Category Archive

Influential photographer Martin Parr has presented a list of inspiring photography books, published in 2007 (The Sunday Times, 2 Dec 2007). His focus on monographs, artistic creativity, originality and small independent photography publishers distinguishes by far his list from other similar ones appearing these days (such as The Guardian’s poor fixation with fashion and ‘national geographic’ aesthetic, no link provided!).

So here’s what Martin Parr has singled out:

• Hackney Flowers by Stephen Gill, is Martin’s favourite book of the year and Gill’s fourth book on his neighborhood area. He has collected various discarded photos found in the local flea market and combined these with some of his own images interspersed with ones of pressed flowers and berries, also derived from Hackney. View one of these photos at the left or the whole fascinating work in the artist’s website here.

• The Genius of Photography by Gerry Badger, a book written to accompany the BBC series, presents a comprehensive account of the complexities and history of photography. It examines the wider, social, political, economic, technological and artistic context of its evolution.
• I’m a Real Photographer by Keith Arnatt, a highly respected conceptual artist of the 60s and 70s, who changed direction and the following decades concentrated on working in obscurity as a photographer. This book tells the story of this journey in 19 series of photographs. Each series features prosaic subject matter - his dogs, the local rubbish tip, everyday objects photographed in his studio, notes that his wife Jo left for him - exploring the conventional with a distinct edge and humor. Seen together, for the first time, the threads and themes of Arnatt’s work connect to make a coherent statement about the act of photography and its relationship to the history of art, as well as produce a moving and profound documentary of everyday life.
• The Mother of All Journeys by Dinu Lee, maps the journey of the photographer’s mother from Hong-Kong to Manchester and reconstructs her memories after several intervening decades. A sensitive and emotional work about personal experience, diaspora, and the gap between memory and reality. Read more and see photos in my review of the exhibition in Leeds here.
• Welcome to Pyongyang by Charlie Crane, is a collection of formal looking portraits of a huge range of people from North Corea, after the photographer managed to get the blessing of the authorities with the help of a tour guide and local guides. But as Martin Parr points out, that these guides were later invited to write the captions and they have composed them in true propaganda style, is what gives this book its edge.

• A China Chronicle by Zeng Li, is a documentation of contemporary China. Zeng Li comes from Liuzhou, Guangxi, and is a well known stage designer working for theatre and film productions. The photographs deal with a country being transformed in one of the most dramatic building booms in history. Documenting change and visually preserving a quickly disappearing urban fabric is the main theme of the book. “My wish is to become an author of ‘images’ and to construct an image ‘museum’ archiving and presenting our history of today and yesterday writes Zeng Li in the book’s introduction. (For a similar historical approach see Sze Tsung Leong’s work in this blog here). Hutong lanes, standardized blocks of flats, factories and polluted rivers resist the ideals of the country’s tourist board, or give way to soaring residential towers and glittering shopping malls. This book shows “what China really looks like now” according to Martin Parr.

• A Shimmer of Possibility by Paul Graham, a British documentary photographer now living in America. The images “depict a slightly downbeat view of America, and tantalisingly, very little appears to be happening” writes Martin Parr. He goes on that this is a bold and successful attempt to rewrite the rules of documentary and the ways that photographs are presented, by a very innovative photographer.

• In England by Don McCullin, a photojournalist who began as a dyslexic child with talent in drawing -growing in London’s poor areas, and established a career scattered with amazing stories, such as having his life saved by his Nikon camera stopping a bullet intended for him. He became well-known recording war-zones and humanitarian catastrophes, such as the Vietnam War, the conflict in Ireland and the AIDS epidemic. In 1982, his work was considered so powerful and evocative that the British Government refused to grant him a press pass to cover the Falklands War. In an interview given in 1987 he announced his change of direction: “I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don’t practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: ‘I didn’t kill that man on that photograph, I didn’t starve that child.’ That’s why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace.” The book combines forty years of shooting, iconic early images with shooting from 2006, which highlight his thematic return to the cities and landscape he knew as a young photographer. In the introduction McCullin points out his fading away “tolerance or stamina to continue much longer… I am not at the end of my work, but I’m close to the limits of what I can accomplish.” And he continues ‘This is not the England of 1955 … there are new phenomena sweeping the land: obesity, selfishness and the hand gestures and postures of the young that I cannot understand.” It is interesting, however, how many of these new images could have been taken thirty years ago and that McCullin’s lens shows us, with humor and lyricism, a perpetuating and clearly defined social division between the affluent and the impoverished. Martin Parr remarks, “black and white, grainy images of people at either end of the wealth spectrum offer an almost cartoon like rendition of the English”.
• An American Index of The Hidden and Unfamiliar by Taryn Simon, presents photographs from strange places, such as the missile-control centre on the USS Nevada and the death-row cage at Mansfield correction institution. These are places which normally we would never see in person unless we are in some big trouble, writes Martin Parr.
  
• Nein, Onkel (Snapshots from Another Front 1938-1945) edited by Timothy Prus and Ed Jones, is an archive of war imagery and specialises in snapshots taken by soldiers. This compilation shows Nazis having parties, dressing up and generally entertaining themselves in ways that we have not customarily associated with Nazis, thus questioning our assumptions of evil.
• Fashion Magazine by Alec Soth, who is the third Magnum photographer (after Martin Parr and Bruce Gilden) to produce the agency’s annual ‘Fashion Magazine’, with this one entitled Paris Minnesota. Here Soth explores the world of French high fashion and photographs ‘high-style’ Parisians as well as the ‘gentle folk’ of Minessota in the latest creations. (Notably, similar space is devoted to photos of winter snow across a JC Penney parking lot). The juxtaposition and contrast is what makes this compilation irresistible. “What is interesting is the space between us” writes Alec Soth about his work Paris Minnesota. A wider view of this portfolio can be found here, accompanied by two interviews. In one of those, Alec Soth talks about his out of desparation, but hugely successful, approach in creating advertisements. He acquired various top brand items which he planted in the landscape inviting the viewer to engage in a Where’s Wally game. For Martin Parr, these are the most ‘oblique’ advertisements you’ll ever encounter, differentiating themselves from the pretence world of fashion industry, which would never hold your attention for so long.
• Magnum, Magnum, is a huge tom celebrating the 60th anniversary of the famous co-operative photo agency, in which Martin Parr is a member. Interestingly, the photographers have chosen to select not their own but other members’ photos for presentation, writing also the commentary. As Martin Parr points out, the book weighs 6.5 kilos and costs £95 which works out at £14.62 per kilo: about the same price as cod.

Part One

‘Beware of trains’ by Christos Stavrou © 2007

I have received a comment about this picture: “It’s very interesting how you make all these pretty colours seem strange and threatening. Combined with a cryptic message like this the effect is even more striking.”

Sometimes, I wonder loudly about the meanings of a photograph. Here, I recognise the muted primary colours which enhance uncomfortable feelings and a vantage point that sets the viewer in a precarious position. But was it really that, the psychological state described in the comment above, what I have tried to communicate? Maybe, but yet, is it only or exactly that which lies beneath and above the making of this image, before and after its showing? It seems futile this effort to pinpoint a unique and accurate meaning. It’s unnecessary. After all, and so often, people come with comments about my photos which surprise me, which without being foreign to what I have already sensed, they do express a reality even richer than my own initial comprehension.

So, if all is about various interpretations in the minds of the viewers, I need to ask: Is what really matters - in the end - to find the right people to show your pictures.. those who can, and would, read and decode your images, and even invest new meanings upon them?

And something else, what kind of consequences do we face now, all of us making what is called documentary photography? What about those old debates and struggles between self-expression and objectivity?

Part Two

“Fish Story” Koreatown, Los Angeles by Allan Sekula © 1992

“I should not have to argue” writes Allan Sekula in his essay Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (1976/78) “that photographic meaning is relatively indeterminate; the same picture can convey a variety of messages under different presentational circumstances. Consider the evidence offered by bank holdup cameras. Taken automatically, these pictures could be said to be unpolluted by sensibility, an extreme form of documentary. If the surveillance engineers who developed these cameras have an esthetic, it is one of raw, technological instrumentality. ‘Just the facts ma’am.’ But a courtroom is a battleground of fictions. What is it that a photograph points to?

A young white woman holds a submachine gun. The gun is handled confidently, aggressively. The gun is almost dropped out of fear. A fugitive heiress. A kidnap victim. An urban guerrilla. A willing participant. A case of brainwashing. A case of rebellion. A case of schizophrenia. The outcome, based on the ‘true’ reading of the evidence, is a function less of ‘objectivity’ than of political maneuvering. Reproduced in the mass media, the picture might attest to the omniscience of the state within a glamorized and mystifying spectacle of revolution and counter-revolution. But any police photography that is publicly displayed is both a specific attempt at identification and a reminder of police power over ‘criminal elements’. The only ‘objective’ truth that photographs offer is the assertion that somebody or something -in this case, an automated camera - was somewhere and took a picture. Everything else, everything beyond the imprinting of a trace, is up for grabs.”

Part three

“The Magnum and Newsweek photographer Luc Delahaye recently declared publicly that he was no longer a photojournalist. He was an artist.” (fromThe Guardian, 31 January 2004)

Who is Luc Delahaye? As implied in this interview, a photographer influenced by the financial and artistic crisis that photojournalism is currently going through. And he searched for control and his own answers, through a range of experiments, tests and self-made questions (which even brought him in opposition with the grand Cartier-Bresson tradition).

“History” Jenin Refugee Camp by Luc Delahaye © 2002

Luc Delahaye first became known for covering wars. However, in 2001 he began the series History, which deals with issues of documentary photography. The latter is all about context; the place it is shown, the way of presentation, the surrounding information. The transmitted message is heavily influenced by such factors. In History, Delahaye intentionally presents traditional themes of documentary photography out of its normal context, thereby questioning their meaning as documents and generally the meaning of photography.

His photographs are enormously enlarged panoramic images of various war zones (see above) and staged historical events -such as conferences and events organised by the communication industries, which are hung in art galleries. Representation and truth become a constant question, although the viewer recognises these photographs as having a historical nature.

Delahaye’s work points out the artifice of photography -even news photography, which is as fictional as painting. It allows us even to think that contemporary historical events may be constructed and run not only for profit but for the media as well. War itself can be seen as such an event in a massive and immoral scale.

After a train trip of about 20 minutes toward the North of England, Leeds’s neighbor and very far cousin city emerges: York. Such different are their social histories of past and present that the return ticket price of £9.10 (an obvious rip off) feels almost justified…

Click here or at the picture above for a link to my photographs from a recent trip to York. It is part, unrefined yet, of a wider photographic project which is currently in progress, about the changing faces of the English North cities and the diverse spirit of experience within them.

All photographs by Christos Stavrou © 2007. All rights reserved.

I know we have almost a whole month until we are to officially celebrate Halloween, on the night of 31st of October, but the shops around us have a different idea. From little tempting chocolates which look like curved pumpkins to headless ’scary’ plastic men, a day’s shopping in downtown Leeds can hardly miss the Halloween commercial frenzy…

Not that the ubiquitous advertising has ever been desperate just for public holidays in order to grab people’s attention. Every case, such as a new club night, seems to demand and justify something impressive.. As far as I know, no the photo below does not show a military coup in Leeds…

But yes, you have probably guessed well, those little Santas and his deers are already out there…

[All images by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved]

Today’s photo comes from a lonely page left behind in the train. (It has become a habit of mine lately to base my interaction with the happenings of this world upon the poetic and ironic powers of chance).

Photograph by Pawan Kumar / Reuters

It is the ‘image of the day’ published in The Times yesterday, October 2 2007. Children dressed as Mahatma Gandhi during celebrations in Lucknow, northern India, marking the 138th anniversary of his birth.

There is something ambivalent and strange that I feel looking at this photo. Maybe it’s about the way that we teach the young generations history and identity, in a ritualistic way that appears too limited, that suddenly reminds for me those words from Genesis, that ‘God created man to his own image’. Or maybe of course we created God in our own image… and now, all the same, we socially reproduce the future too. Amid childish innocence and loughs, we are moulding our own cultural image upon the placid unwritten space of the new generations.

Where all these thoughts lead me… do they mean and imply that culture -despite all the recent celebrations- is (also) a limitation? In particular when culture actually means enforcing a restricted national ‘We’?

Maybe the photo becomes ambivalent and strange for me after all, because it awakens memories of my childhood, being dressed to resemble the national heroes of my own country. It reminds me the absolute faith and pride of those years, although so tarnished and contrasted by the later critical ideas of growing up. And there is still a national ‘we’ that keeps struggling with the critical ‘I’.

Those social rituals, nevertheless, are not fixed-end processes, neither are reduced to a mere self-centered enforcement. They depend on the meanings invested upon them. The Times accompany the photo with Gandhi’s words in bold letters about how to achieve peace: “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

As much as I aspire in the paper’s universalised approach on general peace and the world’s general youths, a quite idealised and harmless approach, so much I think that it misses one further point, maybe a stronger one; and probably it misses it because of its own national bias. Gandhi, as well as my own national heroes who I was dressing up to resemble when I was kid, apart for peace and tolerance, they fought for independence and what this means is mainly freedom.

In 1937 photographer Margaret Bourke-White and Southern novelist Erskine Caldwell published the book ‘You Have Seen Their Faces‘ (Viking Press). It was a collaboration, she made the photographs and he wrote the text, about the rural American South and its troubles, the despair of a ”worn-out agricultural empire” (p.2).

Margaret Bourke-White had already established herself as a skilled industrial photographer, but in the 1930’s adapted to a photojournalistic style and worked in a more socially committed documentary photography.

Margaret and Caldwell received praising but also critical comments. Dorothea Lange who few years later published a similar book about the problems of share-croppers was critical to them for writing the captions themselves rather than quoting the words people actually said.

See for example the picture below. It was accompanied by the caption “McDaniel, Georgia, I get paid very well. A dollar a day when I’m working”

I find amazing that 70 years after the taking of this photograph the caption reveals that we have managed to export our immiserated working-classes abroad. The line still sounds too familiar, although we know that now it doesn’t come from our own national backyard, but some worker in South-East Asia or South America, or elsewhere in the ‘developing world’ whereby our big Western corporations have found fertile ground to produce cheap and cost-effective products.

Nevertheless, important questions about the photojournalistic practice are raised, which remain pertinent today as much as back then: Was their photographic work a type of propaganda and did they exploit their subjects? Ultimately, what is the nature of ‘documentary’ photography?

Is a document, and thus a photographic document, something that states objective facts, or could also be something that helps us understand a human situation emotionally?

Maybe it could help to know the following story, taking place during the making of the ‘You have seen their faces’ book. The story is published in Susan Goldman Rubin’s ‘Margaret Bourke-White‘ (1999, Abrams Inc.).

“Once [Margaret] took a picture of a woman combing her hair at a bureau made out of a wooden box. Before taking the portrait Margaret rearranged the objects on top of the bureau. Afterward, Caldwell scolded her. He told Margaret she should have left everything just the way she found it to reflect the woman’s taste and personality instead of her own. ‘This was a new point of view to me‘ Margaret wrote in her autobiography. ‘I was learning that to understand another human being you must gain some insight into the conditions which made him what he is’ (italics added).

Talal Mohammed, Iraqi news reporter and photographer employed by the Associated Press, was kidnapped on 28 July near Baghdad. He was taken away by masked gunmen after he was stopped at an illegal checkpoint (AP, 7 Aug 2007 and RSF 8 Aug 2007) .

According to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF website, 10 September 2007) the number of journalists and media workers killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003 has reached 201. Two more journalists are missing and 14 are kidnapped.

photo by Geert Van Kesteren, Magnum Photos © www.whymisterwhy.com

Journalists and media workers, whether foreigners or Iraqis, have become key targets in a climate of generalised impunity. The international organisation for press freedom reports some alarming news (RSF, 30 August 2007):

• No war has ever been as deadly for the press as this one since World War II.
  
• About three quarters of the victims (73%) were directly targeted, unlike any previous war, where media workers were usually victims of collateral damage or stray bullets.
• Most of the fatalities of journalists and media workers (88%) are Iraqis.
• These are singled out often because they work for foreign news media. (More than 70 such journalists have been murdered since the war began in 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, AP 7 Aug 2007).
• At the same time, they do not receive the same protection as the foreigner correspondents visiting the country.

photo by Geert Van Kesteren, Magnum Photos © www.whymisterwhy.com

A second Associated Press photographer, Bilal Hussein, is currently in detention in a US military facility, according to British Journal of Photography (22 Aug 2007, p.4). He was imprisoned on 12 April 2006, accused of being a security threat, and since then has not been charged or permitted a public hearing. AP president Tom Curley has been petitioning for his release.

Note here that Bilal Hussein had so far provided the AP and the world with extraordinary photographs, often reporting the viewpoint of the insurgents. However, in a rather dubious response, and despite the full support provided by the AP towards their stringer photojournalist, some public commentators had explicitly attacked him, because they either doubted the veracity of his work, or thought that it was serving ”terrorist propaganda”

One story which I have read by Bilal Hussein, contained shocking, different and critical aspects of the war contrasting the mainstream representation of the war given by the US forces. For example, in this report published by the AP after the US attack in Fellujah in 2004 (click here for full story) Hussein reports the death of civilians, “helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river [...] a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross.”

Yes, I just came back from our own Carnival here in Leeds, tired and smiling… As a friend says, it’s like Notting Hill just better!.. And of course I came back with few photographs to show you as well (please ask written permission for any use)

The history of Leeds West Indian Carnival goes quite back, first initiated in 1967 by a Leeds University student from St Kitts. It was the first Carnival of its kind in Britain.

The Carnival takes places in Chapeltown, a Leeds suburb and centre of the British Afro-Caribbean community, which during the years has experienced a range of social problems and stigma.

It’s probably worth noting here, that until the end of the 60’s racial discrimination in England was institutional and non-white immigrant populations were not allowed to freely participate in the house market.

This was the second time that I visited the Carnival. My pictures and comments from the first time, back in 2001, can be found here in this photo-essay. Back then, I had found it the Carnival of no fun, of hardly anyone smiling… such an ironic contradiction. I was really sceptical, after all, if all this was anything more than a consumerist one-day firework without any real effect in understanding difference and emphasise commonality. I’m not sure how much things have changed. I did feel though that things were more relaxed this time, but maybe for real change we need more time and more work from all of us.

But there was one more reason for my good mood. I found out that ‘Honeydrum’ the music band of some old friends were playing their samba there. Well.. I honestly think that it was one of their best performances including some great dance improvisations!… I do recommend to catch up with them in another festival, you can find more details in their website here.

All images by Christos Stavrou © 2007 All rights reserved (written permission is required before any use)

I emailed this simple question to an old friend of mine in Athens. With some degree of black humor and mostly silent unuttered pain, I have become witness during the last days -through the media- of the ongoing apocalyptic devastation by fires of my other home-country Greece.

Satellite picture by NASA showing the fires in south Greece © Assoc.Press

The extreme heatwave, strong winds and arsonists are blamed. Over fifty people have died, several villages were burnt or keep burning, many other ones are evacuated. Some of the rarest virgin forests in Europe have disappeared for ever and even the ancient city of Olympia, the world’s cultural heritage, is threatened. The Olympia Museum is on fire at this moment, though other updated news say it was finally saved…

Multiple fire fronts across the country, over 100 at some point, have stretched the ability of the authorities to react effectively, whereas many blame it for a spasmodic and delayed reaction. A nationalwide state of emergency is declared. Help from other EU countries, such as France and Italy, is arriving. Anger, fear and tears. Nothing will be the same when this summer and the thick black smoke is gone.

The unprecedented ecological, cultural and economic devastation might be captured in the photos by the Athens News Agency and the Associated Press, such as this above with Athens’s red smoky sky, or the dramatic pictures which follow below. But how can you capture the effect on people who lost their own people, or all of their livelihood, the consequences for all of us in general? Do we really understand what all this means… My thoughts slowly travel not only to those who were tragically trapped by the fire, but also to some of the perished victims, who as it is said, they had refused to move and abandon their beloved houses, their gardens and animals…

And the battle goes on…

I could hear music far off and blurry talks of people gathering through my open window. The wind has been so warm these days and brings with it all the sounds from places that I can’t see. They bounce and echo in the empty walls of my room, I’m packing to move.

When the first dark approached, later that evening, I left the tight walls behind me to search for what was going on in the park of my soon-to-be old neighborhood… Hyde Park in Leeds (Saturday 4 August 2007)

(All rights reserved © 2007 Christos Stavrou)

I woke up this morning to find a strange message… “I wish that the twang didn’t exist.. my apologies if you’re a fan!”

The Twang?.. pardon?… Oh yes, this is a new indie band from Birmingham which I had recently photographed, just few months ago, in a gig here in Leeds and then uploaded those pictures online.

It didn’t take long to find out that there’s quite an impressive polarisation going on about this band right now. On one side, raving critiques for what NME describes as “swaggering, big hearted rock’n'roll mischief from Birmingham.” They write songs, Time Out claims, “better, more exciting and fresher [...] than anyone else.” Just check their myspace profile. By the way, they were hailed by NME as Britain’s best new band And were second in BBC News website’s Sound of 2007.

On the other hand, it also seems that something in their music, or their street-smart lyrics and a reputation for rowdiness have created few.. haters for the ‘Brummie lads’ as well. Well, as frontman Phil Etheridge points out in the BBC website “I ain’t going to sing about rivers, man, I don’t live by a river - I live by a canal and there’s bikes in it” and “we just have a laugh, and obviously sometimes that might be a little bit more rowdy than you and your friends having a dinner party, but it’s only done in jest.”

I remember the gig in Leeds quite well (and that’s already a positive remark). It was fun and enjoyed it. Although, I also remember been convinced at some point that my camera and lenses will meet the end of their short life soon… getting baptised in those flying pints of beer in the air by excited party-goers!… Here’s some photos from The Twang at the Faversham, Leeds, 4 March 2007 (© Christos Stavrou. All Rights Reserved)

The passion and energy shown by frontman Phil Etheridge was captivating. I used a telephoto lens and a high 1600 ISO to capture a glimpse of it (© 2007 Christos Stavrou. All Rights Reserved)

Finally, few tips about shooting music concerts from my personal experience:

• Go early to find a suitable place and view-angle
• Use a lens hood to minimise lens flare and also help your precious glass from fingertips, liquids, etc.
• Being polite and co-operative with the stage-crew might offer you the chance to use some otherwise difficult to access spaces and viewpoints
• Use of high ISO will be essential, either in film or digital equipment. Concert pics with their many dark areas and their uneven lighting demand digital cameras with low noise in high ISOs and a rather high dynamic range. It is recommended, of course, to use fast lenses with large maximum aperture (my lenses used above had maximum aperture 2 and 2.8) to gain as much speed as possible.
• Even if, however, you are stuck with slow lenses, (such as many current zoom-lenses) or your camera’s unworkable high ISOs, you can still achieve adequate results by concentrating at your technique: Use a monopod (which is helpful in any case!) and anticipate the artist’s movement, so that you can click at the right posing moment

Hmm.. and something else which might be helpful to film users. There are many good films out there, especially 400 B&W films, which could be exposed in a higher ISO, such as 1600 giving you at least 2 extra stops of speed. Grain and contrast would be of course affected but the results could be very satisfactory. Extra time in the developing stage will be required to compensate for pushing the film. To find out the exact extra time that is to be applied, as well as appropriate agitation techniques, search the internet or ask the manufacturer for initial info. Nevertheless, practice and experimentation is essential, after which you would be able to create your own charts in order to achieve a desired aesthetic and technical result.

episode I

| View Show | Create Your Own

All rights reserved © 2007 Christos Stavrou

The advent of digital photography and the increasing number of people having access to it have, if anything else, given rise to hopes for a new process of democratisation (see for example one of my links to The Democratic Image blog). Although we should be very careful not to associate too easily the issue of greater access to visual representation (itself limited and fragmented in practice) with any greater access to political power and processes of decision-making, one area that seems to get a benefit from all that is the production and distribution of news. People are given new opportunities to visually record events, and as a new kind of independent reporters, or so called citizen journalists, to challenge the mainstream flow of news by corporate media and give voice, or, better to say, view to the own stories.

It is also a rather shared understanding, and certainly one I became convinced of since the public dissemination of Abu Ghraib photos, that photography has a powerful impact on society and the interpretation of reality.

I’m writing about all this, as I was recently informed of an incident in Hyde Park, the student area in Leeds. The police brutally and unnecessarily attacked, as it is claimed, some peaceful house party-goers in order to disperse them. The incident seems to be under investigation by an independent body now. But what grabbed my attention from the start was the relative quality and mainly the importance of photographic documents which were shown to me in order for those in the party to support their claim of officers lashing dogs and baton charging against them with no adequate reason.

Photographs such as those below gave me a graphic feeling and general indication of what was going on (photos by Callum Barker, Jess Woodall, and Nicky Crompton) :

The most striking picture was the following (photo by Callum Barker):

Whereas a more artistic tone is captured here (photo by Evan Harris):

The way that people will interpret the above story, despite these or any other pictures, may not change in the end. Stereotypes of students and vague ideals of law and order may be too dominant for some people when they judge things. However, I think the ability of the people there to capture those photos, just with their mobile phone cameras, enhanced their chance to have their complaint heard, both officially and publicly, as they attracted more attention and credit. I believe this story would have much less chance, if any at all, to find a place in the news or even to have a fair non-biased (but from both sides) representation, without its visual recordings. And if in the end it succeeds to strengthen accountability, it reinforces democratic processes too.

(For more details and photos, there is this facebook link: Survivors of the peaceful party on 19 Hessle Terrace and 20 Hessle Avenue)

The Time website exhibits a series of 15 photographs from the book ‘Hungry Planet. What the world eats’ (Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, 2005). Watch it by clicking the photograph below.

These are photographs of families, all around the world, posing together with all what they are usually eating in the course of one week. Sometimes an extra-wide lens was required, sometimes the viewer’s imagination is needed.

The work provides few extra details, from the weekly cost to favourite tastes, and invites many personal interpretations and questions about humanity as a whole and the differences within. I’d be careful, though, about making any quick judgements and generalisations.

Actually, what exactly does it mean that a family in Chad spends $1.23 per week for food, another one in Ecuador $31.55 and one in Germany $500.07? Certainly, not all families from the same country share a similar weekly bill, and although some photos appear strikingly more empty compared with others, is it my impression that some smiles are also more captivating? How tasty really are some of those good-looking fruits seen in western tables? And do these consumers ever question why the aroma of fine food masks so well the highly exploited labour of workers and producers in developing countries…

And the ultimate question: how many of us question whether the others’ hunger is the consequence of us continuing to give subsidies to our own home food-producers?