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photojournalism
Vol. 2, No. 2
ON THE WIRE EXHIBITING A PERSONAL VISION OF NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY BY REUTERS PHOTOJOURNALIST DAMIR SAGOLJ 15TH VISA POUR L'IMAGE FESTIVAL PERPIGNAN 30 AUGUST – 14 SEPTEMBER www.reuters.com/pictures
EDITOR’SLETTER Dear Reader, Welcome to Vol. 2, No. 2, our sixth issue, of ei8ht. It is my pleasure to announce an increase of eight pages in this edition. At the same time you will notice an increase in advertising on our pages, both amongst picture agency and photographer listings, as well as in stand-alone spreads in the magazine. These two developments are obviously directly related. Our commitment to you, our subscribers, is that as the publication grows in pagination we will invest the fruits of our success to ensure that the magazine continues to seek out new and exciting stories with each issue. Stories that, I believe, challenge and inspire our view of the world. For surely it is a feeling of inspiration contained within the images that shines through? The positivity in Aubrey Wade’s photographs of Rosie (p. 44) allows us to see joy as well as pain and, in doing so, permits us to sense the terrible grief endured by the Lavender family at the loss of their beloved daughter. Similarly when we see migrant workers searching for new opportunities (p. 18) or peasants striving to subsist in order to save their very existence (p. 34), inspiration is present. Some readers may be stirred into action to support communities at risk, raise awareness of these issues and advocate change, whilst for others it is perhaps enough that they are moved by what they see. In today’s visual climate it is a challenge for most people to identify a steadfast role for photography beyond that of “info-tainment”. News values wax and wane in proportion to agendas, perceived interests and budgets – one day images of killed British soldiers in the newspapers cause outrage, on another day published photographs of Saddam’s dead sons cause apparent celebration. Even Peter Beaumont, The Observer’s foreign affairs editor, ponders whether attempting to cover the Iraq conflict, as an non-embedded journalist, was worth the risk? (p. 16). I believe it is as, beyond the goal of sensational scoops and promotional exclusives, genuine and moving reportage invites us to take a greater interest in our world and be inspired. JON LEVY
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES Polly Braden won The Guardian Student Photographer of the Year award in 2002 and now freelances for newspaper and magazine clients. Recently she has been working for ORBIS, the flying eye hospital, covering its work in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Polly is represented by Katz Pictures, London. www.katzpictures.com/ Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre is based in London and Barcelona. After freelancing in Spain he moved to London in the early ‘90s to do an MA in Image, Communications and Photography at Goldsmiths’ College. Iñigo is also well known for his architecture photography and his work has been published in the
likes of Wallpaper, World Architecture, Blueprint and The Guardian. www.inigobujedo.com/ Julia Calfee first visited Mongolia in 1997, later working with nongovernmental organizations to spearhead a horse-drawn medical caravan covering 2,000 miles in the Steppes. The exhibition of her photographs of a female shaman during the winter migration in Mongolia has been shown at the Centre of Art in her home city of Brussels, as well as at the United Nations in New York. A new book of her work entitled Spirits and Ghosts was published in July by powerHouse books, NY, www.powerHousebooks.com/ Julia is represented by Polaris Images in New York,
www.polarisimages.com/ Max Houghton is a freelance writer and researcher based in Brighton, UK. She is a previous contributor to ei8ht (Vol.1, No.1). Aubrey Wade studied photojournalism at the London College of Printing. Since graduating last year he has worked on projects largely concerned with identity and culture, dividing his time between assignment work and personal projects. Aubrey has received both the Tom Webster and Jack Jackson Memorial Awards for his work and is a member of the photographers’ collective, Documentography. www.documentography.com/otograp
COVER Paul van der Stap and Elisa Veini are independent Dutch documentary makers with a shared interest in social issues. Before taking up photography, Paul finished his degree in physics. Elisa was trained as cultural anthropologist. Their earlier work has focused on the semi-urban area in central Mexico and rural parts of Morocco. In a recent commission for a local museum, they photographed and interviewed social activists in the southern part of the Netherlands. Other works in progress include photo-documentaries about the dalits (untouchables) of India and about the Carnival in Belgium and the Netherlands. For more of their work see: www.titojoe-docs.nl/
TO PURCHASE A PRINT OF THIS COVER IMAGE FROM PAUL VAN DER STAP PLEASE CALL +44 207 636 0399 4
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CONTENTS: SEPTEMBER 2003 Editor’s Letter
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Contributors
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Emerging Photographers p.53 Exhibitions Picture Agencies
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Independent Photographers p.60 Resources
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Announcements p.62
GHOSTS OF MONGOLIA Julia Calfee explores the dark world of Mongolian prisons, work camps and mental institutions. There she finds souls tortured by drink, murder and madness p.6 FILTHY UNILATERALS Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor of The Observer, shares his firsthand account of what
it was like being a non-embedded journalist working behind the lines during the recent conflict in Iraq p.16 SEARCHING FOR EL DORADO Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre searches for the new face of Spain. He finds a parallel in the aspirations of his countrymen and those of the newly arrived immigrant workers
searching for opportunities to get ahead
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MADE IN CHINA Polly Braden investigates where “Made in China” clothes actually come from. Through her friendship with 20-year-old Ho Ping, she is introduced to the young women on the production line at the Selena shoe factory p.26
NORTHEAST ON THE MOVE Travelling this lesser- known region of Brazil, Paul van der Stap and Elisa Veini record the changing social and economic landscape that has a history of protest and resistance at its core p.34 ROSIE’S STORY Rosie Lavender brought joy to those who surrounded her during her short life. Aubrey Wade spent
time with her and her close family to document the story of Rosie’s battle against a rare genetic condition p.44 REVIEWS Max Houghton talks to Jenny Matthews about War and Women p.50 Ghetto by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin p.52
ei 8 ht EDITOR: Jon Levy ASSISTANT EDITOR: Phil Lee CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: PHOTO Sophie Batterbury TEXT James Loader ART DIRECTION: Grant Scott PUBLISHER: Gordon Miller EUROPEAN ASSOCIATE: Arnaud Blanchard REPROGRAPHICS: Graphic Facilities PRINTER: Fox Print Services DISTRIBUTION: Comag Specialist +44 (0)1895 433800
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GHOSTS OF MONGOLIA BY JULIA CALFEE
GHOSTS, IN BOTH the shamanistic and Buddhist traditions, are displaced souls that have not been able to leave this world. So they roam, often possessing humans, and are held to be responsible for many negative forces. The jails and penitentiaries I saw were truly ghostly. I spent time in these places over many months while working for an Non Governmental Organization, with a view to improving human conditions. The person who took me into the jails was loved by the prisoners. She brought them letters, clothing, books, whatever she could. Because of their trust in her, the prisoners accepted me. Sometimes I’d return weeks or months later and see the same people, only worse off, and new people, looking lost and miserable. The winter nights were particularly eerie, especially in the maximum-security prison. Many of the supposed murderers I met had no idea or memory of why they were incarcerated so very far away, a lost place in this world. In the small hut next to the prison compound, where I spent my nights, I had no heat and light after 8pm. The door had neither handle nor lock and I held it closed with a piece of string–not for security but to diminish the draft and keep out the ghosts. Six guards were posted in wooden towers around the prison compound, with two positioned virtually outside my door. Radios and walkie-talkies do not exist in this forgotten wilderness. The guards kept in contact every 15 minutes, every hour of the night, with wolf-like howls, which were then echoed by each one of them in turn. Their cries resonated over the ice and under the stars. After my journeys through Mongolia, covering 9,000 miles over five years, I believe both spirits and ghosts exist.
(Previous) View from the watchtower over the maximum-security prison near Ulan Bator (Left) Locking the door to the solitary-confinement cells (Right–series) After being picked up on the street, an adult male is stripped for admission to the detention centre for drunks. Prisoners are left naked in the cell until someone comes to pay their fine
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“In 1992 I came to the Avdrant Gyandan (maximum-security prison) with four newly sentenced prisoners and two men who were transferred back there from their time in the prison hospital. When we entered the reception room guards commanded us to undress and started to interrogate us when we were naked. They shouted, “Killer! Who did you kill? How did you kill? Killers! Killers! Killers!” They began beating us by hand and then for an hour they kicked us with heavy boots. Then we were taken to another guard-room where the shouting and beating began again. They searched our clothing and left us in our underwear for five days without boots and outer clothing. Every time the guards changed duty, they stripped us and beat us. They changed at 7:30 am and 7:30 pm. This was the beginning of my three years in the Gyandan. Three years of beatings ... ❽
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THIS IS AN EXTRACT FROM A LETTER BY A PRISONER SERVING HIS SENTENCE IN MAANT PRISON. HE WAS NAMED TERBISH, WHICH MEANS “HE IS NOTHING” OR “NOT A PERSON”, TO CONFUSE THE EVIL SPIRITS WHEN HE WAS BORN.
(Above, left to right) Prisoner counts are made five times a day in maximum-security prisons; sleeping quarters for juveniles in Ulan Bator. (Right, from top) Children’s section of the insane asylum; forced labour pressing chalk. (Following pages) Women’s section at the jail in Ulan Bator
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(Left) Adult male prisoners, nine to a cell (Below) A kiss through the wire in the visitors’ room at the Ulan Bator prison; visits are 20 minutes every six months (Bottom) Guards march around the prison yard singing military songs in the evening
SPIRITS AND GHOSTS WILL BE EXHIBITED AT THE TOM BLAU GALLERY, LONDON, 4 DECEMBER-10 JANUARY 2004.
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FILTHY UNILATERALS BY PETER BEAUMONT I DON’T KNOW where the name first came from–from the Pentagon or from the British Army–but it stuck. By the time we reached Iraq, we were “filthy unilaterals”–“unilateral scum”–looked down on by the army and not very welcome even with our own colleagues who had been embedded with the coalition forces in Iraq. We had passes issued by the US military authorities that did not actually get you past very much. The briefings the pass would give you access to were pretty pointless. You could talk, if you were lucky, to people loading trucks. So there was not much choice. If you wanted to work, the only option was to load up a car with enough food and fuel as possible, and try and dodge the Kuwaiti border police and the British Military Police, and get into Iraq. The problem, you see, was that we had already rather missed the boat. Without visas for Baghdad, and failing to cross illegally from Jordan, where the border was definitively closed, we had missed the start. So we had acquired some bogus visas to Kuwait and then hopped across the border, losing the second car in our convoy, whose passengers were arrested by the Kuwaitis on the border, at the very off. We, at this point, amounted to me; Heathcliff O’Malley, a photographer for The Telegraph; and freelance shooter, Sharon Abbady. Somewhere behind us came Michael Chavez of The Washington Post, with a carload of friends from Associated Press. The rationale of going unilateral had been a good one–in theory at least. We would go exactly where we wanted. Our material would not be subject to censorship or pressure by either Iraq or the coalition com-
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mand. We could fix a compass between the propaganda of both sides and tell the “real story”. Except it didn’t work like that. In real wars, where your government is bombing and killing the other side, that kind of independence and your safety are already compromised. We learned the hard way, on day one, straying into a nasty little town called Az Zubayr, where a week before two Royal Engineers had been captured and executed, driving into such a heavy stoning that several cars that we had hooked up with were forced to return to Kuwait with broken windscreens. Other towns in the south were no safer for us. We had already been warned off Safwan, where several media cars had come under fire, and even in the port city of Umm Qasra, where we would camp for several days, the security was at best extremely tenuous. We had a choice: camp with the rubbish and the packs of dogs outside the gates of the British base, with two soldiers patrolling nearby, or in an unprotected petrol compound. You see, for all that we tried to stay clear of the coalition forces, we were forced into compromises from the very beginning. We slept close by their positions, in the hope that if anyone fired on us, our neighbours would feel under threat and return fire. We travelled on their protected main supply routes whenever possible. And when we could–when they would let us in–we slept inside their perimeters. We already knew what the alternatives were. I had been in Jordan when I heard about the death of ITN’s Terry Lloyd and several members of his crew. A friendly diplomat, hearing we were planning to try an illegal night
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crossing of the Jordanian border, had called a few hours after the event. I broke the news to his friends up at the border and that night all plans for heroics in the Western Desert were put on ice. The same diplomat would call me later with news of other journalists gone missing. Some of them would turn up after terrifying scrapes, but over the days that followed, too many would die. There would be lucky ones, like Molly Bingham, a freelance photographer that we all knew, thrown in jail for trying to busk it in Baghdad on a tourist visa. But the deaths, kidnappings and arrests would come like a slow drip. Deaths of people that we knew. Deaths witnessed by other friends close by. And on our first day in Iraq, as if to underscore the fragility of our position, we came across the burned-out car of Terry Lloyd. We had encountered the British paratroopers, who would eventually walk into Basra, outside the city, a little before their advance. We had tried to work a bit, but the press officer for the paras had come up and told us to “fuck off”, as we were making the two reporters embedded with the paras nervous. So we had “fucked off” down their line, wondering at being blanked in the middle of a war by a paratroop press officer, until we met a chatty major, who overruled the press officer and invited us to accompany his men into the city. It worked that day. We had the kind of access for hours that the embeds could only dream of, as we drove under our own steam past the last British position down to the Shatt al Arab waterway, and stood on the waterfront by the Ba’athist memorials to the Iran-Iraq war and marvelled at it all. But it did not always work that way. Two days later we would be heading for Baghdad, a long and gruel-ling drive lasting all day, our tank full of looted petrol, reaching Saddam’s official residence on the day the city fell. It did not go so well. We had already had a warning shot fired at our little convoy of four vehicles once, at a US checkpoint a little outside the city,
when we reached an area in the Baghdad suburbs where it was clear there had been very heavy fighting. As we drove through the dusk we passed bodies, burning buildings and burned-out vehicles, both American and Iraqi. We could see the fighting had finished quite recently. Crowds mobbed the US tanks. These would be the most striking scenes that we would see. But the light was going fast and we had nowhere safe to stop and spend the night. We assumed that we would see sights like this across Baghdad, not knowing that we were driving through the smouldering remains of the one big battle. And so we missed it. And it was just before night fell, a few miles from our target of the Palestine Hotel across the river, that we were fired on again. We stopped, but there was something different about the scene this time, as if the violence we had seen had somehow curdled in the air. In the almost light we saw men running and a Bradley turn its gun on to our well-marked cars. We jumped out of the vehicle, screaming that we were journalists. Later the Bradley gunner told us he had been a second or so away from destroying our cars. Later still–two months–the men from the same unit, the 3/15th, would admit to being so scared that they had indiscriminately shot up non military vehicles, killing many civilians. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the war was over. Officially, at least. Because if it had been hard working as unilaterals while the coalition advance was continuing, now everyone had become an independent, bolting from their units to get to Baghdad. And everyone was having problems. The Americans were one problem, alternatively helpful and bloody-minded to the point of threatening violence. But it was in the big Shia suburbs of Baghdad and in the Shia south that the first serious problems started developing. Even as Saddam Hussein’s regime imploded, a radical Shia power began to flex its muscle– hardline, violent and misogynistic. The new militias that were emerging did not want to be photographed with their guns. It was hardest for women photographers like Sharon, who was shooting largely for The Observer. Even when she was shrouded in the all-enveloping black abaya, the men attempted to stop her working. On occasion they would try and pull her cameras from her and she would push back. At other times, the problems were more general. We would be blocked by men demanding to know if we were Muslims. Our fixer lighted on a solution. We were Yugoslavs. From Bosnia. If forced I would rattle off the few words of Serbo-Croat I could remember and usually they would look sufficiently baffled to let us pass. And in the end, I feel the censors won. Flooded by television images that told the story that the coalition wanted, the story of the “feel-good war”, the filthy unilaterals never really got to tell the story that they wanted, pitched between the two poles. And when I look back, I wonder whether the risk was worth it ❽ PETER BEAUMONT IS THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS EDITOR FOR THE OBSERVER IN LONDON
The U.S.-led war in Iraq has exacted a heavy toll on those covering the conflict. Nine journalists were killed in action during the first three weeks of hostilities by Iraqi or U.S. fire, land mines, or suicide bombers, two more lost their lives in the weeks since. (Four others died in accidents or from illness.) Several more were wounded, and two remain missing. Those not in the line of fire encountered other hardships: U.S. or Iraqi forces inside Iraq temporarily detained more than 24 journalists. While the bulk of the fighting appears finished, safety conditions for journalists remain precarious: Banditry, gunfire, and physical attacks will likely make Iraq a dangerous assignment for the foreseeable future. COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS, www.cpj.org
Above: An American soldier yells at an Iraqi looter to “back off” as a handful of US servicemen prevent several thousand Iraqis from looting a well stocked armoury in a hidden office building next to the Housing Ministry in Baghdad, 11 April 2003. © 2003 SHARON ABBADY
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SEARCHING FOR EL BY Iテ選GO BUJEDO AGUIRRE
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DORADO (Above) Moroccan men inside a cortijo, El Ejido, Almeria. Despite many having the necessary papers, these workers are often unable to find jobs. Fewer people are required for work outside the harvest season and the vast majority spend their days waiting. Cortijos are old toolsheds let out by farmers to workers–they have no water or electricity and, on occasion, workers are charged rent to sleep in the sheds (Right) A chabola, a dwelling made of plastic. These purpose-built shelters have sprung up around the “plastic fields” of El Ejido. People live under harsh conditions, suffering the extreme heat in the summer months
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SPAIN IS CHANGING. Since October 2000 I have searched my country, from north to south, east to west, from the Basque country to the Canary Islands, Murcia, Almeria, Madrid, Malaga, Bilbao, Alicante, Catalonia and further. Searching ... for new arrivals, to discover if Spain is the El Dorado they believed it to be. Barely ten years ago it would have been unusual to find large and cohesive migrant communities in Barcelona, or in the towns in the south for that matter. Today 40% of inhabitants there are recent immigrants. Since joining the EU in the mid-’80s, and fol20
lowing the restoration of a democracy, Spain has experienced a drastic and successful transformation that today places it among the five strongest economies in Europe. The younger generation who previously worked in manual or agricultural jobs, often tying them to the region of their birth, no longer wish to work in these industries. Opportunities today are far greater, and in common with other European nations, young people expect better paid work–moreover, they are prepared to travel, outside the country if necessary, to achieve their ambitions. The effect ei8ht
(Above) Ecuadorians gather on a Sunday in Torre Pacheco, Murcia, to relax, play volleyball and enjoy a barbecue (Right) The “Cemetery of Pateras� in Gran Tarajal, Fuerteventura, where boats, discarded on the beach by new arrivals, are eventually collected and dumped in a scrap yard
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of this is a shortage of workers, particularly in the agricultural and construction industries, and these vacant jobs are being filled readily by people from South America, North Africa and Eastern Europe. Often persecuted in their homeland, they are looking for better opportunities in Spain for themselves and their families. These would-be immigrants may p a y thousands of Euros to illegal traffickers to be 22
f e r r i e d in cramped, small boats across the treacherous straits between north Africa and southern Spain. Many perish in the seas in their attempt to reach El Dorado. On my country-wide search I found the new a r r i v a l s I was looking for. Some live clandestinely in the b i g cities or squat under makeshift plastic tents in t h e ei8ht
(Left) Families squat in a derelict house on the Rambla del Raval, Barcelona, where many immigrants have settled. Once the site of the red- light district, it is now home to new arrivals from all over the world. A development is planned for the area and this building will soon be demolished (Above) Youssuf, right, and his nephew, Hamid, play on the beach. Hamid lives in a centre for young immigrants in Barcelona where he attends school. His uncle lives and works in the fields of eastern Murcia (Right) Sikhs from Pakistan are building the first Sikh temple in El Raval, Barcelona
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(Above) Queueing in Murcia at the government’s delegation for immigration–men seek the temporary work permit needed to labour in the surrounding fields (Left–Right) An Ecuadorian man at the central bus station, Murcia; schoolfriends in Murcia–an Ecuadorian and a Russian girl–are the daughters of recent immigrants
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MADE IN CHINA BY POLLY BRADEN
WHEN YOU SEE “Made in China”, do you wonder by who? This morning I went to Top Shop on Oxford Street in London and saw shoes that I had seen being made in a factory in China: English size eight made by girls with size four feet. Ho Ping (above), 20, wears a grey coat; it signifies her status as a supervisor in the Selena factory in Guangdong province, China. She oversees the work of 35 young girls who sit in a row on the factory floor, stitching the upper part of shoes. There are 18 hierarchical levels in the factory; an employee’s status dictates the colour of her work coat: pink for factory-floor workers, grey for everyone above that. It also determines the restaurant you eat in, the size of the dormitory you sleep in (usually eight people) and your pay. After leaving school at 16, Ho Ping says it was “interesting and exciting” coming to work in the factory. For the first few weeks there was little pressure, and workers were allowed to make mistakes and visit the local shops often.
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The next six months, however, were “really tough”. After the initial period of meeting co-workers, learning the company song and settling in amongst the 6,500 other employees, work became more demanding and, this being her first time away from home, she began to miss her family and friends very much. These days, some two years later, she enjoys the university-like atmosphere and life at Selena, saying that there’s always something new to learn. “Although it might look like we do the same thing every day, in fact we’re moved around often. If a supervisor sees someone doing something well, she’ll be promoted to the next section that requires more skill. People are motivated to do well as there are many opportunities to learn new skills, move up the promotional ladder and earn more money.” Currently, Ping spends most of her 850 RMB (£65) monthly wage on clothes and electronics. On one of her days off she took me to the nearest town, Chang an, to go shopping. We queued at the factory gates to wait for the bus, which leaves regularly for the short journey to town. Once inside the supermarket Ping piled her basket high with snacks for the week: sweets, yoghurt drinks, dried fruit, sunflower seeds, biscuits, fresh fruit and bread. We sat eating hot buns from a bakery on colourful plastic benches in the shopping complex, before pressing on to buy trainers and jeans from one of the many shops where she holds loyalty cards. At the shoe shop she carefully scrutinised each pair before deciding on red leather trainers for 80 RMB (£6.00).
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Ho Ping doesn’t see the need to save right now. Her parents don’t ask her to send them money, and meals and accommodation are provided by Selena. In her dormitory one of the girls sends money home so that her family can save and improve her brother’s marriage prospects. Another girl sends nearly all her salary home to her parents but doesn’t want to get married, as this would mean giving control of her life to her husband’s family. “Many young couples share the expense of marriage,” Ho Ping says. “Several of my friends are saving money to put towards their future wedding costs.” One evening, Ho Ping took me to the night market opposite the factory. She wanted to make it clear that she no longer bought food or clothes from these street markets–she was beyond that now, she told me, saying that if work continues to go well and she moves up the ladder in the factory she may stay longer than three years. If not she may move to Wuhan, where her brother lives, and try to find work there; or alternatively consider marriage. During the New Year holidays Ho Ping took two weeks off to go to Henan to visit her family. They had not seen each other for over a year and on the homeward-bound train journey she was visibly tense–had she changed? Arriving home with her new DVD player, mobile phone with the latest ring tones, red leather trainers and newfound city confidence, she felt she stood out from the people of her small rural village. Later, as Ho Ping lay shivering in bed wearing all her clothes under the blankets, her mother joked with me: “She’s grown soft in the warm southern climate” ❽
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Network goes online...
...from 1st September 2003, Network Photographers' archive of award winning images, spanning more than two decades and seven continents, will be available online. Developed exclusively for Network with your needs in mind, our Mosaic platform will enable you to search and download images from Britain’s leading
Designed by philosophydesign.com
independent producer of fine photography with speed and precision.
www.networkphotographers.com
Network goes online...
...from 1st September 2003, Network Photographers' archive of award winning images, spanning more than two decades and seven continents, will be available online. Developed exclusively for Network with your needs in mind, our Mosaic platform will enable you to search and download images from Britain’s leading
Designed by philosophydesign.com
independent producer of fine photography with speed and precision.
www.networkphotographers.com
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NORTHEAST ON THE MOVE PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT BY
PAUL VAN DER STAP AND ELISA VEINI
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BRAZIL’S NORTHEASTERN STATES of Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe are different from the rest of Brazil. The population is more heavily African and mestizo; the weather is hot and dry; the barren areas, or sertão, are more desert-like than tropical; and as the place gets very little rainfall, it constantly faces the threat of drought. A common view of this region is one of small communities living in poverty, but beneath the surface nothing could characterize the region better than its long and proud history of social and political resistance. Whilst many may gravitate towards the urban areas, owing to perceptions of economic opportunity, the diverse rural communities that remain express a new resolve in their struggle both to survive on the land and preserve a unique heritage.
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The legend goes in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará state (right), that Padre Cícero changed wine into blood, earning the priest expulsion from the church and immortality among Brazilians. Padre Cícero went on to become the first major of Juazeiro and a renowned political leader. Today, the town is one of the region’s main centres of pilgrimage. Forty years ago some 80% of Brazilians lived in the countryside and the remainder in the cities; today the numbers are reversed. Millions of northeasterners have emigrated to the southern metropolises of São Paulo and Río do Janeiro. The northeastern capitals of Recife and Salvador, as well as some larger provincial towns, are similarly growing rapidly.
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In the settlement of former landless peasants in Palmares, Ceará (left), seu Antônio, father of ten sons–all named Francesco–likes to recount his memories of past land occupations that united so many of the locals. Palmares, like hundreds of other small villages associated with the influential Landless Workers’ Movement, MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), has challenged the traditional power structures of big landowners. It is estimated that only 1% of landowners own 50% of the total Brazilian territory. MST works to rectify this by running extensive educational programmes for children and adults, and training for activist members. Land is then gained by occupation and negotiation ❽
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NO MEIO DO CAMINHO – CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra. Nunca me esquecerei desse acontecimento na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas. Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD – CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE
In the middle of the road there was a stone there was a stone in the middle of the road there was a stone in the middle of the road there was a stone. Never should I forget this event in the life of my fatigued retinas. Never should I forget that in the middle of the road there was a stone there was a stone in the middle of the road in the middle of the road there was a stone. “In the Middle of the Road” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, translated by Elizabeth Bishop from The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
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ROSIE’S STORY BY AUBREY WADE
ROSIE LAVENDER WAS 20 months old when I first photographed her. She suffered from a rare brain disorder known as Isolated Lissencephaly Sequence, which in ROSIE’S case was caused by the deletion of the LIS 1 gene on chromosome 17. It meant that she could never walk, talk, eat hard foods, sit up by herself or use her hands to play with toys. She also suffered from frequent seizures from six months of age. An added complication was that she was cortically blind–her eyes were fully formed, but there was no communication of stimuli to the brain. Furthermore, Rosie had a weak swallowing reflex, which led to aspiration–the swallowing of saliva and food into the lungs–making her vulnerable to infections. She endured constant doctor, therapist and hospital visits. Throughout her short life Rosie was cared for at home in Colchester, surrounded by a very loving family: her mother Lucy, her 46
father Dan and her brother Will, who is four. Dan works long hours in London, so only saw the children at weekends, and Lucy works part-time as a project co-ordinator for the Prince’s Trust in Colchester. This provided Lucy, who carried the greatest burden of care, with an essential respite. I developed a close relationship with the family whilst making these pictures. The more time I spent with them the more I became intrigued by ROSIE’S experience of life. Whilst researching her condition I found only factual and medical representations, like the one above. Yet my own experience of Rosie and her condition was an emotive one. I found a unique human being who–despite being profoundly brain-damaged–was deeply loved by her parents and lived within a complicated set of human relationships. It is to this that I have tried to bear witness. ei8ht
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ROSIE REMEMBERED BY LUCY LAVENDER
It has been five months since our beautiful baby daughter, Rosie, died. She was two and a half years old. Throughout her short life we lived with the knowledge that Rosie could leave us at any time. We went through the stress of constant care and worry, never sleeping a whole night. Then there were her illnesses, always more severe than with most children, and the enormous anxiety over whether this would be the one that would take her away from us. There is no grief like that of losing your child, no matter how long you have with them. I am so grateful that we had her even for her short, little life. Our sadnesses were the deepest we will ever know, but the joys were also immeasurable, and are what remain with us today. We experienced untold grief over the loss of the baby we had always dreamed of and hoped for, and for the loss of the relationship we had hoped our son, William, would have with Rosie. We only slowly came to realize that although his and our relationship with Rosie would be different, it would still be every bit as precious and meaningful. Experiencing the evolution of acceptance slowly appeased our suffering. 48
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Rosie inspired compassion and love wherever we took her. Despite the trauma she endured, she still managed to smile when we kissed her and laugh when she was swung. She coped with struggles every day of her short life and was purely peaceful in return. I loved her so much and she enriched my life beyond all measure. Through her we have come to understand true dignity and friendship. We had so many precious times together. Often, we would sing together in the car: me sometimes crying as we went along and she, oblivious to my tears, would coo with me. We loved dancing and I loved being able to hug her and hold her, to move with her in my arms. She adored the simplest pleasures–the sun shining through the dappled leaves, the feeling of having her hair blowdried or her feet massaged, and lying in bed with her mirror ball cascading lights around the room. Equally, our cuddles and snoozes lying on the sofa together, with the smell of her hair and skin close to mine, will always remain in my heart. Above all I shall never forget when I could make her laugh; her giggles were raw with purity and I never ever wanted her to stop. I wanted to make her laugh forever � ei8ht
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BOOK REVIEWS
REMARKABLE WOMEN, ORDINARY PEOPLE BY MAX HOUGHTON
enny Matthews is a woman on the move. Just back from Baghdad, the freshness of her latest experience is palpable. Her sense of justice has not been anaesthetised by 20 years as a photojournalist. “You know, there’s no telephone system working, no Internet and no authority out there,” she begins, getting straight to the heart of what matters in people’s lives. “Gas costs ten times more than it used to, and there’s a 12-hour wait for it. The Americans are rounding people up and putting them in camps near the airport. Goodwill is disappearing fast. People are hoping they don’t have to say that things were better under Saddam, but it’s starting to look that way.” The following day she is due to leave for Mozambique. Somehow, she has made time for a talk on her new book, Women and War, published by Pluto Press in association with Action Aid, at the Guardian Newsroom in London. This semi-nomadic lifestyle has been hers by choice, and, as she emphatically states, privilege, since the early 1980s. She headed out to South America after university, where she found the pull of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua an irresistible subject matter. A commission for Christian Aid to document the lives of women there provided a focus, and set a precedent for her career. Women and War contains not only a powerful selection of images from the major conflicts of the last two decades, but a running commentary by Matthews alongside each frame, lending the collection the beat of a
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road diary following the freeway to war. “I always keep a diary,” she says. “I get overwhelmed by what I see in front of me and it can be so easy to forget. I’m in such a privileged position, and I’m very aware that each image is the result of a decision I’ve made. And that decision has influenced the outcome of the picture. Everything is mediated. I think you get so much more out of a picture when there’s some writing to explain.” And, certainly, it’s an effective tool here to complement this documentary style–as opposed to coffee-table–reportage. The postcard brevity of the text provides illuminating insights into Matthews’ thinking (“Ask to take photos–told OK as long as I don’t misrepresent the situation. Where does misrepresentation begin and end?”) as well as filling us in on detail a single image never could (“We meet a woman accused of cutting open a dead woman and taking out her insides ...”). The voices of Iraqi, Palestinian and Afghan women speak to us through Women and War, not just via their penetrating portraits, but also in their own words. It is typical of Matthews’ modus operandi that she shares the pages of her first in-depth collection with these women who are the mainspring of it. Time and time again, Matthews has been
drawn back to bear witness to the aftermath of the world’s tragedies. She’s not a frontline photographer. Despite a self-confessed desire to “live dangerously”, Matthews is not interested in the bang-bang. In fact, she has a problem with guns per se, making the choice of image for the cover of this book all the more interesting. “Guns are for killing people,” she says simply. “But I like this picture–she’s a young African woman, very strong and very confident. It’s a sexy picture, the kind you need to open a book. The 200 or so pictures that follow challenge that image. It also serves to bring up the issue of guns and what war really means, even wars of liberation: people get killed.” Matthews is clearly under no illusion that women can be killers and torturers; nowhere was this point more forcefully driven home than in Rwanda. But for the most part, what women do during wartime–and therefore what Matthews faithfully documents–is to continue to do everything they do in peacetime, but in more difficult circumstances. Images of women as they prepare food, wash clothes, grow crops, give birth, raise children: this is classic Matthews territory. And when, as a result of warfare, women are raped, widowed, predeceased by their children, contract HIV or give birth to deformed babies poisoned by chemical warfare, Matthews records this too, with the ei8ht
Chechen war. Or Consolee, one of the few survivors of the Rwandan genocide, who had her right hand and most of her left hand cut off in a Hutu machete attack. We are confronted with 16-year-old Adamsay Bangura, whose home is the Amputee Camp in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Captured in Port Loko, after being “chopped” by rebel fighters, this young woman then witnessed her 2-year-old baby boy being axed to death. And yet ... from the depths of human tragedy, the indomitable spirit of women can still rise to the surface. To study Matthews’ pictures is to know that she has an intrinsic understanding of this spirit. Maybe it is due in part to her own femininity (undiminished despite protracted proximity to bang-bang), or maybe it’s because she has witnessed it and captured it on film countless times over the last two decades. From Kosovo to Palestine, the desire to paint on a smile for instant empowerment is the same. “Lipstick is simply the cheapest way to cheer yourself up,” says Matthews. “I’ve never seen so much red lipstick and nail varnish as during the war in Bosnia. It’s an act of defiance.” And if defiance is the public face of despair, then women the world over have at least one coping mechanism for grief. The pictures chosen by Matthews for this collection resonate with a rare compassion. They serve to remind us that there is no glory in war, but after all the evils of the world have flown from Pandora’s war chest, there is one thing left: hope ❽
country in a frame. The seriousness of his intent and dedication to his labour are admirable, and the resulting work is as illuminating as it is compelling reading.
© Gary Knight
same sense of humanity and dignity. “People tell you the most terrible, terrible things as a photographer and all you can do is take a picture,” she says, “but at least then I can show them to people and say that I think it’s wrong. It’s about how you change things. Issues like rape and HIV as a consequence of war are hard to represent. The last thing these women need is someone taking their picture. But if it doesn’t happen it’s like it doesn’t exist.” One photograph, taken at the Piscina Camp in Tirana, Albania, shows the hands of two women clasped together. Their faces are not visible, but their long shadows create a silhouette of understanding. The accompanying text informs us the women at the refugee camp are being offered counselling and, if necessary, abortions after being raped in Kosovo. Repeated readings of this book uncover a revealing subtext in the lingua franca of the human hand. Women’s hands: weaving; washing; baking bread. Hands, cradling a gun, or a baby. Hands reclaiming power, hands united in solidarity or in grief. Some of the women photographed here have no hands, and theirs are among the saddest stories. Take Taus Belashanova, who lost her hands in a rocket attack during the first
Telegram from Guernica: The Extraordinary Life of George Steer, War Correspondent by Nicholas Rankin 256 pp, £14.99, Faber, www.faber.co.uk, ISBN 0-9705768-5-4
George Steer’s big break came at the age of 25 as special correspondent in Abyssinia for The Times of London. Having the prestige of The Times behind him gained him an exclusive with the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, with whom he developed a close friendship. It is at this point where an extraordinary life as a war correspondent began.
Women and War by Jenny Matthews, 192 pp, paperback, 146 duotones, £19.99 Pluto Press in association with Action Aid, www.plutobook.com, www.actionaid.org ISBN 0-7453-2073-2 To obtain a copy for £17 + p&p call Pluto Press 020 8348 2724, or email: pluto@plutobooks.com quoting code: “PLWW” An exhibition of Matthews’ photography entitled “Home security” is being held at the Picture House Centre, Leicester. The work, one of three of commissions by photographers under the theme All in a Good Cause, is on show until 22 August 2003.
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Ukraine Fotografien by Reiner Riedler, text by Martin Pollack 112 pp hardback, 32 euros, Edition Fotohof Im Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg, info@omvs.at, ISBN 3-7013-1067-X
In this book Riedler presents a thorough documentation (100 colour images) of a country in flux; not for him a snapshot of one area or person that purports fictitiously to capture the essence of a
Evidence–The Case against Milosevic by Gary Knight & Anthony Lloyd 88 pp, £48, de.Mo New York, ISBN: 0-9705768-9-8 Max Kandhola: Illustration of Life, texts by Mark Sealy, Gary Hesse & Anne McNeill 64 pp hardback, £20, Dewi Lewis Publishing, limited edition of 750 copies, ISBN: 0-935445-28-5
On the surface, Evidence, by Gary Knight and Anthony Lloyd, and Max Kandhola’s Illustration of Life propose two vastly different approaches to the presentation of documentary photography. Both are created out of passionate engagement with their subject matter and a determination to honour and preserve the realities of the authors’ experiences for posterity. However, Evidence has a direct message, its publication motivated by a perceived need to remind us of war crimes in Kosovo in the light of President Milosevic’s trial in The Hague; whereas Kandhola’s equally challenging subject matter–a highly personal and intimate account of his father’s death from cancer–is dealt with in a more abstract manner, its message left ambiguous. For full-length reviews of the above books, visit: www.foto8.com/reviews/
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BOOK REVIEWS
GHETTO rolley’s latest publication, Ghetto, sets out to document 12 obscure communities on the margins of society. Photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, creative directors at Colours, Benetton’s documentary magazine between 2000 and 2002, explore worlds beyond the range of current reportage, their project taking them from Lukole Refugee Camp in Tanzania to a forest in Patagonia. Life in each destination is recorded in photographs, recollections and anecdotes from the authors, contextual information and firsthand observations from the inhabitants themselves. In many of these artificially constructed communities, society’s traditional structures are absent or eroded. Inhabitants fill the void with routine, ritual and new relationships to reinforce their sense of identity and belonging. Lukole Refugee Camp, situated in a valley high in the mountains near the Tanzanian border with Burundi and Rwanda, is a makeshift city of 120,000 people. Having fled from the tribal genocide of Hutus by Tutsis in 1994, many without family and with just the clothes on their backs, its inhabitants survive on international food aid. The authors photographed men, women and children
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staring intensely into the camera in their threadbare clothes, their portraits reproduced in tandem with poignant quotes about muchloved favourite possessions–a hat, an umbrella or a blanket–and discussions about life in the Refugee Camp. The contented smiles of the perma-tanned residents of Leisure World Gated Retirement Community tell another story. They have chosen, and invested in, their isolation. Separated from the younger generation, they feel empowered; one need only look at the photos of the proud “aquadettes”, posing in their sequined red swimsuits. This landscaped complex of condominiums, with its almost exclusively white population of Southern Californians, is a Never-Never Land of sleep and play, an artificial world maintained by a team of badly paid Hispanic workers. There is a gentle humour in their portraits of girlish grannies and brash old men, the story ending with one lady’s surreal demonstration of what to do in the event of an earthquake: a wry comment on a community that despite an average age of 77.5 years, displays a distinct lack of engagement with the process of death itself. Star City, Russia, is a portrait of a Shangri-La gone sour. In a forest of silver birch trees outside
Moscow, this complex, built in 1960, housed the clandestine beginnings of Russia’s space programme. Now with the collapse of the Soviet Union and a lack of government funding, a once proud community has become an unwitting memorial to former glories. The camera lovingly records the dated machinery alongside portraits of its residents. For some, it is still a haven–if you were born within its walls you have the right to die there–an unusually supportive environment for young families and the old, considering Russia’s economic fragility. However, many of the young adults questioned express feelings of claustrophobia. As a result of their debunking of his out-dated fantasy, Chanarin and Broomberg’s Russian guide became increasingly hostile and censorious–denying them access to as much as possible. The restrictions of officialdom were present also on their visit to Cuba, but for the photographers the most pressing issue when working in Rene Vallejo Psychiatric Hospital, outside Havana, was the morality of photographing heavily medicated inmates. The authors’ decision to hand over control of the portraiture to the patients, through use of a trigger-and-cable release, is rewarded by a series of wonderfully frank images. Mario, 60, his skinny frame draped in regulation pyjamas, stands against the backdrop of an institutional aquamarine wall. In the first frame he turns his back to us, his shoulders hunched, negating the very purpose of the portrait by hiding himself from the camera’s probing eye. In the second image he faces us, arms aloft, ready for a close-up. His story is perhaps the most eloquent example of Broomberg and Chanarin’s enquiring but noninvasive reportage, which maintains the dignity of their subjects by giving them a voice. Ghetto is an engrossing book. The individual stories, both harrowing and enchanting, recounted alongside portraiture and contextual text and images from each destination, create illuminating reportage. We share the photographers’ encounters and gain insight, through the inhabitants’ words, into daily life within these ghettos. Through recounting the obstacles and issues encountered on their travels, Broomberg and Chanarin instruct us in the process and the problems of creating honest and effective reportage ❽ SOPHIE WRIGHT Ghetto by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin 513 pp, hardback, £29.95, Trolley, www.trolleynet.com, ISBN: 1-904563-00-7 ei8ht
EXHIBITIONS YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHERS COLLEGE DEGREE SHOWS AND AWARDS “The postgraduate diploma in photojournalism at the London College of Printing is an intense programme of documentary photography, journalism and photojournalism. Recruiting mature students who have a clear commitment to the medium, the course-work places as much emphasis on developing ideas as it does on learning technical skills. It encourages and supports a range of work from hard news based journalism to personal documentary work. In the last decade students have established a phenomenal track record of prizes, exhibitions, books and publications. The students’ energy and commitment combines with the experience of the course tutors to provide a foundation for this success.”
(From top) Leonie Purchas’ winning story about an eccentric car dealer in North London; Hazel Thompson’s highly commended B/W story on the rescue and resettlement of children born to prostitutes in India; David Gill’s LCP year-end project, including among other images a set on the making of a Lisa Maffia video; Borut Peterlin’s LCP year-end project looking at a special school for the deaf in Croatia
PATRICK SUTHERLAND, DIRECTOR POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN PHOTOJOURNALISM, LONDON COLLEGE OF PRINTING.
There was no shortage of talent and originality from the crop of LCP graduates this year. Their degree show featured work on a variety of subjects with a global remit; Olivia Arthur documented the lives of France’s North African communities with a La Haine-esque backdrop in “Life Under Le Pen”, Borut Peterlin’s “Miracle of Life” looked at the phenomenal success of a clinic in Croatia, in rehabilitating the country’s deaf children. Other subjects included; a Hat Factory in Luton, Flying Doctors in Africa, and Call Centres in India. Award-winning graduates of 2003 include Leonie Purchas who is the recipient of this year’s Ian Parry Award. The Ian Parry Memorial Fund, created by The Sunday Times and Ian’s friends and family following his untimely death at the age of 24 while on assignment during the Romanian 1989 revolution, honours young photographers who are either attending a full time photographic course or are under 24 years of age. In addition to examples of their current work entrants are asked to submit a proposal for an assignment they would undertake if they won. Purchas’ winning story, about an eccentric car dealer in North London, along with other entries from this year’s winners and finalists can be seen at the Tom Blau Gallery, London until 11 August. Further information can be found at www.ianparry.org. and www.lcp.linst.ac.uk
We will continue to review the work of graduate and emerging photographers on the Internet (www.foto8.com/) and in future editions of ei8ht. If you, as an individual or a course tutor, would like to send us submissions please contact: listings@foto8.com ei8ht
This page, a showcase for college degree shows, young and emerging photographers has been made possible thanks to the generous support of
LCP 2003 Postgraduate Photojournalism students Olivia Arthur Fiona Campbell Frederique Cifuentes Ben Etridge David Gill Eva-Lotta Jansson
Belinda Lawley Rogan Macdonald Genna Naccache Delia Noel Craig O’Brien Nikola Pejanovic
Borut Peterlin Leonie Purchas Caroline Scheyven Emily Stein Beso Uznadze 53
EXHIBITIONS
Shahidul Alam, Migrations
Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam explores issues of migration across generations in the context of contemporary Oldham and British societies. Venue: Gallery Oldham, Greaves St, Oldham, OL1 1AL Until 27 September Fergus Bourke, A Retrospective
Exhibition celebrating the career of the renowned Irish documentary and portrait photographer. Venue: Gallery of Photography, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Ireland 20 August–8 October Karen Brett
Brett’s large colour images explore and challenge the ideology surrounding sexuality and the fear of the ageing body. Venue: Ffotogallery, Plymouth Rd, Penarth, Cardiff, CF64 3DM Until 14 September
Venue: Whitechapel, Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX Until 24 August Desiree Dolron, I Give You All My Dreams
Dolron’s images of Cuba capture urban landscapes at peace within its turmoil. Venue: Shine Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TD 24 September–22 November Fernand Fonssagrives, An Eye for Beauty
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York. © 2003 Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Individual Shows
A retrospective of one of the most revered practitioners of “beauty photography”, who passed away earlier this year. Venue: Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TD 10 September–25th October Stephen Gill, The Wick
Gill documents the huge outdoor and truly multicultural market in London’s Hackney Wick, aided only
8 August–6 September Richard Heep, Man’s Ruin
Hot rods, dragsters and custom cars feature in a show dedicated to the ‘50s lifestyle and fast cars. Venue: The Spitz Gallery, 109 Commercial St, London, E1 6BG 14 August–14 September
Martina Mullaney, Turn In
Mullaney has worked closely with the homeless to document their isolation through metaphors. Venue: Tom Blau Gallery, 21 Queen Elizabeth St, London, SE1 2PD 17 September–11 October
Venue: Galleria Grazia Neri, via Maroncelli 14, Milan, Italy 11 September–16 October
52 York Way, London, N1 9AB 25 August–5 October
JD Perkins, Dying to Play
Helen Sear, Grounded
Football in the West Bank and Gaza, in a time of war.
Virtual landscapes that ask us to question what’s real and what’s imaginary.
Venue: The Lincoln Lounge,
Chris Lopez, DJs Kate Holt, Victory–Images of the Aftermath
Photographs of Iraq. Venue: The Spitz Gallery, 109 Commercial St, London, E1 6BG Until 16 August
Colour and monochrome portraits. Venue: National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE Until 28 September Enrique Metinides
by a 50p bakelite camera purchased from the same market.
A series of colour landscape photographs that explore the aftermath of pit closures in England’s north east.
Venue: Photographers’ Gallery, 8 Great Newport St, London, WC2H 7HY Until 14 September
Venue: Baltic, The Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Rd, Gateshead, NE8 3BA Until 31 August
Leroy Grannis, Surfing–The Golden Years
Erich Lessing, People Known and Unknown
From the golden era of the ‘60s right up to the present day, Grannis’ images take us to California’s surfing hotspots.
Focusing on the influential Magnum photographer’s vast photographic career and diversity of work made during the ‘50s.
Venue: Galerie 779 19 rue de poitou, Paris 75003, France 28 August–31 October Seba Pavia, Italiani
Venue: Proud Camden, 10 Greenland St, London, NW1 0ND
Venue: Photofusion, 17a Electric Lane, London, SW9 8LA Until 6 September
Pavia observes with irony the habits of the Italians and presents a country full of contradictions.
Courtesy Visa pour l’Image, Perpignan. © 2003 John Trotter
Nick Danziger, The British
Portraits of a diverse range of people from many walks of life and all parts of the United Kingdom. Venue: Dimbola Lodge, Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight Until 31 August Philip-Lorca diCorcia, A Storybook Life
Using real and artificial lighting and an eye for symbolic detail, diCorcia’s street scenes and domestic interiors have a psychological and emotional intensity. 54
Retrospective of the Mexican photographer, whose lifelong focus has been disaster. Venue: Photographers’ Gallery 8 Great Newport St, London, WC2H 7HY Until 7 September Matthew Monteith, Cesky Raj
Personal exploration of the Czech Republic and its return to democracy.
Iraq, courtesy of Proud Gallery. AFP PHOTO/Patrick BAZ
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, The Coal Coast
Venue: Impressions Gallery, 29 Castlegate, York, Y01 9RN 9 August–4 October Soviets, Shepard Sherbell
Images from 1990-93 of a dismantled, post-communist Soviet Union.
England’s south coast, seen through a European eye.
Collection of works focusing on Cuba’s “climate of uncertainty”
Venue: a librairie “LIVRE AUX TRESORS”, 4 rue Sébastien, Laruelle à 4000 Liège, Belgium Until 28 August
Venue: Side Gallery, 5&9 Side, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 3JE Until 24 August
Jürg Waldmeier, Murano
Chris Steele-Perkins, Mount Fuji
Venue: Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Campo S. Agnese 810, Italy 12–18 September
Steele-Perkins documents 21st century Japanese daily life against the backdrop of a potent national symbol.
Cuba on the Verge
Venue: International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, 43 Street, New York NY, USA Until 31 August Home Security © Jenny Matthews
Documentary photography from the little-known and reported island of Murano, near Venice.
Covered
Original iconic album covers from the ‘60s blurring the boundaries between music and visual art. Venue: Blink Gallery, 11 Poland St, London, W1F 8QA Until 29 August
Venue: National Theatre, South Bank, London, SE1 8XX Until 13 September
Cruel and Tender
Exploring how some of the leading photographers of the 20th century have pictured the people and places of the world around them. Venue: Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG Until 7 September
Picture House Centre for Photography practical centre supporting photographers and the broader arts community providing commissions, exhibition opportunities, facilities and training welcomes photographers able to offer lectures, workshops and demonstrations
3 r d f l o o r, I n t e r n a t i o n a l H o u s e , 1 2 5 G r a n b y S t r e e t , L e i c e s t e r L E 1 6 F D T - 0 11 6 2 5 5 5 2 8 2 E - photo@pichouse.demon.co.uk
Picture House with financial assistance from Arts Council England and in collaboration with ei8ht presents commissioned documentary exhibitions ‘All in a Good Cause’ by Jonathan Olley, Tina Stallard and Jenny Matthews 25.04.03 - 22.08.03
Cuba, courtesy of Shine Gallery. © 2003 Desiree Dolron
Iraq–Uncensored
Christophe Smets, Ailes humanitaires
Documenting the life of a small aeroplane, and the humanitarian workers who use it, servicing one million inhabitants of northern Mali. Venue: Royal Army Museum, 3 Parc du Cinquantenaire, 1000 Brussels, Belgium Until 15 September
Group Shows After Image, Edinburgh International Festival Exhibition
Works by major artists whose striking images have influenced cultural views of female identity. Venue: Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market St, Edinburgh, EH1 1DF Until 27 September AOP Open
Jonathan Torgovnick, Bollywood Dreams
Annual competition–100 images by amateurs, emerging photographers and established professionals.
Torgovnick explores the cultural phenomenon that is India’s movie industry, the world’s largest film producer.
Venue: AOP Gallery, 81 Leonard St, London, EC2A 4QS 6 August–27 September
Venue: Klotz Sirmon Gallery, 511, West 25th Street, New York NY 10001, USA Until 15 August Thierry Vanroy, Carnet de Voyage
Images from the Isle of Wight, off ei8ht
The Conquest of Space
A collection of NASA pictures from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Venue: Tom Blau Gallery, 21 Queen Elizabeth St, London, SE1 2PD Until 13 September
An uncensored, unbiased pictorial history of the recent events in Iraq. Venue: Proud Central, 6 Buck-ingham St, London, WC2N 6BP Until 30 August The Observer Hodge Photographic Award
Showing the winning images from the 2003 Observer Hodge award. Venue: The Newsroom, 60 Farringdon Rd, London, EC1 Until 5 September Visa Pour l’Image Festival, Perpignan, France.
15th annual festival of photographers, editors and photojournalism professionals in Perpignan. Venue: Perpignan, France http://www.viapourlimage.com 30 August–14 September
ei8ht welcomes exhibition listings. Please send news releases via email to: listings@foto8.com or post to: Listings, foto8, 18 Great Portland Street, London W1W 8QP. Every effort has been made to ensure that all information is correct at time of going to press. ei8ht and foto8 Ltd accept no responsibility for any changes to dates of exhibitions.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS FOTO8.COM Dynamic new stories online. New edition (Aug 03): The Forgotten Lepers of Japan, Albanian Youth in Pristina, Migrant Workers in the US, My Home Abkhazia, and an essay on Malaria in Mozambique. PARTNER WEBSITES Documentography.com/ Photodocument.pl/ Photographer.ru/ Red-Top.com/ Reportage.com/ Revue.com/ Tangophoto.ch/ Your participation is vital – your work inspirational. IMAGESAGAINSTWAR.COM at Gallerie Lichtblick Friends, photographers and artists are invited to give their visual statements against war. See the work of more than 350 contributors and send in your work. Contact Tina Schelhorn: lichtblick@web.de INDOCHINA MEDIA MEMORIAL FOUNDATION Fundraising auction of images by Eve Arnold, Ian Berry, James Nachtwey, Tim Page and Horst Faas, and Vietnamese photographers who participated in the first IMMF Photojournalism Workshop in Ho Chi Minh City in 2002. Venue: St. Bride’s Institute in London, 13 November 2003. Email: immfinfo@yahoo.com PHOTOARCHIVENEWS.COM The latest news and developments in the world of photo agencies and photojournalism. Post to: will@photoarchivenews.com VISAPOURLIMAGE.COM Photojournalists, editors, picture agency representatives and image professionals gather for the 15th annual festival in Perpignan, France (30 August – 14 September). ei8ht editors: Jon Levy, Phil Lee and Sophie Batterbury, are on hand to review story proposals. See www.foto8.com during the festival for times and locations to meet.
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