehabilitate the affected people and protect their coastal resources. Otherwise, an ominous change in the landscape of human civilization will be inevitable.

Month of Silence

admin — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:47:09 +0000

We started of as bed buddies, we became good friends and now we are 'we'. After a while it started to become confusing because we didn't know how to define the situation, nor what we felt, and whether or not we should still see each other. I decided to record this period by means of photo's in order to get more grip on what was going on. The more I shot, the worse it made me feel. I am fucked up, but not as bad as he is.

Through the Villages

admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:36:06 +0000

Us Alone

admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:58:42 +0000

These portraits of young couples living together in Paris, London and Brighton are a departure from the traditional image of the happy, loving couple within vernacular photography and instead address the hidden, melancholy moments of coexistence. I looked into the lives of others to understand how people relate on an intimate level when living side by side, day by day, by exploring the disparity between each partner striving for personal freedom and identity, alongside the need to act as part of a whole in creating a shared and unified reality. Entering the homes of real couples, I asked them to be part of a story, to narrate a moment within two lovers’ lives when the communication falters and the unity separates. I photographed the sadness, the tension, the boredom which can be present in all couples’ lives at some point. They are actors within their own lives, playing out scenarios from my personal experiences and imagination. I grew up with the illusion that being in love was the ultimate answer. This project was my quest for understanding and chance for others to glimpse into hidden worlds which may reflect their own.

Vodun, trying to grasp the ungraspable

admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 01:19:14 +0000

"Instead of regarding 'primitive religion' as compensation for and antagonistic to a true understanding of the physical universe, it might be useful to assume that such religious systems propose ideas which are essentially correct and in harmony with the true nature of the physical universe." – Maya Deren These thoughts closely echo my own sentiments. For years I have been intrigued by native spirituality as for me they hold answers on how to connect with our own true nature. Since my first travels to Cuba in 2002, 2005 and 2008 I deeply got interested in African diasporic traditions like Santéria and Condomble and especially in Vodun, a subject that I have researched for years. 'Vodun, trying to grasp the ungraspable' is a series photographed during my stay with a Vodun family in Benin last year. Curious to dig deeper at the origin of many diasporic traditions in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil and New Orleans I immersed myself in the Beninese culture and spent time with some families in Ouidah, considered the capital of Vodun in West Africa. From my experience and encounters, and especially the participation in spirit possession ceremonies, were born this photo series and a video documentary. I lived with the 'Hounongan Zanzan Zinho Kledjé' family who adheres the Gambada fetish or the serpent spirit, the basis of the well-known Damballah cult in Haïti. In Vodun and related African diasporic traditions a primordial way to obtain a spiritual experience is by being possessed by the Iwa or spirit. Through spirit possession the devotee and cult spirit become one. The members seem to immerse themselves in a hypnotic trance until one of the spirits starts to inhabit a dancing body. Especially during possession, the identity of the spirit is clearly discernible. A silent and quiet person may become flamboyant and dramatic, dancing with grand gestures. I was fortunate to encounter and document this intense experience. During a ceremony I witnessed the individual trance of two devotees. The numerous uncontrollable muscle spasms, vocalizations and peculiar eye gazes showed me this was an unfeigned event. I found it essential to strengthen this photographic essay by filming and it is my goal to continue my photographic quest and therefore enable a deeper understanding by challenging the inaccurate sensational character often perceived by the West. I wanted to document the experience of the people and attentively focused on that aspect. What happened to them during the trance states? How did they behave? Is this a genuine experience? What impact did this ceremony have on them? How do I perceive the devotees before, during and after? What effect does this have on me? There was so much going on, so I stayed very close but at the same time tried not to intrude or obstruct. First of all, photography is my way of introspection and understanding. Intensely enjoying the process of meeting and portraying people or documenting certain issues is the most important drive. Being sensitive to people means wanting to meet them on a more profound personal level and immersing in their daily life and personal habitat. The social character of the photographic process is the key to widen your own reference frame and that of your audience.

Opening Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 Exhibition

alrik — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:21:14 +0000

Opening Viewbook PhotoStory Exhibition 2010 from Viewbook on Vimeo.

On December 9th we celebrated the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 winners and opened the exhibition in the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam. Luis Lazo from France and Russian Daria Tuminas were there to receive their prizes. It was great to meet and have a drink with them as well as many other contenders, Viewbook users and the people from GUP Magazine and Blurb. The photo’s are on Facebook and there’s a full screen album

Honorable Mentions 2010

alrik — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:09:54 +0000

The following photographers have received a Honorable Mention from the 2010 PhotoStory jury:

Documentary

Live with unexpected reality by K. M. Asad
Love and War by Guillaume Simoneau
Top of the World by Christian Kryl
Into Oblivion by Maja Daniels
Merry-Go-Round by Alexey Vanushkin
Losjes en Blosjes by Elke Lannoo
Small Concrete Boxes: Inside China’s Zoos by M. Scott Brauer
Shanghai: Lost Identity by Víctor Garrido
The Great Mother by Giulio Di Sturco
A certain percentage of water by Ruben Snitslaar
Apuane by Joakim Kocjancic
Borderline by Jean-Christophe Guillaume
Russian Alternative by Pavel Prokopchik
Tibet Today by Marieke ten Wolde

Conceptual
Tribes by Lucia Herrero
Over Floral Bedspreads by Kelly Puleio
Plateaus of the Mind by Kylie Woon
Kasi by Joel Suganth J
Somebody or Nobody? by Jesper Petersson
De slapende arm by Marlous van der Sloot
The Swimmers by Carla Liesching
The Lurkers by Stacy Kranitz
Return by Sylvia de Swaan

Opening Winners Exhibition, Dec 9th in Amsterdam

alrik — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:17:02 +0000

We welcome you to the opening of the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 exhibition, to celebrate the winning photographic narratives of this year’s event! You are invited to enjoy the remarkable photo stories of Daria Tuminas and Luis Lazo with drinks on the house. Feel free to take a friend. The opening is Thursday December 9th 18:00 - 22:00 at the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam. We hope to see you then!

To let us know you will join, just click RSVP

The Facebook event page

Kahmann Gallery
Lindengracht 35
1015 KB Amsterdam
www.kahmanngallery.com

Announcing Jury Prize Winners

alrik — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:50:56 +0000

We are honored to announce the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 winners! The second annual Viewbook PhotoStory contest has been won by Daria Tuminas and Luis Lazo with remarkably strong photographic narratives. Naturally the jury had a very difficult task selecting the best works out of the 500 already pre-selected photo stories.

Russian photographer Daria Tuminas has won the documentary category with an intimate story titled ‘Ivan and the Moon’ about two brothers who live in a remote village in the North of Russia. They differ from city teenagers a lot - have completely other moral values and live in a fairy tale like world: go hunting and fishing, know joiner’s chisel and play with ghosts at abandoned places. In this ongoing project Daria wants to show the mysteriousness of these brothers world.

Luis Lazo from France has won first prize in the conceptual category with a very subtle and poetic story titled ‘All That You Leave’. Jury member Ernesto Bazan says; “The images in this story are soulful, placid moments where the words of the late great Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa come to mind:” “Poetry is everywhere, in the earth and in the sea, in the lakes and in the rivers. . . . There is poetry in this table, in this paper, in this inkpot.”

Both artists won an exhibition in the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam, a lifelong subscription to a Viewbook Pro website account, GUP magazine subscription, a custom designed book published by Blurb and various other publications.

The winning series can be viewed on www.viewbookphotostory.com.

Other prizes
The following artists have also been commended in the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 contest:

Jury Prizes
2nd Prize-documentary: EXODUS by Vincent Elkaim
3rd Prize-documentary: IN RAMALLAH I CAN BREATHE by Guy Martin
2nd Prize-conceptual: A PORTRAIT OF AMERICA LEFT BEHIND by Brandon Schulman
3rd Prize-conceptual: FATALISTIC TENDENCY Tushikur Rahman

Public voting prizes
1st Prize-documentary: THE FLIGHT by Imran Ahmed
2nd Prize-documentary: LET THE WORLD KNOW THAT WE STILL DO IT WITH OUR HANDS by Thanasis Lomef Zacharopoulos
3rd Prize-documentary: THE EMPTY HOUSE by Gianluca Cecere

1st Prize-conceptual: WU XING by Laura Petreike
2nd Prize-conceptual: DROWNING BRIDE by Dwi Anoraganingrm
3rd Prize-conceptual: RESET by Julia Katharina Ziegler

Book publications
All jury prize winners will be published in the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 yearbook. December 2010 The books will be available for sale at www.viewbookphotostory.com and the Blurb online bookstore.

Exhibition
From 9 - 19 December the winning works IVAN AND THE MOON by Daria Tuminas and ALL THAT YOU LEAVE by Luis Lazo will be exhibited in the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam. The opening takes place on Thursday December 9th, with words and drinks on the house. More information will be available soon on www.viewbookphotostory.com

The public voting closed at 12AM Amsterdam time.

alrik — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:03:22 +0000

The public voting closed today at 12AM Amsterdam time. The public prize winners are:

Documentary

1st Imran Ahmed (1419 votes)
2nd Thanasis Lomef Zacharopoulos (1418 votes)
3rd Gianluca Cecere (1411 votes)

Conceptual

1st Laura Petreike (1150 votes)
2nd Dwi Anoraganingrm (866 votes)
3rd Julia Katharina Ziegler (482 votes)

Congratulations! We will contact you soon.

The Jury prize winners will be announced later today.

3 days left to vote

alrik — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:29:32 +0000

There are three days left to vote for your favorite photo story. November 5th at 12AM Amsterdam time the public voting will close. Parallel to the public voting the jury reviewed all series for the more weighty part of the competition. The jury prize winners will be announced on November 5th.

Pre-screening 2010 submissions

alrik — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:10:38 +0000

We are in the process of pre-screening last month’s 751 submissions for the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 contest. It’s very different viewing and screening stories build up of series of images, as opposed to single images. The extra dimension that series of images have, results in an exponentially growing diversity of idea’s, angles and concepts, which are more often discovered between the images than in the images itself. It requires deep concentration and an unprejudiced mind to perceive. Sometimes it’s difficult to empathize with truths of other cultures, where religion, humor and value’s are so very different to our Western culture.

Looking at each submission we ask ourselves; is this a story, a coherent narrative? Is there enough consistency in photographic quality throughout the series? The ones that meet these requirements are published on the website and run in the contest. All together the level of entries this year is remarkably high and to make a rough estimate, about 60 percent seems to pass the pre-screening.

All pre-screened stories have just been published on the website. The long lists will be sent to the judges tomorrow and the public voting started today. We also started the preparations for the books and exhibition. November 5th the winners will be announced.

Public voting open October 6th

alrik — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:34:32 +0000

Because of the enormous amount of submissions the pre-screening and publishing takes another day. The public voting will open on Wednesday October 6th.
An e-mailing will be send out to all participants as soon as the public voting opens.

Submissions for 2010 are closed.

alrik — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:48:03 +0000

The submissions for the Viewbook PhotoStory 2010 contest closed at October 1st 12PM. The incredible amount of submissions that have been submitted the last days will be pre-screened and published the coming week. On October 5th the public voting will start and the Jury will start the judging process.

Through

admin — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 00:33:44 +0000

The Religious Triangle - Jerusalem 2010

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:59:19 +0000

Black tide under a burning sun

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:58:25 +0000

Sukhumvit Road

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:31:51 +0000

The Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok is perhaps the most commercially important and most highly frequentated road of Thailand’\'s capital. Only in the core of Bangkok the length amounts more than 10km. Further It snakes its way 400 km turning to East, near to the border of Cambodia.Furthermore this road represents one of three „Royal Roads“, which connect all areas of Thailand with each other. Along this road the huge number of cars produce a neverending traffic jam even on late night. This important street reflects nearly every characteristics of Bangkok:Traditional, countrified as soon as modern, industrial forms of life in Bankok are directly clashing. Besides Tuk-Tuk-drivers with their vehicles characterising Bangkok’s cityscape, one of the most modern of the world, the „Sky-Train“ winds through Bangkok. Mega shoppingmalls standing next to several self-build shops on wheels.Modernity and tradition, rich and poor are encounting each other like nearly nowhere in Bangkok.The following \"road story\" is telling you about the daily life of people living and working on that multifarious road: These pictures capture the contrasts, the grit, the pace and above all the people, motorcycletaxidrivers, stickersellers, jasminflower producers, western tourists or storytellers.

A Period of USA History (1967-2008)

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:14:29 +0000

When I prepared narrations for my photo book project, On Their Sites: Landscapes with Private Monuments, the pieces sometimes lined themselves up and create another bigger narrative as these six pieces are doing here. This six-frame story is an archive of a period of United States’ contemporary history.A boy fighting in 1967 grew to be a CIA boss later; an enthralled reader on 9/11 encountered more of the unexpected afterward; a Staten Island young man died in Gartan, Iraq, in 2004; a stowaway was saved by Saddam Hussein’s execution in 2006; then, people in the city of luxury learnt to differentiate between an accident and an attack, when a Wall Street businessman could not explain his odd uneasiness on a morning bus.To me, this story scans people off a ground zero for strewn shallow scratches and auras, revealing graduations the course of history left on everyday life of individuals.In the project I used 4\"x5\" film, deep depth of field, nonhierarchical composition and brightened midtones to simulate the look of uneventful lives.

Kurds and Turks

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:05:56 +0000

In Ramallah I Can Breathe

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:38:10 +0000

Ramallah, the de-facto capital of the Occupied Palestinian West Bank, is home to a growing, educated and secular youth. After years of economic stagnation, Israeli military incursions and poor infrastructure, this once occupied city is coming back to life.Ramallah\'s youthful population, that were too young or innocent to get involved in the iconic martyr\'s funerals, stone throwing or call to arms at the beginning of the new millennium, are now coming of age in a culture surrounded by Americana, tourism and relaxed western attitudes to a myriad of Islamic sins; alcohol, sex and relationships.Mona Ennab, a 24 year old Muslim woman and a Ramallah local, is one of those taking advantage of this city\'s new freedoms. She has become one of the famous faces on the West Bank\'s growing street-car racing scene, that stretches across the battle scarred towns of Jenin, Nablus and Hebron. Here she competes against macho Palestinian men and trains in the gaze of Israeli military watchtowers.The project focuses on Mona\'s daily life as she tries to live somewhere on the bridge between the Palestinian culture she and her family respects, and the modern, secular lifestyle she so loves and desires.

Nachtgestelle

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:35:50 +0000

This series is about hunter’s perches in Germany. I am struck by their architectural variety and their inherent beauty. On the other hand, there is something uncanny in these towerlike constructions, especially at night. The series is photographed in winter to keep the pictures free from any distracting details.I was inspired by the school of New Objectivity (Bernd and Hilla Becher and their pupils). As the Bechers did in their work with water towers or framework houses, I used a standardizing, graphical approach for the series. I opted for color photography in order to better grasp the emotional value of the objects.

Egypt

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:05:20 +0000

This series was created in April, 2010. It depicts the life of two large tourist centers of Egypt, Sharm el-Sheikh and Cairo. Great mass of locals in these cities are involved in tourist service industry. Most vacationers consider locals mostly as attendants, whose private life is of no interest for them. Nevertheless, their life goes on, it is unique, full of emotions and attractive in its own way. I\'ve made an attempt to show these rare instants, in which this life comes to surface and becomes visible to a foreigner.

Exodus

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:04:52 +0000

Moroccan Jewish history began over 2000 years ago. Protected under the Islamic Principle of Tolerance, Jews flourished, holding high positions in trade and Government. The Star of David was a symbol shared by all Moroccans, appearing on currency and even the national flag. During the Holocaust, when asked for a list of Jews, King Mohammed V declared, “We have no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.” Jews and Muslims were united by culture and kingdom.Following World War II, Zionists recruiters targeted Moroccan Jews to populate the new State of Israel. Israel’s expansion marked the beginning of the Moroccan Jewish exodus. Though 300 000 Jews inhabited Morocco as of 1940, less that 4000 remain today.What remains is a Jewish past nearly abandoned, fragments of Morocco’s Jewish culture left under the protection of Muslim guardians devoting their lives to a history that isn’t even their own, yet entirely is. Amidst breathtaking landscapes are holy saints, abandoned relics and sacred spaces. Within these spaces are pilgrims, desperately seeking to identify with what remains.This work represents a journey into the void left by this cultural exodus while revealing a history of co-existence, sacrificed in the wake of Zionism.

Fictional Cape Town

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:58:14 +0000

Cape Town has a surprisingly large film industry. It’s not like Bollywood or Nollywood (Nigeria), where homegrown stories dominate. Most shoots are in fact advertisements for foreign companies selling everything from chewing gum to yogurt (the favorable exchange rate, the sunny climate, the wide variety of locations within close distance added to the shared English language make it worth the long trip to the tip of Africa). What is fascinating is that these companies turn corners of Cape Town into European, British or American scenes: a typical wine farm can be turned into a Dutch homestead, or a Long Street cafe can become a Parisian bistro for a day or two.The work documents the way the industry semi-colonises slices of the city. The images, crooked landscapes of a crooked place, play with the friction between reality and fiction while portraying the area with both humor and marvel. I would like to think they approach issues such as the outrageous world of advertising and new forms of colonization.At first, I thought of this project in photo-journalistic terms. My idea was to treat this subject as a protest,music gig or any real event, only to document what was set up for the other cameras in a straight-forward manner. However, the lines between the fiction and the backstage quickly started to blur before my lens. This allowed me to work towards something a little less systematical and I hope more poetic. I would like people to scrutinize the pictures long enough to try to make sense of what there is to see and imagine what scenarios could occur.I accompany the pictures with factual captions to open interesting discussions about landscape, national identity and collective imagery.

Colourless Days

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:53:17 +0000

I created this story while working in a sales department at a plant that produced soft drinks. I spent 8 hours 5 days a week at the office. My day began at 9 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m. Every day was the same.In this series I tried to depict colourless and absurd atmosphere inside the office, where people do things they doesn’t really care about or do nothing at all. All surroundings - furniture, office machines, things in working places, walls, even light, make the atmosphere more strange and depressing.

Iquitos | Amiudal Part 1

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:39:45 +0000

Iquitos, city in the northwest of Peru, on the banks of the Amazon River. It has more than 400.000 inhabitants.Amiudal, small village in the interior of Galicia, in the northwest of Spain. It has over 300 inhabitants.Emigrate, said of a person, family or people: Leave one’s country of residence for a new one.Emigration is the nexus between Iquitos and Amiudal. At the end of the 19th Century, hundreds of Galician families set off on a trip to America, in search of lands where living were easier. Epidemics and hunger made that living in Galicia were really tough. After trying their luck in several Brazilian cities, a small group of Galicians got to Iquitos attracted by its profitable rubber industry.I first traveled to the capital of the Peruvian Amazonia in 2008. I met Captain Iglesias in his Henry 7, a boat that travels from Pucalpa to Iquitos. His grandparents met on the ship that linked the Galician cost with Brazil. He was the first descendant of Galicians I stroke up a friendship with. Then, I met the sisters Florinda and Rosa Graña, whose uncle Alfonso Graña went into the rainforest and became the King of the Jibaros. I visited Mosquera bookshop, founded by Cesar Mosquera, the owner of the first car on Iquitos streets. I talked with descendants of the Fortes, who own a hostel in Raymondy Street. I visited the Barcias, whose rubber workers ancestors exploited large extensions of rainforest. All of them descendants of Galicians.Iquitos|Amiudal is a return journey. Traveling from Iquitos to Amiudal on the same means of transport used by many Galician families. Navigate the Amazon River on “lanchas”, the boats that transport passengers and goods along the great river. Crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner. From the Amazonian rainforest to the Galician mountains.CalendarPart 01 - 2008/2010, from Iquitos to Tabatinga. CompletedPart 02 - 2011, from Tabatinga to Santarem. In pre-productionPart 03 - 2011/2012, from Santarem to Amiudal via Atlantic Ocean

Havana

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:32:46 +0000

Like something for porno

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:27:20 +0000

Sex is one of the greatest taboos of modern society but only in internet, we can write \"sex\" and appear millions of results. The concept that people have about sex is depending on age, education, culture, family background, experience, etc.For centuries it was considered that sex should perform the function of procreation and nothing else. Although this type of message is changing and indeed, there is greater freedom, the shadow of sin and guilt. However, many people have tried to focus on the positive aspects of sexual activity and can see sex as something enjoyable and fun, as an opportunity to approach the couple and create greater intimacy.This project is a documentary done in places where humans come into contact with each other and are capable of inhibitions of all their prejudices, without suffering in silence their doubts about sexuality.