Volume 2 Number 3 by Foto8

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photojournalism

UNSEEN MUHAMMAD ALI NAPLES’ CRIMINAL UNDERBELLY EXPOSED IRON PEOPLE ON THE EDGE IN BUCHAREST MOURMELON, THE MURDERS THAT SHOOK FRANCE COLIN JACOBSON ON YEAR ZERO IN REPORTAGE

Vol.2 No.3

CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORIAL “AVOIDING DANGER IS NO SAFER IN THE LONG RUN THAN OUTRIGHT EXPOSURE. THE FEARFUL ARE CAUGHT AS OFTEN AS THE BOLD. FAITH ALONE DEFENDS.”

ALFREDO D'AMATO lives in London and travelled to Romania for the first time in 2002, where he started his project on homeless families. Eastern European countries have now become the focus of his photographic research. alfredodamato@yahoo.co.uk FRANCESCO CITO is based in Milan. His career began in the UK in

HELEN KELLER 1880–1968

the early 1970s working for a pop-rock weekly magazine. He has reported from many countries including Afghanistan post Soviet

We all have our own faiths and beliefs to guide us. If you are reading this magazine the chances are that, amongst many things, you have a faith in photography and you believe in photojournalism’s ability to enlighten and move you. Photojournalism is realised when photographers cease to avoid danger and strive to make a bold statement with their work. The dangers they expose themselves to in the process are not just physical but can also be financial and even social. For example; who these days will finance a photographer to document the ongoing genocide in Congo or Laos? How is a person able to reconcile their dedication to telling stories like these, that I feel matter, with participation in our modern day society so dominated by consumerism and celebrity? In the essay in this issue Colin Jacobson reminds us that photojournalism requires hard work, talent, commitment and comes with no promise of financial reward. Yet today we see art galleries and book publishers co-opting the language of photojournalism and re-writing it with values of their own. The goal here of the art community is to idolise the individual, to proclaim the artist a master and their work a masterpiece, so that it may command a high price. Photography undertaken in this arena is inward looking and hides behind a fear of being exposed. It seeks appreciation and patronage and does little to confront or question. The photographer looks within and designs an image that serves primarily to advertise themself. This kind of photography is not journalistic. It exists on the surface of a wall or page alone, without integrity and lacking committment. Its sense of purpose is not clear and the work, like the artist, is shallow. Photojournalists, unlike artists, look outside of themselves at the world around them. They seek to be aware of the context of their stories and themselves within them. Above all they are driven by a belief and a sense of purpose to expose and disseminate a message that cannot be bought. Whether it is Stanley Greene's unflinching book about Chechnya or the revealing intimacy of Alfredo D'Amato's photographs of the Iron People there is something here to make you sit up and take notice. For these are real stories, these people exist and their lives continue, or not at the case may be, even as you read this. No amount of column inches on J-Lo's new hairstyle or the winner of the new art prize will make them go away.

invasion. In 1996 he won a World Press Photo award for his story

JON LEVY

VÉRONIQUE ROLLAND is based in London. Her work includes

on the Palio in Siena and in 1997, he won the City of Atri Prize for Peace and Freedom for his commitment to the Palestinian struggle. Francesco is represented by Panos Pictures in the UK. www.panos.co.uk JEAN-BAPTISTE DUCHENNE has worked as a radio journalist in Rome, Tangier, and recently for RFI France and Radio France. He began his first photographic project in May 2003, on James Joyce and Bloomsday in Dublin for which he received a Kodak professional donation. FELICITAS KRUSE is based in Vienna. Her work includes a book about Austrian fighting in the Spanish Civil War – Shoot Well, But Don’t Enjoy It. Her second project – Serçavan, Through My Eyes –is published as a book of the same name, details of which can be found at www.felicitas-kruse.at COLIN JACOBSON worked for the Observer Magazine and The Independent Magazine, amongst others, as Picture Editor. Twice chair of World Press Photo he is currently an honorary research fellow at Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Colin writes widely on photojournalism and was the founder of Reportage in the 1990s. www.reportage.org JESSE MARLOW is a member of Melbourne based Oculi photographers’ agency. His photographs are held in a number of Australian library and museum collections. In 2002, Jesse won first prize in the inaugural Hasselblad Xpan Masters competition and in 2003 his book, Centre Bounce, was published by Hardie Grant Books. www.oculi.com.au DAVID PRÊTRE

is a member of the photo agency Strates

Photographies in Lausanne, working as a press photographer. His personal work is mainly based around the themes of leisure, nightlife, and intimacy. www.strates.ch

portraits selected for the National Portrait Gallery’s John Kobal Exhibition in 1999 – 2000. Other projects include; Teenage Mums, a photographic and video installation and Jay Paris – from child to teenager, a seven year study. www.veroniquerolland.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Jon Levy ASSISTANT EDITOR: Phil Lee FEATURES EDITOR: Max Houghton CONTRIBUTING PHOTO EDITOR: Sophie Batterbury ART DIRECTION: Grant Scott REVIEWS: Sophie Wright EVENTS: Natasha O’Connor INTERN: Stephanie Wegenast SPECIAL THANKS: Maurice Geller PUBLISHER: Gordon Miller EUROPEAN ASSOCIATE: Arnaud Blanchard REPROGRAPHICS: Graphic Facilities PRINTER: Pensord Press DISTRIBUTION: Newstrade – Comag Specialist 01895 433800, Specialist Bookshps & Galleries – Central Books 020 8986 4854

ISSN: 1476-6817. ei8ht is published by foto8 ltd, 18 great portland street, london w1w 8qp. t: +44 (0)20 7636 0399 f: +44 (0)20 7636 8888 e: info@foto8.com The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily the views of ei8ht or foto8 ltd. Copyright © 2003 foto8 ltd. All rights reserved.

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VOL.2 NO.3 DECEMBER 2003

MOMENTS ALI’S PLACE

An intimate portrait of the boxing legend by Bill Peronneau 6 SLEEPERS

Stolen moments on the Havana Express by David Prêtre 8 UNCOVERED

Nocturnal tales from The Sunset Strip by Véronique Rolland 32

FEATURES IRON PEOPLE

Eking out a living on Bucharest’s margins by Alfredo D’Amato 10 GOOD FELLAS

Turf wars in gangland Naples by Francesco Cito 18 THE MOURMELON AFFAIR

The missing persons’ case that scandalised France by Jean-Baptiste Duchenne 26 CENTRE BOUNCE

Aboriginal fellas playing footy in the outback by Jesse Marlow 38 SERÇAVAN

A Kurdish family’s odyssey by Felicitas Kruse 42

ESSAY YEAR ZERO

Colin Jacobson’s unforgiving assessment of attitudes to photojournalism 34

FOCUS Documentary photography from the UWCN 2003 graduate show 62

REVIEWS Open Wound, Chechnya 1994 to 2003 46 Tales from a Globalizing World 48 so8os, a photographic diary of a decade 51

DIARY What’s hot in photography worldwide 52

RESOURCES Picture Agencies & Libraries, Photographers, Pro Services 54

MOMENTS

ALI’S PLACE BY BILL PERONNEAU

To order PERONNEAU, a suite of 26 unpublished black and white photographs of Muhammad Ali 60 pages in an edition of 1,500 with a signed Silver Gelatin print, hard bound in full cloth with slipcase: Price £75 call Locus+ Publishing Ltd on +44 (0)191 233 1450 or email: locusplus@newart.demon.co.uk

For more information about this feature contact Eyevine +44(0)20 8709 8709

DEER LAKE, PENNSYLVANIA, 1974. Muhammad Ali is preparing for the now legendary world heavyweight contest with George Foreman in Zaire. Photographer Bill Peronneau’s previously unseen portraits reveal an unexpected sense of domesticity and calm. Here Peronneau describes his exclusive shoot with Ali in this tranquil setting. “Ali was training for the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ later that year. The Deer Lake training camp is located in the Pocono Mountains in upstate Pennsylvania. There was talk in the press of a small cabin adjacent to the camp where he would find respite from the phalanx of reporters, photographers and well-wishers. After numerous requests to photograph him there, Muhammad finally called and said, ‘Come on Monday’. “Arriving early, there were few visitors. It was quite chilly and the camp was busy about its daily routine. Ali’s mom and aunt were in the camp’s kitchen, preparing a side of beef for dinner, Dundee [Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer] was issuing salvos of instruction to all that would listen. Ali’s sparring partner, Leon Spinks, was pondering his soon-to-be daily bruising. Cassius Clay senior was painting a ‘float and sting’

poster and Muhammad was in self-grooming mode. I was given the run of the camp. Eventually, Muhammad said ‘Let’s go’. “While heading toward the cabin, which was 100 yards deeper into the woods, I noticed a small boy arriving with his father. I asked if he might be photographed with ‘The Champ’. “The cabin was rustic. It had neither electricity nor running water, but Ali insisted that he felt more at home there than any other place on this planet. It was private, secluded, and his. The photographs speak to how his true personality was then as it is now. They are the only record of Ali at this location.” ❽ ei8ht

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SLEEPERS DAVID PRÊTRE CROSSED CUBA BY RAIL ONE NIGHT. LEAVING SANTIAGO DE CUBA AT 22.30, HE WALKED THROUGH THE WAGONS PHOTOGRAPHING SLEEPING FAMILIES, LOVERS, SOLDIERS, CHILDREN AND OLD PEOPLE UNTIL THE LIGHTS WENT OUT. THE TRAIN CONTINUED ITS JOURNEY TO HAVANA AND SUNRISE

The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.

Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. ei8ht

Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me; so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go. ei8ht

From The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke Published by, and permission of, Faber & Faber Ltd 9

COCALARI

IRON PEOPLE THE REMNANTS OF THE CEAUSESCU REGIME. EKING OUT A LIVING COLLECTING SCRAP METAL, THEY MAKE THEIR HOMES IN SHACKS BUILT ON THE DRY BED OF A DISUSED CITY RESERVOIR. EVERY SPRING THE POLICE COME TO TEAR DOWN THEIR HOMES, BUT THEY HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO, UNEDUCATED AND OUTSIDE THE LIMITED SOCIAL WELFARE RESOURCES OF A MODERN ROMANIA.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALFREDO D’AMATO WORDS BY MAX HOUGHTON 10

MANY FAMILIES WHO LOST THEIR HOMES following the fall of Ceausescu in 1989 finally settled in the suburbs of Bucharest, populating the familiar tower blocks of the communist regime. Others were not so fortunate. In Calea Vacaresti, south east of the capital, four families 12

have made their homes in the dried out basin of an artificial lake, constructing shacks from bricks, plastic and cartons in which to live. Unregistered at birth, the poorest people of Romania are not even citizens in their own country. ei8ht

When the weather permits, they dig for scraps of iron, copper and aluminium to sell to local car wreckers, but the advent of winter renders the frozen earth impenetrable. With sheets of plastic serving as windows, the temperature inside the shacks is no different to that outside, maybe 20 ei8ht

or 25 degrees celsius below. Anything and everything is burnt in a bid for warmth. The five children who live on the site do not leave their sheds all winter, breathing in fumes from scraps of rubber and plastic bubbling in the flames. 13

The bed being carried across the tramlines will serve as fuel not sanctuary. Clothes are removed and thrown onto the fire too. Five-year-old Corina and her young brother Claudiu both experienced problems with walking development, as a result of their enforced winter confinement. The first 14

time Corina walked on flat ground, she fell over; her formative steps were taken on the lakeside at a 45 degree angle. Grandmother Eliana is their sole guardian; their father is in jail, their mother long since disappeared. Elianaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest fear is that the police will come and smash up their home, as part of their annual spring â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;clean-upâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ei8ht

campaigns. Her one wish is to live in a council house, like the ones she can see across the basin through her plastic windows. Lele, a 33-year-old Romanian Gypsy of the Cocalari people, does not complain about life in the basin, in as much as he is accepting of an unconventional lifestyle. ei8ht

But accustomed to communal living, it is the isolation he finds difficult for himself and his young family. In summertime, Lele and the other men can sometimes get black market work. They travel into the city where they build big houses for the better-off of Bucharest â?˝

GOOD

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Police officers from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Falconsâ&#x20AC;? unit formed to combat muggings load their weapons in readiness for the day

BY JEAN-BAPTISTE DUCHENNE

FELLAS BY FRANCESCO CITO

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ON 9 OCTOBER 2003, ANNA VOLLARO COVERED HER BODY WITH PETROL and set herself on fire in a last ditch effort to

stop police officers sent to seize property and estates belonging to the camorra clans. Anna, 29, a mother of two, is the daughter of Antonio Vollaro, the brother of the more famous Luigi (also known as ’O Califfo), founder of the big and powerful Camorra family that operates in the western part of Naples. On the same day, in the same area, ex-convict Renato Iacomino, 28, was murdered by two gunmen, who shot him in the middle of a city centre street. Renato had a criminal record for pushing drugs. In the following 24 hours a little way from there, in Ercolano, the town wiped out by Vesuvius in 79BC like Pompeii, another two murders ordered by the Camorra took place. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the early 1980s when, following the earthquake in November 1980, the Camorra wars began over who got the lion’s share of the money flooding in for the rebuilding of the city. At this time Raffaele Cutolo, boss of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata came to power. His clan was fighting against the “cosca” of the Nuova Famiglia in order to have full control of all the business, legal and illegal – particularly cigarette smuggling – typical of the Neapolitan Camorra families. In 1982 the clan wars 20

covered the Neapolitan streets with 365 corpses. Today, in 2003, although the phenomenon has reduced, there are still about 100 killings per year. But it no longer makes the news. With the G7 summit in 1994, the city tried to renew its look. A few things improved, streets and squares were decorated so that lots of tourists arrived. But criminals are still laying down the law, both in the city centre and on the outskirts, such as Secondigliano in the north and San Giovanni in the east. After a new burst of violence, in May this year, the Minister of the Interior sent another 1,500 officers to keep the territory under control. The Neapolitan Camorra is as implacable and pitiless as the Sicilian mafia, but definitely more arrogant and less subtle. There is no “cupola” and the power in the different quarters is held by the families that belong to the place, with alliances among clans that change every now and then. A little mistake, a perceived insult, and the fighting starts again. Very often, when the bosses are in jail, the women of the family – wives and sisters – take charge and administer the power and business. It is almost a matriarchy – another difference from the mafia – that penetrates every level of activity, even down to as desperate and drastic an act as the one carried out by Anna Vollaro ❽ ei8ht

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Suspected members of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, are held in court behind bars while the bodies of Camorra victims litter the narrow streets of the Spanish Quarter

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Street life â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and death: Cardinal Michele Giordano visits a Camorra gang member (top left). A man trains his horse for an illegal race on the edge of town (centre). These contests often attract competitors with stolen horses as well as with mafia links. Police search the home of Gennaro Russo (holding baby), son of the dead mafia boss Domenico Russo. Girls hang out on the street (top left) while a Falcon anti-crime unit prepares to raid a suspected Camorra hide-out

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The aftermath of a Camorra hit: police and bystanders crowd around the shot-up car in a Naples street

THE MOURMELON 26

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AFFAIR TERRIFIED, THE HITCH-HIKER TOLD HIS STORY. “JUST BY LOOKING AT MY ABDUCTOR, I KNEW I HAD BETTER OBEY HIS ORDERS IF I WANTED TO SAVE MY LIFE.” BY JEAN-BAPTISTE DUCHENNE

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Inside the camp at Mourmelon in north-eastern France (above), one of three garrisons in the region to which suspected serial killer Pierre Chanal had been attached. Chanal’s impounded camper van (below): a police patrol found Paläzs Falvay, a young Hungarian hitch-hiker in the back, tied up and raped but still alive. The battered and strangled body of the last of the ‘Disappeared of Mourmelon’ was found in the woods near Aisne (previous page): he was Trevor O’Keefe, an Irish tourist

IT IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST AND MOST MACABRE missing

persons’ cases in French history. Between 1980 and 1987, eight young men had vanished without trace. Now, 16 years on, the case was finally due to come to court and the mystery of “The Disappeared of Mourmelon” perhaps be solved. So, over the course of 2003, as the trial approached, I revisited Mourmelon, a garrison town near Rheims, following the path the victims trod. Theirs was a chilling story – but there was one grim, final twist to come: in October the suspected serial killer, Pierre Chanal, committed suicide, just hours after his long-awaited murder trial began. The first four young men to vanish were draftees, prompting suggestions from the French army that they could be deserters. Indeed, every year a few thousand conscripts fled these huge military camps left over from the 19th century, when France was arming its eastern regions against the German threat. But in 1985, interest in the case was revived by the disappearance of another young man, this time a civilian, Patrice Denis. Two new

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Micheline and Jean-Paul (above) were level-crossing keepers for 23 years at Pontfaverger-Moronvilliers, near the Moronvilliers military camp. They were questioned by police investigating the discovery of Chanal’s camper van but said they had seen nothing. On a computer screen (below), the lawyer working for the family of one of the ‘Disappeared’ examines the features of six of the eight young men for common physical characteristics

investigators were appointed to the case, to look into the disappearances of Patrick Dubois in 1980, Serge Havet, Manuel Carvalho and Pascal Sergent in 1981 and Olivier Donner in 1982. From then on, the whole region was searched, including some 2,000 wells. Police interviewed 8,000 people directly and through surveys, but to no avail. In 1987, 18-year-old Patrick Gache, of the “4e régiment de Dragons”, went missing. Just over three months later, the naked body of Trevor O’Keefe, an Irish tourist who had been hitchhiking in the region, was discovered in woods to the north of Aisne. He had been strangled. A year later, a police patrol by chance came across a VW camper van on an isolated road some 300km south of Mourmelon. Looking inside they discovered a young Hungarian hitchhiker, Paläzs Falvay. Still alive, he had been raped, tied up and held hostage for 20 hours. The van belonged to Pierre Chanal, then sergeant major of the local regiment. Terrified, the hitchhiker told his story: “Just by

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An abandoned farm (above) in Vatry, near Mailly-le-Camp – one of the three military bases, with Mourmelon (below) and Châlons-en-Champagne, which made up the so-called ‘triangle maudit’ or ‘accursed triangle’ of the Marne region. A neighbour said that she remembered seeing Chanal near the farm with one of his alleged victims. Other locals were sceptical about her claims but the woman was to have appeared as a witness in Chanal’s trial

looking at my abductor, I knew I had better obey his orders if I wanted to save my life.” The investigators tried to link this horrific case to the disappearances around Mourmelon, but they failed to extract a confession from Chanal. At the time of his arrest, he spoke only to confirm his name, rank and service number. “He acted like a prisoner of war,” a police officer said later. In 1990, Chanal was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for the 1988 rape. He served five years, before being released under strict legal confines to live at his sister’s house near Lyon. Meanwhile, investigators continued to try to gain conclusive proof that Chanal was the man behind “The Disappeared of Mourmelon”. Forensic tests uncovered “a very strong probability” that hairs found in the back of Chanal’s camper van belonged to three of the missing men. In August 2001, more than 20 years after the disappearance of Patrick Dubois in 1980, Chanal was charged with the murder of three men: Patrick Gache, Patrice Denis and Trevor O’Keefe. Lack of evidence meant the other five cases were dropped.

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Michel Lenté (above) stands by the Alaincourt grove where he discovered the body of the young Irishman, Trevor O’Keefe, in August 1987. He was the last victim allegedly to die at the hands of Chanal. The following year he was arrested for abducting Paläzs Falvay, who survived. Previously, three other victims had disappeared on this road (below), the N77 between Châlons-en-Champagne and Troyes. They have never been found

Chanal always protested his innocence and vowed to take his life if he ever appeared in court. A suicide attempt in May 2003 resulted in a further postponement of the trial. In letters written before his suicide attempt, he claimed he was being made a scapegoat and could not face trial. For the last three months of his life, 56-year-old Chanal had been on hunger strike, and was being fed by drip in a Rheims hospital. The decorated soldier, who won a medal for valour for his service in Lebanon, managed to escape the eye of police guard to insert a razor blade into the label of his trousers. He used it to slit an artery in his thigh, hours after his trial finally opened. He was pronounced dead just after 1am on Wednesday, 15 October 2003. The families of Chanal’s alleged victims feel betrayed by what can only be described as a catastrophe for French justice. It had been said all along that this trial would go ahead with or without the presence of Chanal in court, but this last, dramatic twist has not only rendered justice impossible, but has left a huge question mark hanging, nooselike, over the quiet town of Mourmelon ❽

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MOMENTS

UNCOVERED BY VÉRONIQUE ROLLAND 32

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UNCOVERED IS A PHOTO-CHRONICLE of the transformation of young women employed as strippers. They all worked at the Sunset Strip Club – but forget any images the name may conjure up of palm trees and red Corvettes. This isn’t downtown Los Angeles but back-street London. Véronique Rolland took portraits of the dancers to capture their metamorphosis from “ordinary women to strippers and back to ordinary women” as she put it. Of the club itself Véronique said: “It doesn’t offer clients an awful lot – except for the strippers, who for a few hours every night enable men to escape their realities. In spite of the surroundings, the women I met showed a dynamic attitude and incredible pride in their presentations.” The idea for the triptych, shot in the dimly lit corridor behind the stage area, was to capture three stages of the women’s evening: first as they arrive for work, then just before the performance in their role as sensual goddess and finally after they finish their set, when exposed as vulnerable, tired and naked – but indomitable Ω ei8ht

ESSAY

YEAR ZERO A BROADSIDE FROM THE FRONTLINE BY COLIN JACOBSON

THE ART WORLD FEELS THREATENED BY PHOTOJOURNALISM AND FEELS THE NEED TO RUBBISH IT AND THEN SUBSUME IT INTO THE GALLERY CIRCUIT TO CONTROL IT, LIKE A DANGEROUS WILD ANIMAL. I HAVE AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS …

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MARVIN GAYE’S PRIMAL SCREAM OF CONCERNED INCOMPREHENSION, “What’s Going On?”, keeps beating at my brain. I seem to have been pursued by demons in recent weeks telling me to forget everything I have believed in while working for 30 years in photography. The editor of this august journal has sent me Paul Graham’s latest book to review, American Night. Forgive me for quoting from the blurb but it has to be our starting point: “Paul Graham’s photographs touch upon the social fracture of America – the great divide – between included and excluded, black and white, have and have-not. It is a simple topic, shunned these days or only dealt with in clichéd photo-journalism. American Night embraces this neglected territory in a series of shocking images which lodge firmly in our consciousness as they negotiate the boundaries of art and document.” Even allowing for publisher’s hyperbole, note the buttons being pressed here. “…only dealt with in clichéd photo-journalism”. This is a mantra that has been spewing out of the self-satisfied mouths of gallery owners, curators, critics, gurus, theorists and lecturers with

the frame. If this is just part of a survival strategy for mid-career photojournalists who are slowing down a bit, it’s not such a problem. But I have an uneasy feeling that too many photographers are beginning to swallow the poisoned chalice. Recently, a distinguished photojournalist told me morosely at the opening of his excellent exhibition of fashion photographs that he wondered if there was any point in doing reportage anymore. I just make it to Cruel + Tender at Tate Modern before it closes. I am excited at the prospect of seeing excellent prints of Sander, Evans, Arbus and Frank. The show itself seems an incoherent mess, randomly thrown together to make some kind of “statement”. The usual suspects are included from British photography, Martin Parr and Paul Graham but I am intrigued that Graham’s photographs are from Beyond Caring, his social security office series taken in the 1980s. (Perhaps none of his subsequent celebrated body of work was considered to be sufficiently cruel or tender?) According to the catalogue, these “portrayed Britain in an objective, documentary style”. I take heart – important international curators do see some good in reportage photography after all. My euphoria is short-lived.

Who are these curators to write such drivel? Have they ever looked at the history of photography – or just gorged on a diet of art theory? such regularity that a whole generation of photography students have been made to feel guilty if they even think of working in a journalistic context. It is also something of a double-whammy: photojournalism is mucky, untrustworthy, dishonest and predictable stuff to be avoided at the cost of your soul and certainly your bank balance, but hey, nobody’s addressing these important social issues anymore. I don’t know if Graham accepts any responsibility for the notes but I suggest the publishers go and look at the work of Eugene Richards, Steve Hart and Joseph Rodriguez for starters before issuing such a glib dismissal. Insidiously, this malaise is beginning to creep into the psyches of some of our more distinguished British photojournalists. We find them abandoning social topics for the relatively non-stressful approach of, say, producing pleasing graphic colour patterns of the environment, blowing up images and framing them with metal filigree or taking portraits using a constructed black tape frame within ei8ht

A wall panel dismisses the “dramatised scenarios of some types of photojournalism”. I slink away, to be confronted by massive blowups of rather uninteresting portraits by Thomas Ruff. You cannot but be overawed by their size. Then I come across a famous Diane Arbus picture, showing diminutive Jewish parents gobsmacked by the immensity of their gigantic son. I feel an instant empathy. After Ruff, I know how they feel – what did they do to deserve this? My mood slumps further during a visit to the Photographers’ Gallery, to see an impressive body of work by a classy Mexican press photographer, Enrique Metinides. I make the mistake of looking at the pictures before reading the hoity-toity wall text that informs me: “Metinides’ work is characterised by a level of compositional invention very rare in reportage photography”. My ulcer returns. Who are these ignorant curators who feel able to write such drivel? Have they ever actually looked at the history of photography or have they just gorged on a diet of art theory? With an airy flap at the keyboard, much of the finest reportage photography of the 20th century is 35

YEAR ZERO deleted. Do they never look at the work of people like Witold Krassowski, Gerard Uferas and Roger Hutchings, non-celebrity photojournalists whose work is saturated with “compositional invention” and an ability to describe and interpret the world in visually poetic terms? Off to the Hereford Photo Festival, only to read in the programme notes about a show by photographer Martina Mullaney: “Homelessness, avoiding the usual humanist empathetic pull of portraits of the under-privileged.” Substituting what? The usual appeal to the intellect over the visual message, a total reliance on the idea at the cost of visual content? Endlessly repeated abstractions as if somehow by removing people altogether and concentrating on objects, the cumulative effect will somehow draw us so much closer to the “felt life” of the absent participants. Now here’s a provocative suggestion. The art world feels threatened by good photojournalism and feels the need to rubbish it and then subsume it into the gallery circuit to control it, like a dangerous wild animal. I have an explanation for this. Successful

journalist struggling to tell an interesting story on a day rate of £200. How did this all come about? Let me share a hunch with you. Back in the abysmal 1980s, a few of the more intelligent British photographers realised two things. First, colour film was becoming better and faster all the time. Second, TV was beginning to dominate the national agenda in an unprecedented way, pushing it into a consumer and celebrity culture that would effectively kill off magazines as vehicles of reportage. It was necessary to reinvent oneself. But first one had to get noticed. Heavily influenced by US work by William Eggleston and Joel Sternfeld, clever photographers such as Paul Graham and Martin Parr set out consciously and publicly to rubbish the whole tradition of black-and-white social documentary as being tired and past its sellby date. These criticisms were not without foundation but the baby was thrown out with the bath water. Public bodies such as the Arts Council rushed to join the cause. You might call this the equivalent of the Pol Pot era in British photography: after Year Zero, photojournalism ceases to exist.

Successful reportage photography is hard work, time consuming and requires huge amounts of talent, energy, patience and commitment. reportage photography is hard work, time consuming and requires huge amounts of talent, energy, patience and commitment. It’s much easier and quicker to resort to “biographical” me-me-me photography, the more obscure the better. You work at your own pace, without deadlines to meet and you are in total control of the image making, unfazed by a volatile external world that refuses to behave as you want it to. You can construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct beyond the baleful eye of an editor or an impatient readership. Who can argue with the meanings that you choose to place upon your work? When challenged, you can resort without shame to the easy old chestnut, “What do you think it means” or even “It means what you want it to mean”. The sneering attitude to photojournalism also makes good commercial sense. The top earners in British photography don’t make their dosh from magazines and books but by becoming part of the celebrity circuit. If you can sell a print for several thousand pounds you might feel contempt, or at least pity, for a photo36

Success breeds success and a host of imitators. A whole generation of emerging photographers, who might have chosen to put their energies into reviving and sustaining a buoyant photojournalistic culture in the UK, instead chose the path of personal expression and biographical art. And so was born a new orthodoxy and one that has become as predictable and unchallenging as the tradition it supplanted. There are a few hopeful signs of revisionism on the horizon, Susan Sontag, in her latest expensive little publication, Regarding the Pain of Others, has managed to bring herself to acknowledge that photography has some useful role to play as witness to our troubled times. I suspect this has something to do with her visits to Sarajevo with Annie Liebovitz and a discovery that although reportage may be a very variable and unreliable tool, when it is done well and from the heart, it mediates aspects of the external world more directly, effectively and, yes, honestly than any other form of visual communication. In her famous book, On Photography, Sontag argued that “conei8ht

‘Do you suggest that photojournalists should put down their camera altogether and leave the reportage field to the banal descriptive powers of TV? What kind of visual history would that leave us with?’

cerned” photography “had done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it” and that human capacity to respond to images of the suffering of others was being “sapped by the relentless diffusion of vulgar and appalling images”. Post-Sarajevo, Sontag has sought to modify her earlier argument. She pours scorn on the kind of “fancy rhetoric” that waters down the reality of war, seeking to persuade us that its all just one big game show. Real people are at the core of the debate about photography and conscience and many of these people are actually suffering. In other words, reality bites. I don’t claim to be in the same league as Sontag but for years I have been informally asking the post-modern critics of photojournalism, “What do you think should happen then? Do you suggest that photojournalists should put down their camera altogether and leave the reportage field to the banal descriptive powers of TV? What kind of visual history would that leave us with?” I never get answers. Which brings me back to Paul Graham. American Night costs £40 and is handsomely produced. Statistically, the pagination count is as follows: out of a total of 136 pages, 70 are completely blank and 63 contain single images. Of these, 45 consist of extremely bleached out colour photographs of what seem to be a tiny isolated figure lost in some kind of characterless, run-down urban environment. We are not told what technique Graham was using to produce these trace element images but I suspect they are computer enhanced. The first one or two are rather intriguing and eerie and you wonder what is to come but soon it’s hard to stifle a yawn or a giggle. Sprinkled among them, apparently in a random fashion but no doubt with considerable forethought, are seven super-real Egglestoninspired colour images of what appear to be fairly affluent suburban houses with no people in sight. Inserted in the middle of the book are ten quite conventional colour reportage street pictures of individuals, all black or hispanic, taken in depressed social locations. Curiously, these few images are printed on both sides of the double spread. There must be a logic to this; perhaps this genre does not merit the significant other, the comforting clean white opposite page. The overall message seems to be: the USA is a hopelessly unfair society, the gap between the haves and have-nots is huge, nobody really sees the have-nots anymore, they are just phantoms in a landscape. A perfectly acceptable if rather hackneyed message (if I’m right) but one that could have been adequately expressed in, shall we say, a considerably more succinct manner. Graham provides no textual commentary or explanation of his own ei8ht

but there is a two-page excerpt at the back from a writer called Jose Saramago. The problem is all the text in the book is printed in what looks like minimal cream on white, even by peering close-up at the page, I experienced some difficulty in deciphering the words. I suppose it’s rather retro of me to expect to be able to read a book in an accessible way. I am not qualified to criticise Paul Graham’s art. After all, he is one of the few British photographers to have had a solo exhibition at the Tate (Hypermetropia 1996) and so must be taken seriously. Interestingly enough, he was also awarded the Eugene Smith Grant some years ago, which some see as the quintessential recognition of achievement in social documentary photography. So we are entitled to expect that he seeks to communicate something over and above the conceptual to his audience. One shouldn’t be oversensitive. There was justification in the criticisms of the Parr-Graham school of thought stating that British documentary photography had become stale and something of a parody of itself. Similarly, many contemporary photojournalists shoot themselves in the foot by relentlessly homing in on the same old chestnuts: strife, drugs, AIDS, homelessness, poverty, etc etc. The trouble is, there’s a lot of it about and as always it’s as much about how you tell the story as what the story’s about. And how long you choose to stay with the story in this age of visual sound bites. We are told Graham worked on this book from 1998 to 2002 in locations as diverse as Los Angeles, Memphis, Detroit, Atlanta and New York to produce his relentlessly similar images. This is fundamentally a dishonest book. It masquerades as an important contribution to greater understanding of the “social fracture of America – the great divide between included and excluded, black and white, have and have-not”. It purports to embrace “this neglected territory in a series of shocking images which lodge firmly in our consciousness as they negotiate the boundaries of art and document”. In reality (whatever that is), the publication is neither conceived, designed, intended nor priced to meet a mainstream audience. No doubt, expensive, impeccably designed, limited edition portfolios of his photography, based on the book, will appear to delight the Chablis drinkers on the circuit (I’ve nothing against Chablis), but the work itself will contribute zilch to a wider understanding of social reality in the USA ❽ American Night published by SteidlMACK/Thames and Hudson ISBN 3-88243-919-X Price: £40/$65/65 euros. www.thamesandhudson.co.uk

CENTRE BOUNCE Desert Footy from Australia’s Heart

BY JESSE MARLOW WHEN I ENCOUNTERED ABORIGINAL FOOTBALL for the first time, I knew it was a window between two Australias. To take two different views: For Michael Long, the champion indigenous footballer, the first ball that he kicked was not a ball at all, but several fellas’ rolled-up socks… Socks or not, Long picked up what was to become a ball of opportunity from that familiar red dirt earth and ran with it. Recruited to Essendon from Darwin in 1989, a highlight of his illustrious 13-year career with the Bombers was receiving the Norm Smith Medal in 1993. “From childhood, as toddlers, we played without shoes, real footballs or even goal posts,” says Long. “We would use our shirts to mark goal posts if there were no handy trees. Then we would play in

our skins [without shirts]. Families play a big role in football in the Territory. Community and family rivals play each other in a match, the strongest said to win! “Football is part of everyday life for almost every Aboriginal kid who grows up in the Northern Territory.” Neil Murray was a new – white – arrival in Papunya in 1980. Now a noted author and songwriter (he wrote the theme song for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, “My Island Home”) he was employed in the setting up of outstations, to help the displaced Pintupi people return to a semi-traditional lifestyle. The 1950s and 1960s had seen the desert Pintupi ousted from their homeland, induced by the government to abandon their nomadic lifestyle and integrate into mainstream society.

‘As children we played without shoes or even real footballs – and used shirts for goal posts…’ Steven Brown Japanangka, Yuendumu Magpies (right); Pumaralli Lightning Bombers rejoice after their victory, Tiwi Island Grand Final – Bathurst Island (below) 38

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’The Aboriginal fellas were fast and agile, moving the ball quickly in a furry of passing and scrambling’: (Clockwise from top left) Sunset kick, Titjikala Community; Northside Power players with the premiership cup; Alpirakina players push-start the team bus, Yuendumu Community; savouring the win, Tiwi Island Grand Final – Bathurst Island

Finding himself in what he describes as a “bewildering cross-cultural situation”, Murray jumped at the chance to join this group in their chosen sport, rekindling a love of football that macho Aussie Rules in his native Victoria had all but kicked out of him. “The Aboriginal fellas were fast and agile; they moved the ball quickly in a flurry of passing and scrambling, kicking up dust, which was exciting to watch. Most were superbly gifted at running, marking, dodging, weaving and knowing where their teammates were around them. “Body contact was not as hard as in the games I played down south,” says Murray. “It was more skilful, besides you might be playing against a bloke that you have a particular kinship relationship with. “It was only in the really big matches, like Grand Finals with a rival community, that violence might flare. Generally it was all display and threat. It was not uncommon to have men with spears or boomerangs step onto the oval and remonstrate over an umpire’s

decision. Accusations of cheating were common from the losing team. It made for great theatre rather than bad sportsmanship. “What struck me the most about playing desert footy with Aboriginal teams was their complete acceptance of me, and the humour and frivolity among teammates. We were fit young men in our prime, brimming with optimism, confidence and skill, for whom playing football was both an outlet and an expression. “The year Papunya won the Grand Final at the Yuendumu sports weekend, the team had with them an old man, Tjapangati, to sing ‘emu dreaming’ for them so they would run faster. As it turned out Papunya’s team of small men were too quick for Yuendumu’s big-marking tall timber and they were premiers that year. Tjapangati took credit for the win.” ❽ Michael Long is now executive chairman of the AFL Australian Indigenous Foundation. Neil Murray is a respected songwriter, performer, poet and author. He was a founding member of aboriginal rock group Warumpi Band. Thanks to Martin Flanagan.

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Football is part of everyday life for every Aboriginal kid that grows up in the Northern Territoryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: Papunya Community, marking out the boundary line (above) and watching the big men fly (below)

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SERÇAVAN:

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IN MY EYES

FROM KÎMSOR IN “TURKISH” KURDISTAN, THE REMOTE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THEIR UPBRINGING, THE CHILDREN OF THE VAROL FAMILY HAVE CARRIED THEIR CULTURE ACROSS MANY FRONTIERS. FELICITAS KRUSE RECORDS THEIR REUNION. WORDS BY MAX HOUGHTON

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NO CONTEMPORARY MAP ACKNOWLEDGES THE EXISTENCE OF KURDISTAN. Yet for the advancing Kurdish

diaspora, concepts of home and homeland are intrinsic to a sense of identity. The exterior is now interior. Home is portable. From Kîmsor in “Turkish” Kurdistan, the remote mountain village of their upbringing, the sons and daughters of the Varol family have carried their culture across many frontiers. While their parents lead a pastoral life, rising at dawn to tend the goats, visiting their nearest neighbour an hour’s walk away to take tea, seven of nine children have chosen the rush, push and cash of modern city dwelling. Home is now Vienna for six of the Varol brothers, a journey that began with Yasar, who went to the Austrian capital to study medicine, and married a Kurdish girl. A sister, Nedime, lives with her husband and two children in Stuttgart, Germany, where she works as a cleaner. Nedime explains her complicated relationship with her homeland: “Everything is very different here, in Germany. There is no Saturday or Sunday in our land Kurdistan. I have to cry a lot when I visit Kurdistan where the life for children and women is very difficult. Women have to do all: cook, clean, bake, wash – their life is not free. For men it is already free, but not for women. But for all that, Kurdistan is good and beautiful for me.” Summer sees the annual family odyssey to Kîmsor, home to the Varol family for over a century. Eagerly anticipated by parents Ismail and Cemile, and two remaining siblings, the arduous journey – some 50 hours by bus – serves to reinforce both the difference in their lives and the unshatterable bonds of kinship. Cemile spends many weeks cleaning, baking, preparing for her family’s homecoming. Kîmsor needs the annual influx of young blood. Not so long ago it was home to some 70 families, now just five remain. For the most part, it is the older generation who stay. “I was born in that country,” says Cemile with pride and passion. “It is the land of my ancestors. I love that country, it is my home. I would never change a handful of earth for the world.” Yet at these emotional reunions, when the feasting stops and the last song has been sung, everyone is aware they are witnessing a way of life which simply may not exist ten years from now. If a nation is understood by its proverbs, a telling family favourite runs: “A full house never dies.” But when the old family home, its land and livestock are finally left to return to the earth, where then lies home? Every odyssey needs a destination. But for these stateless people, home has always been a state of mind. So in Stuttgart, in Vienna, in cities 44

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If a nation is understood by its proverbs, a telling family favourite runs: “A full house never dies.” worldwide, Kurdish people gather, to dance, to play traditional instruments, to eat yoghurt and honey or, a Kurdish favourite, chips for breakfast. The immigrant communities are typically close-knit. Among friends, they will speak Kurdish – a living language of paramount importance to a people oppressed for centuries. While their day-to-day existence bears no resemblance to that back home, in a foreign land they share a sense of belonging. In Kurdistan, a stranger is welcomed with the greeting “Serçavan”, a phrase imbued with much respect and honour, which translates as “through my eyes”. The inhospitable mountains of Kîmsor are indelibly etched on the retina of its heirs; their ei8ht

childhood walks have created maps inside their minds and they are wholly shaped by them. It is worth taking a look through their eyes. While the mountains’ austere beauty may provide a peerless backdrop for a family photograph, framing them firmly on all sides, it is not a landscape that lends itself to modernity, to change. Like most of their generation, the younger Varols have taken themselves away from the mountains, to another world. Always moving, always staying in the same place. “I always dream of Kurdistan in Germany,” says Nadine. “I cannot forget it.” ❽ 45

OPEN WOUND, CHECHNYA 1994 to 2003 “My anger is total” says Stanley Greene, in his new book. It is a feeling he challenges us to share. onsisting of mainly black and white photographs interspersed with eerie colour images Open Wound has been edited from the work that Greene has done over a span of ten years covering the plight of Chechnya. In the past few years it has become increasingly difficult and dangerous for journalists to gain access to the region. Nevertheless Greene has relentlessly followed the fate of Chechnya with his camera and personal diary at his side. Often working without financial support, sometimes on assignment for magazines, he has always enjoyed the encouragement and belief in him of his agency, Vu. The thoughtful layout of the images and words in the book are a credit to its designers and publishers. They create not only a photographer’s personal view of the war but go further, asking of us, “How can you see, look away and remain unmoved?” The reader is forced to acknowledge the suffering that continuously pierces Chechnya: whether it is the awful last grasp at life by a dying air-raid victim as he crawls along the bloodied snow, or the warm photograph of a family of seven who, we are told, were dead within two years of their sitting for their portrait, the threat and devastating effect of Russian fire-power is omnipresent in this book. Beyond bringing us the visual horror of war, Open Wound carries the reader into the conflict by being one of those rare things these days, a book with a purpose – one that is well considered and unsentimental. Greene doesn’t ask us to feel sorry for the people in his pictures, indeed the Chechens themselves have no room for self-pity. From the Tsars to Stalin to Yeltsin and Putin today the Chechens have been persecuted. As a nation they see their very survival in their enduring defiance. What Greene demands instead with this important book is our outrage ❽

JON LEVY OPEN WOUND, CHECHNYA 1994 TO 2003 Photographs by Stanley Greene Text, André Glucksmann and Christian Caujolle Published by Trolley, www.trolleynet.com ISBN: 1– 904563-01-5, £35.00

‘Downtown Grozny. April 2001. Since the death of her child, Zelina often stares at something far and away, elusive. She says she is already dead herself, if only time would hurry up’ 46

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REVIEWS

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REVIEWS

TALES FROM A GLOBALIZING WORLD Inside the accelerating phenomenon – revealing the individual stories behind the abstract terminology

aniel Schwartz was invited by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in 2002 to produce this international photography project – an exhibition and accompanying book – on the process of globalisation. Rather than attempting an all-encompassing approach to the phenomenon, Schwartz introduces us to this vast subject through the commissioned work of ten different photographers. From diverse cultural and journalistic backgrounds and with differing artistic strategies the contributors’ stories range across five continents. Globalisation serves both to unite and destroy – it homogenises national culture while also fragmenting local ways of life. By illustrating its effects at a human level, revealing the individual stories behind the abstract terminology, this book makes them more accessible. The Balkan states bear the scars of clashing religious and nationalist causes dating back to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. The Bosnian Ziyo Gafic photographed his country in the wake of the most recent conflict arising from these tensions. His images record the tragedy experienced by his family – the shrine to his grandfather who committed suicide at the start of the fighting, a portrait of his cousin’s once well-to-do family reduced to penury and traumatised by violence – as part of the tragedy of the nation. His story includes harrowing images of body bags, mass graves and places of execution; but pictures of joyful returnee children and the family moving in to a rebuilt home once on the frontline, speak of hope and recovery. As part of the early globalising period of the transatlantic slave trade, African religions found their way to Brazil. Akinbode Akinbiyi has documented the still flourishing Nigerian Orisha cults in Brazil, their survival rooted in the slaves’ struggle to

hang on to their cultural identity. He illustrates the centuries-old cross-fertilisation of race and culture between the two countries, with photographs of key cities, religious leaders, devotional offerings and shrines. Tim Hetherington also travelled to Africa to see how for some the universal language of sport has offered a route to recovery in countries ravaged by conflict, or poverty in spite of plentiful natural resources. In Nairobi, where deprivation and dislocation lead to thousands of children living on the streets, former street kid George Mureu, became Kenya’s taekwondo champion. Hetherington photo-

graphs Mureu’s squad in training on the streets of the capital. In Angola, he found victims of land mines at a prosthesis centre using ball control to improve their co-ordination skills; and in Liberia, he records the former child soldiers who have found comradeship and a new sense of identity in football. Contemporary globalisation is manifestly associated with Americanisation. Thomas Kern turns his camera inwards onto America, the homeland of “mass destruction, mass consumption, mass culture”, against a backdrop of the fallout from “9/11” and the country’s preparations for war. With great clarity, his images of eroding regional ei8ht

industry, inner city poverty and ethnic and racial difference propose a country where a sense of what is “unAmerican” is clearer than what is. From one global superpower to another: based in Tokyo since 1997, Andreas Seibert has documented China’s transition to a vigorous modern economy. In 1978, China cautiously opened itself up to the world market with the creation of special economic zones such as that in the Pearl River Delta. Today, after a huge increase in foreign investment, this area is a megalopolis of between 40 to 50 million people. Seibert focused on the migrant workers pouring into this region. He records their manual jobs and modest homes in shantytowns of corrugated iron, their meagre subsistence contrasting with the developing urban infrastructure they help to sustain. With new economies eroding traditional ecosystems, impoverished communities are forced to trade in whatever they have left and more often than not in themselves. Nationwide criminal networks in India, for example, profit from this fragmentation, targeting women and unprotected children drawn to the towns in search of work. Many

are lured in to the sex industry. Shehzad Noorani documents the hopeless poverty of those on the lowest rung. His heartbreaking pictures record the rural poverty from which they run and the life of desperation and danger that awaits them. In Vietnam, Phillip Jones Griffiths photographed a nation that has fought back against the spreading influence of the dominant American culture. Yet he depicts a country whose landscape has been infiltrated by international brand names, displayed on gigantic advertising

SOPHIE WRIGHT AN EXHIBITION OF THIS WORK IS AT MAISON COMMUNALE DE PLAINPALAIS, GENEVA, FROM 13 NOVEMBER TO 12 DECEMBER 2003 TALES FROM A GLOBALIZING WORLD Edited by Daniel Schwartz 256pp,227 photographs, paperback, £19.95 Thames and Hudson, ISBN: 0500284326 © 2002 Ziyo Gafic/Grazia Neri/Courtesy SDC

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hoardings, in windows and on roadsides as it opens itself up to the international market. Christina Nunez’s contribution, “Made in Italy”, is a more positive exploration of globalisation as reflected in the multi-cultural and multi-layered Italian fashion industry. Her portraits of the “transnational elite” of designers, models and stylists clustered around its Milan hub, are accompanied by those further down the strata – the semi-illegal and black-market workshops of Naples, run mostly by Chinese immigrants, right down to the Senegalese traders at street level. Economic diaspora is captured in Bertien Van Manen’s images of the family, wedding and passport pictures of immigrants living in Paris. Propped against personal belongings in domestic backdrops, these artfully composed still-lives portray a multitude of cultures: Senegalese, Moroccans, Malians, Kurds, Algerians, Kosovans, attracted to the city in search of a better life. In his prosperous home country of Belgium, Stephan Vanfleteren found poverty of a different kind: numerous individuals unable to cope with the confusing contemporary world live solitary existences on society’s margins. His sensitive black and white portraits of these isolated figures memorialise their subjects and resonate with their emotions. Tales from a Globalizing World does not pretend to provide a definitive explanation; rather it introduces us to a variety of its effects on the contemporary world. The commissioned photographers and their multifaceted approaches emphasise the complexity of this centuries-old phenomenon. In so doing, Tales from a Globalizing World becomes more of an educational tool or resource. Densely illustrated and packed with information, its subsidised cover price makes it excellent value for money ❽

www.thamesandhudson.com 49

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photojournalism

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ANNOUNCEMENTS FOTO8.COM New challenging and inspiring digital presentations online. Next edition – Dec’ 03 – featuring: The Four Seasons in Moscow; Hog Killing, a disappearing way of life in African-American hamlets; Mother's of the Disappeared, Algeria; Miss Internet, the beauty pagent hosted in Libya. PARTNER WEBSITES Documentography.com/ Photodocument.pl/ Photographer.ru/ Red-Top.com/ Reportage.com/ Revue.com/ Tangophoto.ch/ Your participation is vital – your work inspirational.

BRINGING NEW VOICES TO PHOTOJOURNALISM

FOTOMUSEUM WINTERHUR - 10TH ANNIVERSARY Fotomuseum announces the opening of the Fotomuseum Winterhur (Zurich) Centre of Photography. The centre will greatly increase Fotomuseum's capacity to present photography. To mark their tenth anniversary and new location they have produced a booklet of thoughts on the essence and uses of photography, available through Scalo entitled Well what is Photography. BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL / PHOTO FRINGE - UNTIL 11 JAN 2004 The inaugural Brighton Photo Biennial (bpb) features an ambitious programme of exhibitions, projects, publications, talks and events bringing together photography from the UK and beyond. For more information visit the web site www.bpb.org.uk Running alongside the bpb is the Brighton Photo Fringe see: www.photofringe.org for more details. PHOTOARCHIVENEWS.COM The latest news and developments in the world of photo agencies, picture libraries, and publishers. Post to: will@photoarchivenews.com TALES Tales, a new art, writing and photography magazine is looking for creative responses to the fairy-tale 'Rapunzel' for its second issue. To be involved with this unique magazine and for more information email info@talesmagazine.com or check out the website www.talesmagazine.com (Please quote Foto8)

Christian Aid / PhotoVoice / Annie

The death of a social worker

Image by Annie, a participant of Positive Negatives, a PhotoVoice project working to train HIV+ women in the Democratic Republic of Congo in photographic skills.

Support PhotoVoice’s work by becoming a founding member. Sign up at www.photovoice.org PhotoVoice is a registered charity No. 1096598

REVIEWS

so8os

A photographic diary of a decade

seemingly endless collection of party snaps from punks to posh kids to the denizens of Studio 54, this book catalogues the nightlife of eighties New York through the black and white photography of Patrick McMullan. With this decade back in vogue, so8os is a timely publication. McMullan’s photographs reproduced along with an introduction by Bright Lights, Big City author Jay McInerney and commentary by figures from the scene, such as Tom Ford, combine to create a shameless celebration of the decadence and creativity of the times. As an insider onthe party circuit, McMullan had access to all the famous places and faces synonymous with the in-crowd. His photographs are less a lesson in technical ability – he wasn’t interested in fancy lighting or equipment – than in the effectiveness of a disarming approach in capturing hip Manhattanites at play. Armed only with an instamatic his intimate images of eighties’ confidence record a time when Wall Street, the art world and the club scenes all exploded together. After partying at Studio 54 in the Seventies, McMullan got cancer at the beginning of the next decade. Convalescing at David Hockney’s LA home, so the story goes, he became interested in the artist’s personal photographs, and on returning to New York trained a lens on his own world: the nightlife of the city. Shortly afterwards his interest was validated by a job at Details magazine working alongside the writer Stephen Saban. Significantly, this book begins with an image of Andy Warhol. Warhol was one of the people that encouraged McMullan: “If you don’t know Patrick McMullan you ought to get out more”. A catalyst for the celebrity party scene, he was still at its epicentre in the eighties and in many ways its source of validation. The celebrity media took off during this decade and McMullan was one of the pioneers of this kind of photography.

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Reflecting the atmosphere of equality in the clubs, his was a non-discriminatory eye, placing the beautiful beside the powerful and the downright outrageous. This was a pre-Giuliani era in which nightclub goers were positively encouraged to misbehave. In venues such as Area, the Mudd Club, Limelight, Danceteria and the Palladium, celebrities of the art and music world mixed with actors and political heirs. McMullan’s images are a who’s who of the eighties: Madonna, Basquiat, Deborah Harry, Jack Nicholson and John F Kennedy Junior rub shoulders with wealthy socialites, transvestites and club bunnies scrambling for their fifthteen minutes worth of fame. It was a culture clash of uptown and downtown; of expensive finery and fancy dress producing images more glamorous and edgy than the all too familiar party pictures in today’s glossies. As so8os progresses in a loose chronology, it traces the diluting of the scene and the loss of integrity at its heart, the death of Warhol in 1987 representing for most revellers a sea change. Retrospectively there is also a darker side to these images of Bacchinalian revelry: the shadow of AIDS, the drug abuse that fuelled the high-octane nightlife and the excesses that paved the way for the more extreme behaviour of New York’s club-kids. The reader can be forgiven if the abundance of people spotting and endless parties in So80s begins to make them a little bit queasy, but it is still provides a fantastic record of the personalities and fashions of this fast living era – more something to be dipped into rather than read in one go ❽

he has photographed over the years. His distinctive printing style, although heavy, is never overpowering, and in these days of 24-hour rolling news and instant news photography, it would not be surprising to find that work like McCullin's had lost its power. If anything, it has more resonance now than ever before. Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag 117 pp, £12.99, hardback Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 0 2411 4207 5

In Regarding the Pain of Others Sontag philosophises about the way we respond to photographs of war, atrocity, mutilation and genocide. Spanning almost 100 years of photography, her arguments run at a pace, citing well known examples to underscore her points. While in no way uninteresting, (and in its historical breadth and illustrative examples – yet without accompanying photographs - it is engaging), one can’t help thinking that ultimately it was a more illuminating lecture than it is a book.

SOPHIE WRIGHT

so8os – A photographic diary of a decade Photographs by Patrick McMullan Introduction by Jay McInerney ISBN: 1-57687-1878, Powerhouse Books, www.powerhousebooks.com

Don McCullin A Retrospective 289 pp, hardback, £17.50 Published by Jonathan Cape www.randomhouse.co.uk ISBN 0 2240 7111 X

Mention Don McCullin's name and brooding images of war and destruction immediately spring to mind. This book retrospective brings them together with the many other subjects

Red-Color News Soldier by Li Zhensheng 320 pp, £24.95, Phaidon, ISBN: 0 7148 4308 3 www.phaidon.co.uk

When Li Zhensheng, began working as a photographer at the Heilongjiang Daily in 1963, his job was simple – to capture glowing images of The Party, peasantry and workers in China's most northerly province. Then came the Cultural Revolution. Purges of "class enemies" and "capitalist roaders", the overthrow of "counter-revolutionary" communist party leaders and internecine fighting between rival groups of Red Guards claimed millions. There to record it all was Li Zhensheng. Other photographs from the Cultural Revolution exist, but what makes Li's unique is they are the only ones that portray the period with such journalistic and historical integrity and purpose.

For full-length reviews of the above books, visit: www.foto8.com/reviews/ 51

DIARY

Individual Exhibitions Heather Angel Natural Visions

Worldwide wildlife images by the award-winning photographer. Venue: Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1RL Until 7 December

James Casebere

Paradoxically emotional and austere, Casebere’s work centres on the point where photography, architecture and sculpture intersect. Venue: Lisson Gallery 52-54 Bell Street, London NW1 5DA 12 November – 20 December Bipinchandra Brighton Photo Biennial Fringe

24 photographs showing Bernard’s talent as a photographer, picture editor and curator.

Portraits of children whose mental health has been affected as a result of the occupation in the Gaza Strip. In association with foto8.

Venue: Abbott Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, LA9 5AL Until 24 December

Venue: Brighton Media Centre 15 - 17 Middle Street, Brighton. Until 25 November

Bruce Bernard Artists and their Studios

Marga Clark Húmeda Melancolía

Exhibition consisting of photography, Kodaliths and mixed-media. Venue: Kowasa Gallery, Mallorca 235, 08008 Barcelona 15 October – 28 November

Julia Calfee Spirits and Ghosts – Journeys through Mongolia

Calfee's work addresses the issues and problems of this country still seeped in the murkiness of the post-Communist era, and awkwardly adapting to a new democratic system. Venues: Weill Art Gallery 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York 5 November – 9 December La Chambre Claire 14 rue Saint-Sulpice, Métro Odéon, Paris 18 November – 16 December Tom Blau Gallery, 21 Queen Elizabeth Street, London, SE1 2PD 4 December – 10 January 2004 52

John Gerrard New Works in New Media

interstices and spaces between the concrete and the intuitive. Themes of distance, projection and perception run through much of Gussin’s work, often involving notions of the uncanny and the unknown.

Breaking new ground in our understanding of portraiture. His portraits are not photographs or videos, they are the new medium of realtime 3D objects.

Venue: 52-54 Bell Street, London NW1 5DA 12 November – 20 December

Venue: Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Ireland Until 30 November

Celebrating the life and pictures of the former Picture Post photographer.

Jean-Christophe Godet Carnet des Reves

Portraits taken during travels, captioned with the dreams and thoughts of his sitters. Venue: Frame Zero 1st Floor, 45 Mitchell Street London EC1V 3QZ 5 December – 19 December

Thurston Hopkins

Venue: Getty Images Gallery 3 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TD Until 2 January 2004 Franz Hubmann

A 90th birthday celebratory exhibition of the Magnum photographer. Venue: Leica Gallery 670 Broadway, Suite 500, Greenwich Village, New York 9 January – 14 February 2004

Katy Grannan

Open Eye Gallery ©Moyra Peralta

Large scale photographs from cities around the UK.

Work from two new projects; Sugar Camp Road and Morning Call. Both series show portraits of people that responded to Grannan’s advertisements published in local newspapers.

Ffotogallery, Turner House, Plymouth Rd, Penarth CF64 3DM 16 January – 29 February 2004

Venue: Fifty One Fine Art Gallery, Zirkstraat 20, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium 28 November – 6 Feb 2004

Philippe Durand L’atelier

Graham Gussin

Jacques Lowe Remembering JFK

Melina Mulas The Antique Wisdom of Nalanda

Gussin’s work examines the

Intimate and unseen portraits by

Portraits of the principal Tibetan

John Davies Metropoli Phase II

Tom Blau Gallery © Julia Calfee

10 Greenland Street, London, NW1 Until 22 November

Max Kandhola Illustration of Life

Kandhola's powerful exhibition depicts the last few hours of his father's life.

the Kennedy's personal photographer to commemorate the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death.

Venue: Focal Point Gallery, Victoria Avenue, Southend-On-Sea, SS2 6EX 8 November – 3 January 2004

Venue: Tom Blau Gallery, 21 Queen Elizabeth Street, London, SE1 2PD Until 26 November

Lamas photographed throughout the world. The result of a ten year collaboration with the photographer and the Dalai Lama’s department of religion and culture. Venue: Fnac Italie 2, Centre Commercial Italie 2, 30 Avenue d’Italie, Paris Until 17 January Martin Parr John Hinde’s Butlins postcards,

Durand combines his photographs with installations and objects to ask some humorous questions about the value of the object. Venue: Centre National de la Photographic 11 rue Verryer, 75008 Paris Until 30 November Elliott Erwitt Leica Lifetime Achievement Award 2003

Featuring work from the Magnum photographer’s two new books. Venue: Leica Gallery, 670 Broadway, Suite 500, New York, 10012-2318 21 November – 3 January Mike Figgis In the Dark

Over 120 digital prints taken from Figgis' personal portfolio spanning over 30 years. Venue: Proud Camden Moss,

Produced by Chris Boot the exhibition documents the heydays of the Butlins holiday camps. Venue: Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Ireland Until 1 February Moyra Peralta Nearly Invisible

Peralta’s pictures of London’s homeless go back nearly 30 years, making her collection one of the biggest homeless archives ever made. Venue: Open Eye Gallery, 28-32 Wood Street, Liverpool L1 4AQ 29 Nov – 17 January 2004 Peter Robinson Football Days

Images from one of the greatest photographers of the modern game. Venue: Proud Central, 5 Buckingham Street, WC2 Until 27 November Helen Sear Hide

Video and photographic work concerned with the relationship between mythology, technology, nature and culture.

Two years of Photojournalism – A Retrospective

Highlights form the Spitz's gallery exhibition archives. Venue: The Spitz, 109 Commercial Street, Old Spitalfields Market London, E1 6BG Until 4 January 2004

Venue: Ffotogallery, Turner House, Plymouth Road, Penarth CF64 3DM Until 4 January 2004 Claudia Terstappen Sacred Places

Venue: Impressions Gallery, 29 Castlegate, York, YO1 9RN Until 6 December

Perceptions and impressions of places which are home to gods, the dead, and to the imaginations of times past.

East of Eden Alban Kakulya & Yann Mingard Charting the frontiers of a new Europe

Group Exhibitions

Venue: Impressions Gallery, 29 Castlegate, York, YO1 9RN 13 December – 14 February 2004

include classic images from artists including Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol and Sam-Taylor Wood.

documents, which explore the changing dynamics of office life and culture.

Venue: Brighton Museum and Art Gallery Royal Pavilion Gardens, Brighton, BN1 1EE Until 11 January 2004

Venue: The Photographers Gallery, 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7HY 27 Nov –18 January 2004

Charade

Commissioned as part of the BBC’s Shooting Live Artists project. Four rarely seen new media works shown as part of SightSonic 2003, York’s International Digital Arts Festival.

Venue: Kowasa Gallery, Mallorca 235, 08008 Barcelona 17 Dec – 31 January 2004

Intrigue

Double exhibition exploring 19th century photography with a very contemporary sensibility.

"Open Submission" photographic, digital and mixed media show. Venue: Picture House Centre for Photography, 3rd Floor, International House125 Granby Street Leicester LE1 6FD 9 December – 6 February

ei8ht

Venue: Maison Communale de Plainpalais, 52 rue de Carouge, 1205 Geneva Until 12 December World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass

Exhibition of the work produced by this year’s graduates. Venue: FOAM Photography Museum, Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS, Amsterdam Until 11 January 2004 (un)dressed Body in the Baltic Photo Art

Eight contemporary Estonian artists whose work explores different ways to portray a body.

from the Baltic to the Black Sea in landscape and portraiture. Venue: Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, 11 Rue Berryer, Paris, 75008 Until 10 January 2004

Venue: Giedre Bartelt Galerie, Linienstr. 161, 10115 Berlin 29 Nov – 31 January 2004

A History of Hungary Angel Wings

Tales from a Globalizing World

In conjunction with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation this exhibition and book project aims to inform and raise public awareness about developing countries.

Showcasing for the first time in the UK, internationally recognised Hungarian photographers alongside their lesser known, but equally accomplished counterparts.

Make Life Beautiful! The Dandy in Photography

Venue: Proud Central 6 Buckingham St, London, WC2N 6BP 2 December – 15 January

The main exhibition of the Brighton Photo Biennial. These works are inspired by the social development of Brighton and

More info available at: www.bpb.org.uk

Pleasurelands

The Office

Venue: Millennium Galleries, Arundel Gate, Sheffield, S1 2PP Until 18 January

Drawing together over ten artists' work, shown alongside historical

Celebrating the tradition of the great British funfair.

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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FOCUS YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHERS COLLEGE DEGREE WORK University of Wales College, Newport BA (Hons) Documentary Photography

“Newport has built a reputation for innovative and enduring documentary photography over the past 30 years. The work produced by the students regularly reaches magazines and exhibition spaces internationally. Graduate work is consistently recognised through the receipt of major awards. In 2002, the Hodge award went to George Makkas, a Newport student, the first time a student has won the overall prize. This year Newport graduate Alfredo D'Amato won the best student prize for his story on Romania’s Cocalari Iron People (featured in this issue – see page 10). UWCN continues to be one of the most renowned centres for the research and practice of documentary photography in Europe.”

(Clockwise from top right) In Uzbekistan, Paul Dixon photographed a community that once depended on the Aral Sea – the sea has now receded 120 miles. Eoin O’Connail covered urban Dublin – “an uncomfortable metropolis”. Joanne Davidson focused on family play in domestic London. Stephanie Joy followed new immigrants to rural Ireland. Kay Lynn Deveny grew close to Edith and Len with her story in a nursing home.

Further information: www.amd.newport.ac.uk/

KEN GRANT, SENIOR LECTURER IN DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

This page, a showcase for college degree shows, young and emerging photographers has been made possible thanks to the generous support of

Newport documentary photography graduates 2003 Pernille Anderson Euan Bayliss Noel Bowler Darren Britton Darren Clarke Alfredo D'amato Joanne Davidson Christopher Davies Paul Dixon Paola Fiore Leslie Grice

Christian Guildford Craig Higgs Karen Hodges Grant Humphreys Bethan James Stephanie Joy Rebecca Kenyon Ben Lavers Christabel Linn Grainne Matthews Maria Mourelo

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