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For our birthday, we’d like to give you a present. Granta contributors 1979–2004: Monica Ali Isabel Allende Martin Amis Margaret Atwood Paul Auster Iain Banks John Banville Julian Barnes Saul Bellow Louis de Bernières William Boyd Bill Bryson Peter Carey Angela Carter Raymond Carver Bruce Chatwin J. M. Coetzee Don DeLillo Raymond Depardon Marion Ettlinger James Fenton Jonathan Franzen Richard Ford John Fowles Nadine Gordimer Linda Grant Graham Greene Nick Hornby Kazuo Ishiguro Thomas Keneally Milan Kundera Hanif Kureishi John Lanchester Doris Lessing Primo Levi Hilary Mantel Gabriel García Márquez Adam Mars-Jones Ian McEwan John McGahern Lorrie Moore Blake Morrison V. S. Naipaul Joyce Carol Oates Ben Okri Michael Ondaatje Giles Peress Eugene Richards Arundhati Roy Salman Rushdie Sebastiao Salgado Will Self Helen Simpson Zadie Smith Graham Swift Sarah Waters Edmund White Jeanette Winterson (to name a few).

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In the past three months two themes have come to dominate this issue of EI8HT: Identity and America. You can see this, for example, in Chris Morris’ depiction of a nation in the midst of radical change and in Annet van der Voort’s honest portraits of young women coming to terms with their new-found role as mothers. The photographers’ visual approach to reporting subjects is, no doubt, shaped by their own identities, be they an experienced White House press photographer or a young talent, newly graduated from art school . The characteristic that seems to best define the photographers featured in EI8HT, and permits us to appreciate the free expression of their views, is the the one attribute that they they have in common: a desire for and a pursuit of independence, whatever the implications. And so to America. The US is evident in many of our features, both explicitly, in our story about the re-writing of history, 40 years after the civil rights era, and implicitly, in John Vidal’s moving essay which reminds us of the poisoning of Bhopal, where a US multinational continues to commit a heinous crime. We do not intentionally choose a theme for each edition of the magazine, but the photography we print is naturally influenced by the political and economic climate in which we live. The magazine’s identity is likewise defined by its independence, coupled with the goal to broaden the spectrum of visual debate. I hope you, the readers, will continue to support the magazine by taking advantage of our generous gift subscription offers at this time of year. Please also participate in our online survey so that we may learn what is most important to you. www.foto8.com/gifts – www.foto8.com/survey JL

Editor’s Letter

8 Index Baghdad Bingo Michael Walter, a postgraduate from The Slade School of Art, began his photographic career with an apprenticeship at Living Marxism magazine, which took him to Bosnia in 1992 to cover the civil war in Yugoslavia. He founded Troika Photos in 2000 and has continued to work extensively in the Middle East. Contact Bridget Coaker +44 (0)207 833 2330 In the Pink Reiner Riedler has worked in Austria for over 10 years and has photographed widely in the Ukraine. He continues to focus on Eastern Europe, publishing two books. Reiner is represented by Anzenberger Agency in Austria. www.anzenberger.com. Prints of the circus image can be purchased by contacting Regina Maria Anzenberger +43 1 587 82 51 Home to Roost Born in Malawi, Mary-Jane Maybury spent much of her childhood living in Africa and the Middle East. She completed a postgraduate photojournalism course at the London College of Communication in 2004. Inspired by our society, the way we live and our environment, Mary-Jane aims to show that beauty persists even in the most difficult situations. www.mjmaybury.com

O! Say Can You See ... American photojournalist Christopher Morris has documented numerous foreign conflicts. His position as Time contract photographer led to this coverage of the White House administration. He has received several awards for his work in the field. Christopher is represented by VII photo agency, of which he is a founding member. www.viiphoto.com Contact Marion Durand +33 147 0552 08 Trading in Extinction Patrick Brown, an Australian photographer, has been living in Southeast Asia for five years, working extensively along the Thai-Burma border. Palace Press will publish his book on the trafficking of endangered species (www.palacepress.com) later this year. He is represented by Panos Pictures. www.panos.co.uk Contact Michael Regnier +44 (0)207 234 0010 Baby Mothers Annet van der Voort completed a Visual Communications degree in Germany. Mainly concentrating on the human face and portraiture, she has exhibited in Europe many times including the Hereford Festival this year. She is based in Germany and recently joined Anzenberger Agency. www.anzenberger.com Contact Regina Maria Anzenberger +43 1 587 82 51

Darfur, Sudan French photojournalist Pierre Abensur has completed various international reportages since 1988, including the Touareg rebellion in Mali. Parallel to his post at the Tribune de Genève, he dedicates his time to personal projects, including a long-term study of religious minorities in Muslim countries. (p.abensur@wanadoo.fr) Changpa Nomads Tomas Munita studied photography in Chile and has since been a photojournalist for the Associated Press, assigned to many international stories. He spent four months travelling in Asia in 2003 where he photographed the Changpa Nomads. Tomas is based in Santiago, Chile. www.tomasmunita.com Nativity Peter Dench works as a commercial and reportage photographer while also developing personal projects observing human nature and the more quirky aspects of life. He is perhaps best known for his project “Drinking of England” which took a satirical look at alcohol culture in the UK. He is based in London. www.peterdench.com

Editor-in-Chief Jon Levy Features Editor Max Houghton

Contents Vol.3 No.3 December 2004

Associate Editor Lauren Heinz Contributing Editors Sophie Batterbury, Colin Jacobson

22 >Features >12 O! Say Can You See ... America under Bush has become ugly, so argues Christopher Morris in his uncompromising view of the state of the Union >22 Trading in Extinction Patrick Brown traces illegal trade routes used to traffick endangered animals from Southeast Asia to awaiting markets >40 Baby Mothers Looking into the eyes of children, Annet van der Voort finds mothers coming to terms with their new maturity >46 Darfur, Sudan Pierre Abensur captures beauty beneath the clouds of war in Southern Sudan >52 Changpa Nomads Documenting the nomadic existence on the unforgiving Changpang plateau.Tomas Munita reports from northern India

Contributing Picture Editors Flora Bathurst, Ludivine Morel Reviewers Bill Kouwenhoven, Sophie Wright Design Rob & Phil Special Thanks Maurice Geller, Andrew Ferguson Associate Publisher Gordon Miller Reprographics John Doran at Wyndeham Graphics Print Stones the Printers Paper Galerie Art Silk: cover 250gsm, body 130gsm Distribution Specialist bookshops & galleries – Central Books 020 8986 4854, Newstrade – Comag 01895 433800

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>Reviews >60 Book / Festival Reviews The Valley, Meetings, Rowing to Alaska, NY Photo-Noorderlicht-Paris Photo, Nazar, Lodz Ghetto Album, Persepolis 2, Return Afghanistan, Fear This, Hunting with Hounds, Troubadoure Allahs, The Great Life Photographers

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>Diary >70 A comprehensive guide to photography exhibitions and events

Submissions www.foto8.com/drr

Partner Websites documentography.org photodocument.pl photographer.ru red-top.com reportage.org revue.com tangophoto.net agenda-upifc.org

>Essays >30 Bhopal +20 John Vidal stresses the importance of remembering the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, 20 years ago >34 Sin of Omission Max Houghton talks to Calvert McCann about events in Lexington, KY, during the civil rights era and how his photographs have become a valuable historical document >38 Dear Jon A polemic on incidences of censorship from the 1960s to the present day by Paul O’Connor >Inside >58 Emma Reeves What makes a great photo story? The photographic director of the Dazed Group shares her inside knowledge of recent Dazed picture spreads

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Disclaimer The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily the views of EI8HT or foto8 Ltd. Copyright © 2004 foto8 Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be copied or reproduced without the prior written consent of foto8 ltd

>Moments >6 Baghdad Bingo Michael Walter spends a leisurely afternoon with the Iraqi Hunting Club >8 In the Pink Reiner Riedler discovers a vision of beauty rising out of a Russian cityscape >10 Home to Roost Mary-Jane Maybury goes out with the Clearway teams as they clean the crappiest abandoned flats in London

>Listings >72 Picture Agencies, Book Publishers and Professional Services >Scene >82 Nativity Peter Dench selects a personal favourite from his seasonal project >Cover O! Say Can You See ... © Christopher Morris/ VII

Editor’s Letter

Editor-in-Chief Jon Levy Features Editor Max Houghton

Contents Vol.3 No.3 December 2004

Associate Editor Lauren Heinz Contributing Editors Sophie Batterbury, Colin Jacobson

ISSN 1476-6817

Telephone +44 (0)20 7636 0399 Fax +44 (0)20 7636 8888 Email info@foto8.com

Subscriptions www.foto8.com 2 years £45 +postage 1 year £25 +postage Previous Issues £8 (incl. postage)

>Diary >70 A comprehensive guide to photography exhibitions and events

Submissions www.foto8.com/drr

Partner Websites documentography.org photodocument.pl photographer.ru red-top.com reportage.org revue.com tangophoto.net agenda-upifc.org

EI8HT is published by foto8 limited 18 Great Portland St, London, W1W 8QP

>Moments Baghdad Bingo Michael Walter Beside the incongruous backdrop of Saddam’s great unfinished Al Rahman mosque in the wealthy Mansour district of Baghdad, families gather every Friday afternoon for a game of outdoor bingo. Membership of the Iraqi Hunting Club, host to the popular event, is elitist, but its policies do not discriminate on grounds of religion, gender or political affiliation. When photographer Michael Walter met the club’s acting manager, Hasanim F Muallah in August last year, he learned of the manager’s ambition that members be “educated persons, in possession of a university degree”. So, in a purge of 300 members, it was out with the academically challenged – the autodidacts, pseudo intellectuals and soi-disant dons – and in with an altogether superior type of bingo player. During the war, insurgent forces vied for control of the mosque and the area was considered a hotspot for potential kidnappings. The Hunting Club itself was briefly taken over by Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi Congress and leisure activities ceased. It was subsequently reclaimed for its original purpose, and the keenest members would occasionally break the US-imposed 11pm curfew in their pursuit of the pleasures of tennis, swimming, saunas and of course, bingo … conducted with consummate intelligence, naturally, in the shadow of Saddam’s unfinished dream. 8

>Moments In the Pink Reiner Riedler When times are tough, a girl puts her best dress on, holds her head high and gets on her horse. The Russian State Circus, once a prestigious cultural ambassador of the Soviet Union, was hardly able to feed its animals as the red star of communism faded. Many performers left Russia to live in the west. Artistic reputations were ruined as disreputable showmen used famous names to lure audiences. A new generation of circus directors, like Mstislav Zapashny, of Rosgozirc, are reversing this trend by catching up with advances in entertainment and enticing the performing elite back home. The fallen rider is back in her saddle 8

>Moments Home to Roost Mary-Jane Maybury

There are nearly three quarters of a million empty homes in England, 100,000 of which are in London. Some were repossessed, when people could no longer pay the mortgage or couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pay the rent and were evicted. Others await clearance after the death of the occupant. There are a multitude of reasons why people move on; often they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a choice. This bird shit-encrusted sofa was one of the things that got left behind 8

>Moments Home to Roost Mary-Jane Maybury

Christopher Morris

O! Say Can You See ...

“In the Name of God the Flag and Bush Almighty”. This is my America, my New Republic. If the hijackers on September 11 accomplished anything, this is it. They have given us the divine Bush. A man who has said “you are either with us or against us”. A man who teaches our children that “they hate us because we love freedom”. This is my America. An America with a Homeland Security, a Patriot Act. An America with paranoia. An America with hatred and ignorance. An America that wraps itself in its President and its flag. This is my America. Now when I see the eagle of freedom, I see an eagle of fascism. Now when I see the American flag, I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my America. We have become an ugly nation. A nation that has wrapped its eyes so tightly in red, white and blue that it is blind. Blinded by nationalism. This is my America. And this is why they hate us, and its not because we love freedom. They hate us because we think like that 8

Christopher Morris

O! Say Can You See ...

Elephants employed in illegal logging operations along the river separating Thailand and Burma return to camp.

Patrick Brown

Trading in Extinction 22

From the pristine jungles of Cambodia to the great national parks of India and Nepal, Asian wildlife is being plundered and trafficked on an unprecedented scale. Booming markets created by globalisation and the ease of smuggling has boosted this trade to new and uncontrollable levels. The numbers are numbing: an estimated 25,000-30,000 primates, plus 2.5 million birds, 10 million reptile skins and 500 million tropical fish, exported by wildlife traders every year. Some animal parts are imbued with near-magical properties: eating tigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flesh will endow the big catâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strength, some believe, while the penis is highly prized as an aphrodisiac. Rhinoceros horn, shark fin, bear gall bladder, monkey brain, are similarly credited with great potency. But the animal trade is now so large it could have irrevocable consequences for life on our planet. It threatens the very balance of nature. I set out to raise awareness of the scale and risks of a local activity with chilling global implications 8 23

Elephants employed in illegal logging operations along the river separating Thailand and Burma return to camp.

Patrick Brown

Trading in Extinction 22

These pages (clockwise from top left): Bangkok International Airport, Thailand. A shipment of pangolins, intercepted during a crackdown on trafficking. Pangolin blood is consumed in in the belief that it helps keep the body warm and enhances sexual performance. More than 1,000 pangolins were seized by Thai authorities last year , presumed to be bound for China. This figure is expected to increase as the cold season approaches.

Previous pages (clockwise from top left): Bokor Bokor National Park, Cambodia. A poacher is photographed and interrogated by the National Cambodian Forestry Security. Part of a four-man poaching team, his name, age, the nature and date of his crime are written on a board around his neck. Bharatpur, Chitwan National Park, Nepal. At the Bharatpur barracks a Royal Forestry Department Officer stands with the skull of a rhinoceros. Behind him, fellow officers display tiger skins that have been seized over the past five years. The items are worth an estimated $750,000.

Hanoi, Vietnam. Snake whiskey for sale. This common product, believed to enhance libido, is sold quite openly. At a restaurant in Hanoi, a turtle has its head cut off and the blood and bile collected. These are then drunk, while the remainder is cooked and eaten.

Mai Sai/Thakhilek, Thailand/ Burma. An Asian rhinoceros horn is put on display in the border town of Thakhilek, the asking price is $8,000.

At a bear farm in Hanoi: after being tranquillised, the animal is dragged from its cage in order to have the bile removed from its gallbladder.

Kaziringa National Park, Assam, India. Rangers patrol. For more information see also: www.wspa.org.uk www.cites.org

Mai Sai/Thakhilek, Thailand/ Burma. An Asian rhinoceros horn is put on display in the border town of Thakhilek, the asking price is $8,000.

At a bear farm in Hanoi: after being tranquillised, the animal is dragged from its cage in order to have the bile removed from its gallbladder.

Kaziringa National Park, Assam, India. Rangers patrol. For more information see also: www.wspa.org.uk www.cites.org

Stall owners (right) show off some of their wildlife products in the Thai-Burma border towns of Mai Sai and Thakhilek. The border is formed by the Sai River, which is shallow enough during the dry season to allow smugglers to cross with ease. Sumatra, Indonesia. A gibbon (below) for sale at the Medan Zoo. Tourists pay to get close to tigers (bottom) which are now living in a Thai refuge run by monks. The tigers were rescued from private zoos and circuses and the money raised from visitors supports the centre.

On the night of 2 December 1984, a leak of lethal methyl isocyanate gas from the American-owned Union Carbide pesticide factory drifted silently and invisibly through the streets of Bhopal, India. Within days, nearly 8,000 people in the city had died. Another 500,000 people suffered injuries and at least 150,000 people, perhaps more, continue to suffer. This is the testimony of Hajra Bee, one of the survivors, who was 21 at the time: “I still remember the night the gas leaked. I was sleeping with my three children Nazma, Shareef and Iqbal beside me. I woke up with a panic because it felt like someone was choking me. The room was filled with pungent smoke. It got heavier and heavier. My husband and children got up too and started coughing. So we carried the children in our arms and joined the crowd outside, all trying to get away. People were running blindly. Many were falling down. By then my eyes had become so swollen that I could hardly open them ... I had gone a little distance when Nazma started making gurgling and choking sounds … After four days we went back to our own home. The children were vomiting all the time. My eldest son Shareef died after three months. Three months after that I gave birth to a son. He had strange-looking yellow eruptions on his neck. He died in his sleep. Another daughter was born to me – Shahbano. We lost her too. My son Iqbal is not growing properly, he is 16 years old now but looks like he is 10 or 12. My husband hasn't been able to work. Both of us have this burning in the chest ... I am the only one to get any compensation. I got Rs 15,000” – less than £200. Bhopal is the single most horrific industrial, environmental and human rights disaster in history, and possibly the most shameful case of cynical exploitation of the poor by corporations and politicians ever recorded. The women of Bhopal still cannot conceive, their children are still born deformed, men still cannot work, youth still dies young, households are still crippled by the debts run up by people seeking medical help, compensation claims are still rejected and, when people protest, they are threatened with arrest and possible trial. Justice has yet to come to Bhopal yet the lies, misrepresentations, excuses, denials of responsibility, cover-ups and moral and legal irresponsibility go on. No one from Union Carbide – now owned by The Dow Chemical Co – has been punished and Warren Anderson, the head of the company at the time, hides from justice in America. Much of the $400 million handed by Union Carbide to the Indian government in 1989 has not been paid out to the victims and the local government and politicians want what they can get. The pesticide factory, abandoned and rotting now like an abscessed tooth, is still polluting the water supplies. Yet Dow Chemicals is valued at more than $40 billion. And the state government of Madhya Pradesh refuses to pipe clean water into areas whose wells have been poisoned by toxic chemicals. The ruling political party in Bhopal

John Vidal

Bhopal+20 30

John Vidal

Bhopal+20 30

wants the survivors’ money to be distributed in parts of the city that were unaffected by the gas and the hospital, set up with money from seized Union Carbide shares, turns away gas victims who do not have the required paperwork. Even if the survivors ever get the compensation, which is theirs by right, it will amount to less than 5p a day for the 20 years over which they have been suffering. For many it will not be enough to even erase the debts incurred paying medical expenses, let alone to compensate for loss of livelihood. What makes the whole appalling saga worse is that it was an entirely preventable accident. Not only did the company know that its works were in a dangerous condition but, on the night of the deadly leak, none of the factory’s safety systems were working and the plant’s warning siren had been turned off. To rub salt into the wounds, the company did not tell people how to treat the illnesses, choosing instead to employ a Western PR company to suggest that the plant had been sabotaged. The survivors want the simplest justice. They want Warren Anderson to be brought to face charges in India. They want the Indian government to punish him and the company as an example to every industry and business executive in the world. They want Dow Chemical to take responsibility for the illnesses that continue, and to be responsible for the health of at least two generations of victims. They want help for the sick and they want a major clean-up of the contaminated soil and groundwater that pollutes the area. Given what they’ve been through, it’s not much to ask – but will they get it? A class action suit is being prepared in the US, but new legislation may make this impossible to bring. The Indian government is being forced to distribute the money it has held for so long, but the poorest are expected to get little. Bhopal has become a symbol of environmental injustice; of everything that is wrong with the way the rich treat the poor; of unacceptable industrial practices; of inexcusable human and legal responses to people in desperate need, and of moral irresponsibility. But there are lesser Bhopals, just waiting to happen, everywhere. Not solely in developing countries where Western companies routinely apply different safety and environmental standards, but also in rich countries where poor communities living near motorways, chemical plants or waste dumps are ignored by companies and governments. The first law of the environment is that pollution always follows the poor; the second is that the rich will try to escape ecological justice. Until there are changes, we may all be said to live in Bhopal 8

Mohammed Rehan (previous page), pictured three years ago at the age of 18, was just one year old when he was exposed to the toxic gas. He has undergone two heart surgeries and doctors say that his lungs are severely damaged. “We know that the chances of his leading a normal life are slim,” says his father.

Burial of an unknown child, Bhopal 1984 (facing page). This child has become the icon of the world’s worst industrial disaster, caused by the chemical company, Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemicals. No one knows who his parents are, and no one has ever come forward to “claim” this photograph.

The Death Doctor (above): “I must have performed more than 20,000 autopsies so far. No relative of a gas victim can get a compensation claim for a death without my certificate. It has been a nightmarish experience – especially those first days, when we hardly came out of the morgue. Even after that some of the things that I have seen have been simply bizarre,” says Dr Sathpathy, the forensic expert at the state government's Hamidia Hospital, the only one functioning on the night of the disaster.

John Vidal is Environment Editor for The Guardian, London.

View of the abandoned Union Carbide plant (below) in Bhopal

All images © Greenpeace/Rhagu Rai For more information visit: www.greenpeace.org/international

John Vidal is Environment Editor for The Guardian, London.

View of the abandoned Union Carbide plant (below) in Bhopal

All images © Greenpeace/Rhagu Rai For more information visit: www.greenpeace.org/international

“It has come to the editor’s attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission.” That stark but extraordinary apology by a Kentucky newspaper led to a scramble for a photographic record of the times. Its archive empty, the paper turned to Calvert McCann, who, as a young man, chronicled his friends changing the course of American history. Here is his story. “People didn’t believe we had a civil rights movement here in Lexington. Maybe they thought things changed as a result of goodwill or something.” As a 17-year-old young black man in 1960s Kentucky, Calvert McCann witnessed first hand the commitment and personal sacrifice of members of the Congress of Racial Equality, disenfranchised individuals who rose up together to propel the tide of change. Fresh out of high school, McCann worked in a photographic store. He would always be sure to take his Pentax along to the demos, photographing his crowd, people like Nietta Dunn (pictured, p37), a friend of his sister’s, as well as luminaries of the movement who came to town, people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (left) and Malcolm X. He joined his friends, CRE members, at sit-ins and demonstrations, protesting against the climate of discrimination that flourished at downtown diners with “whites only” sections, or clothing stores where “coloureds”, if they were allowed in at all, weren’t permitted to try on clothes. “It was a terrible feeling to be segregated in that way. Like all my people, I was insulted. So when the movement came into being, I saw it as a way to bring change. I was really young, but I was hoping it would eventually happen. It was slow; there was a lot of resistance.” It was not simply the townsfolk who were resisting. The two local papers in Lexington at the time, the Herald and the Leader, based just a few blocks from McCann’s home, were apparently blind to what was happening outside their very gates, which were often heavily picketed. They reported neither this fact, nor any other story relating to civil rights activities in the area. “Their reporters were instructed not to write anything about the movement,” says McCann. “There were those that wanted to, and they were told explicitly that they could not. Sometimes they might publish details from a police report, but that was all. No photographs appeared.” Fast forward four decades, and two remarkable events occurred. In the newsroom of the newspapers – now merged under one title, the Lexington Herald-Leader – an ethical discussion was taking place, inspired by a lecture on journalistic ethics by the former editor, John Carroll (who now edits The Los Angeles Times). Carroll had been meditating on his old paper’s censorship of events on its own doorstep. He proffered an apology the paper might run in its regular corrections column: “It has come to the editor’s attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission.”

Max Houghton

Sin of Omission

Current editor Marilyn Thompson was moved to run this understated but factually accurate apology, along with several thousand words of copy. The only problem was that the paper had no pictures in its archive to accompany the groundbreaking story. No Herald-Leader photographer had ever been assigned to the demonstrations. This is where Calvert McCann comes back into the story. Now 62, he had left Kentucky in the 1970s to join the Peace Corps in Nigeria, and then lived all over the United States, working as a social worker and a youth counsellor. Since the death of his mother, he was living back in the house where he was born, the house where he and his five siblings turned the family’s one bathroom into a photographic darkroom (“It was a little inconvenient,” he recalls). Earlier this year, McCann had a chance meeting in a local church with a professor of history at the University of Kentucky, Dr Gerald Smith. Smith was seeking to create a photographic resource for the local African-American community and, learning McCann had been taking pictures since he was 13, invited him to contribute. McCann had forgotten about most of his images; indeed many of them hadn’t even been developed. “It was only because my mother had recently passed that I’d been having a clear-out. I found this box from the ’60s under a whole bunch of junk,” he says. In a quest for a photographic record, Herald-Leader reporter Linda Blackford, contacted Smith, who knew by this time he was sitting on photographic and historical gold. Blackford, too young to have seen the ’60s for herself, was amazed by the content of the images: “I did not know this had ever happened in Lexington,” she says. “I was stunned, thrilled, to find these pictures. The whole project took on a much more profound dimension. And Calvert was just a kid taking pictures of his friends. He had no idea of how valuable they would become. Sometimes it’s difficult to know the truth about anything ’til it’s all over.” Since publication in the Lexington Herald-Leader, McCann’s work has graced the front page of The New York Times. He is delighted and amazed in equal measure by his sudden desirability. In his seventh decade, bar the odd wedding or commissioned portrait, photography has never been his central occupation. The other week, French Elle sashayed into town to interview Calvert, and New York galleries are calling, talking about putting on exhibitions of his images. But will this belated recognition of the struggle and sacrifice made by McCann and his friends in the movement have an impact on Lexington’s black community today ... can history now be rewritten? “I thought the apology was good. I see people in the neighbourhood every day and they’re telling me how great it was. But there’s still a lot going on here. Lots of stuff goes under the table. There are still divisions in housing, education and employment. If you’re in a store, it’s still the black person who is

Lots of stuff goes under the table. There are still divisions in housing, education and employment. If you’re in a store, it’s still the black person who is watched

Max Houghton

Sin of Omission

Lots of stuff goes under the table. There are still divisions in housing, education and employment. If you’re in a store, it’s still the black person who is watched

watched. In the white population there’s a sense that everything is alright now. People don’t generally like to discuss the past.” The Herald-Leader is serious about its commitment to inclusivity. Since the apology in July, the paper has run six stories on the civil rights movement. McCann’s pictures have also acted as a catalyst for ongoing self-scrutiny. The newspaper’s photo director, Ron Garrison, believes the paper would not be guilty of censorship today: “We try to pay attention to diversity, and to accurately reflect people and participants at events.” So had the Herald-Leader covered any anti-war protests, we asked. No – but Garrison was confident there had been virtually nothing to report. “There wasn’t much anti-war protesting in our area, maybe a few on college campuses and there was a prayer vigil for peace, which between a half dozen and two dozen people attended in downtown Lexington. It’s not on a par with what happened during the Vietnam War at all. I’m not sure that we did cover this protest but we were aware and we monitored the situation. “Most people who work in newspapers now lived through the changes of the 1960s and are much more aware, more sensitive to what’s going on in the community. I take it very seriously,” said Garrison. Reporter Linda Blackford, however, acknowledged a failure of the paper’s more recent reporting: “We started to talk about stories we might have missed. We’re starting to include stories about the vast immigration of Hispanic residents into our community. There’s been a tremendous change over the past 10 years and we’re recognising it now. Kentucky is the centre of the thoroughbred horse industry, and it’s the Hispanics who do all the dirty work.” Calvert McCann, who in his day to day life is responsibile for cleaning a property in Lexington, still takes pictures, (“macro pictures of flowers, mostly, and big old spiders”). He is quietly optimistic about what he sees as the dawn of more reflective reporting in the notoriously insular US media. “The New York Times apology for its bad coverage of the [Iraq] war set something in motion. A year ago, everyone was going along with whatever the Bush administration said. Now they’re asking questions. “I’m glad that people in Lexington know we had a movement here. My sisters and my brothers, we’re all excited. I just wish my mother and father were around to see this.” 8

(Top) Dr Martin Luther King Jr. marches with 10,000 Kentuckians at the state capital in Frankfort, to lobby the state public accommodations bill (Centre)Sit-in at a soda counter in dime store, in Lexington, where African Americans were required to stand at the snack bar in the back

Vintage prints courtesy of Calvert McCann

(Bottom) Demanding employment opportunities outside the old Lexington city hall. Calvert McCann can be seen in the back row, fourth from the right (Top Right) Winter ‘61. Demonstrators outside the Phoenix Hotel in Lexington, demand the right to be permitted to register as guests of the hotel (Bottom Right) Nietta Dunn takes part in a sit-in protest at H L Greens lunch counter

Vintage prints courtesy of Calvert McCann

What happened in Lexington nearly 40 years ago is very similar to what was happening in relation to reporting direct action on environmental rights issues in the 1990s. That movement was completely ignored until 1999, when it all kicked off in Seattle. The censorship may not have been as blatant as it was during the civil rights era, but the media were complicit in waiting for the “official version”. When Seattle erupted, one of the major British TV stations, Channel 4, hadn’t got a single reporter out there, which led to the bizarre scenario of comedian Rob Newman broadcasting that night’s news report. Thousands of people had been demonstrating against structural adjustment in the southern hemisphere – just about any developing country you can think of – for years. But until it happened in the USA, it wasn’t news. Controlling who’s perspective of events we see has been an ongoing battle between governments, corporations and the public since the tools of mass media were invented. Recently, the Web has placed inexpensive distribution into the hands of the people, but this new power hasn’t gone unnoticed by the authorities. The US government won a court order to seize computers hosting Independent Media Centre websites from around the world, including a Palestinian website carrying independent reports from the occupied territories. The FBI seized the computers of a London-based internet service provider, Rackspace, citing a “bilateral agreement between the UK and US to co-operate on investigations relating to terrorism, kidnap or money laundering”. During the mass demonstrations against the policies of the world’s G8 leaders in Genoa, sympathetic reporters established an alternative media centre to allow the public to publish online their own video, photographic and text reports, without the need for an editor’s approval. Following the various viewpoints reported live, of how police shot dead a demonstrator, the Italian police raided the media centre smashing cameras and computers as well as teeth and bones. By planting bomb-making material, the chief of police hoped to justify the brutal raid. Instead, 74 officers were eventually charged with assault, thanks partly to the eyewitness video images from grassroots news organisations such as Undercurrents. In 2002, I travelled to the Middle East at the height of the Israeli invasion into Palestine. My mission was to retrieve camcorder tapes hidden inside the infamous Church of the Nativity by Jacquie Soohen, the only video journalist recording at the time. The Israeli Defence Force, keen to portray people under siege in the church as a nest of Palestinian militants or terrorists, had to distract the media from the fact there were a large number of civilians inside the church and that many of the armed men were Palestinian Authority police. The stand-off lasted for over a month with people finally coming out in coffins, stretchers or only after being captured. Unfortunately the Israeli troops got to the hidden tapes before I did, ensuring that the world only saw their own highly sanitised version of events. By accepting the carefully selected edits from the tapes

Dear Jon

While reporting direct action protests with video cameras over the past 10 years, most of my colleagues and I have been arrested, assaulted or had tapes seized

provided by the IDF, the BBC and other broadcasters allowed the Israelis to propagate the myth that the Church was full of militants. The IDF has refused to return the tapes or allow anyone to see the tapes in their entirety. While reporting direct action protests with video cameras over the past 10 years, most of my colleagues and I have been arrested, assaulted or had tapes seized at some stage. Yet never have we been convicted of any offence. Freelance photographer Nick Cobbing is one of the few journalists to be convicted and fined despite the courts recognising him as a working reporter. Arrested while photographing the evictions of environmental activists from a forest, police seized his films and cameras. The only other journalist to get close to the evictions was an HTV reporter, only to receive a truncheon across the head. Cobbing’s exclusive images were thus effectively censored. “As the police come under a lot of criticism for their policing methods, they want to put journalists off going to these events and the easiest journalists to put off are the freelancers because they do not have the backing of the large news organisations,” he said. The question of why the police should be taking an active role in controlling which images the public should see is still largely open for debate and it has prompted me to produce a Channel 4 news feature about the issue. Highlighting the story of video journalist Roddy Mansfield, I discovered that he had been arrested on 12 separate occasions and released without charge only when his news deadlines had passed. The Metropolitan police have even gone as far to erase his video footage in the custody suite, unwittingly recording their own feet and voices in the process. It is for these reasons that I co-founded Undercurrents as an alternative news agency. World events are much too important to be told only by the vested interests of multinational corporations or governments. The people who have the most to lose should be the voices we hear. So, supporting independent news outlets is vital, unless we want to wait until it’s too late to begin to understand the real version of events 8 Yours, Paul

Paul O’Connor, a co-founder of Undercurrents alternative news agency, is a producer of the annual BEYONDTV alternative video festival in Swansea, 19-20 November 2004 www.undercurrents.org/beyondtv/

Dear Jon

While reporting direct action protests with video cameras over the past 10 years, most of my colleagues and I have been arrested, assaulted or had tapes seized

Paul O’Connor, a co-founder of Undercurrents alternative news agency, is a producer of the annual BEYONDTV alternative video festival in Swansea, 19-20 November 2004 www.undercurrents.org/beyondtv/

Created in the “Mother and Child Houses” around her hometown of Munster, Germany, Annet van der Voort’s photographs capture the fragility of the relationship between mothers and their newborn babies. Her portraits look at these young women, often still children themselves, as they pose with their infants. Some of these mothers are not allowed to care for, or even live with their babies, the local authorities have decided that they are “unable to cope” 8

Annet van der Voort

Baby Mothers

Magda, 16, with Luise, 5 weeks

Annet van der Voort

Baby Mothers

Magda, 16, with Luise, 5 weeks

Tanja, 16, with Jan-Luka, 3 months

Alexandra, 17, with Simon, 10 months

Eva, 17, with Elexa Mercedes, 3 months

Helena, 16, with Dominic, 2 weeks

Corinna, 16, with Justin, 3 months

Tanja, 16, with Jan-Luka, 3 months

Alexandra, 17, with Simon, 10 months

Eva, 17, with Elexa Mercedes, 3 months

Helena, 16, with Dominic, 2 weeks

Corinna, 16, with Justin, 3 months

Veronica, 14,with Philipp, 10 weeks

Nadja, 16, with Jason, 8 days

Veronica, 14,with Philipp, 10 weeks

Nadja, 16, with Jason, 8 days

Darfur, Sudan Pierre Abensur

In contrast to his daily work as a press photographer in Geneva, with crisply regulated assignments, Pierre Abensur elected to travel to Sudan to portray the tragedy unfolding there. Encamped with the Sudanese Liberation Army and the people, he witnessed their struggle for survival, but also a pervasive sense of warmth and colour as brilliant as the rising sun 8

Darfur, Sudan Pierre Abensur

The Sun Will be Rising The sun will be rising, It rose thousands of years ago, Before we were born, And it is rising, Now when we are alive, And it will be rising, In the years to come, When we are growing, And it will be rising, When we are gone, Nobody can stop it from rising, It has been there ever since time. So with it There was light And with it There is light And with it There will be light And with it There was life, And with it There is life, And with it There will be life. Now there are clouds, They will soon vanish, And the sun will shine again. ÂŠ Akol Meyan Kuol, born 1974 Abyei, Southern Sudan, from his poetry collection, The Sun Will be Rising, (2003) Apex Publishing Ltd: Clacton-onSea. Reproduced with permission.

Changpa Nomads Tomas Munita

The Changtang plateau extends from eastern Ladakh into Tibet. Known for its remoteness and spirituality – Buddhism reached India from Tibet via Ladakh – it is one of India’s five listed biodiversity regions. Climatic conditions fluctuate dramatically from short, hot summers to long, blisteringly cold winters but it is home to the Changpa nomads, as well as yak, blue sheep, Tibetan gazelle and kyang. There are more than 700 recorded species of plant, as many as half of them used by Amchis, traditional practitioners of Tibetan medicine. Some nomads make a living selling wool from the coveted Pashmina to Kashmiri merchants. “I spent 40 days in Samad Rokchen at the beginning of summer. I learned a little Ladakhi, but made a conscious decision not to try to gather too much information, rather to soak up the simplicity of the nomadic way of life. “I wanted to discover the secret of their closeness to nature and witness the nomads’ gradual advance through the valleys. I tried to evoke the distant, colourful silence of nomadic existence, with daily routines that remain almost the same throughout people’s lives. Their lives were a lesson to me of what ‘enough’ can mean.” 8

>Inside

Max Houghton talks to Emma Reeves, photographic director at Dazed & Confused and Another Magazine, about the things that make her go Ooooh!

Max Houghton So how come you’re in charge of the entire photographic content of Dazed & Confused and Another Magazine? Emma Reeves I’m totally unqualified, I just got into it somehow. My background, academically, is History of Art, so the visual aspect obviously has a relevance. I worked in antiques, then I worked in documentary for Granada, then I did some streetcasting for advertising. It’s all visual referencing, what people look like, getting on with people – which is the broad base of what Dazed and Another are about. I know hundreds of photographers, and it’s really important to know what they’re about personally, who they are.

ER That story came to us. We do send photographers out to cover international stories, not necessarily a reportage photographer, maybe a loose portrait photographer who doesn’t need a big set-up, who can just fly. And we’ll send them to a music conference in Miami – that’s our interpretation of reportage. It’s easier to talk about in relation to Another Magazine, because it has a reportage story every issue, which we classify as our National Geographic moment. We don’t usually use people who solely work in reportage. I don’t go to IPG, or Magnum, necessarily. I think it would clash a little bit in the magazine.

MH Do you do drop-offs for portfolios? ER We do. I’d love to meet everybody but of course I can’t because I wouldn’t do one moment of work. There are so many photographers out there – which might sound a facile thing to say, but we’re dealing with reportage and fashion and portraiture photographers, people who really want to get their stuff in Dazed, which is often totally improbable.

MH Did you choose Anders Edstrom to capture a specific mood? ER Absolutely. He’s more a fine art photographer – and there

was one Miu Miu campaign he did that stuck in my mind. But I’ve known him for a long time and I constantly see his work. It’s a relationship thing: everything’s a relationship thing here. It’s very low key, the budgets are low, it’s about friendly relationships. MH Do you ever buy stories from the big agencies? ER I’ll buy archive images, but we’d never buy in a story. The magazines are very organic. We generate every single page for Another and Dazed; it’s part of the whole feeling of the magazines. It feels all over the place, but in a coherent way! We’re very thankful that we can use really great photographers for very little money, because they feel it’s the place they want to be in. We have a bigger budget for Another, but we still don’t have everything. MH Do you make a point of

N REMOVES THE BIRD’S DECORATIVE HOOD, LIKE TAKING THE SAFETY OFF A GUN.

We generate every single page – it’s part of the whole feeling of the magazines. It feels all over the place, but in a coherent way

using young, emerging photographers? ER Very specifically. We have a well of people we draw on already. A lot of people in New York. We’ve got the globe covered, nearly, with people we’re happy with – happy with their aesthetic, who we’ve got a good rapport with, and who we know personally.

they wouldn’t fit with other press images.

MH Can you define your aesthetic? ER It’s really difficult to do that. Sylvia [Farago, photographic editor at Dazed] and I are totally intuitive about what we like. She’ll see some portfolios and say: “Don’t bother ...” I totally trust her.

MH Do you avoid overtly political stories? ER We don’t avoid them. It’s a debate we haven’t had very widely – we should have it more – about how politics sits in a style magazine. It’s a fine balance. We work so far ahead, we can’t use most of the news pictures that come in anyway. We get politics in another way. It’s going to sound so not-politics, but we chose Julie Christie and pursued her as someone to interview and photograph because she’s very politicised.

MH So how does your aesthetic differ from other magazines? ER What it’s not is gimmicky. I like to think any photographer working for us will really get somewhere with the person they’re photographing, even if they only got 15 minutes. They’ll disarm them, somehow, and get to a reality. It’s not a PR stunt. We run images in Dazed that wouldn’t run elsewhere because they wouldn’t be polished enough,

MH The magazines are full of images. Do you commission all the fashion, too? ER I work with the fashion director; we have a very symbiotic relationship. MH How do you strike the balance between fashion and reportage in a style magazine? You cover what might be termed “serious” stories, like the Israeli “Wall” piece in the October issue.

MH Is it a conscious decision to challenge cultural assumptions? ER I don’t think it’s as strong as that, I think it’s a personal take. But we’re definitely not here just to respond to press releases. We can’t be bought.

MH It could be said it’s political to feature an older woman in a style magazine anyway. ER Exactly. We find ways of doing it. We’ve printed antiBush lyrics, and of course there was the South Africa

issue of Dazed, where we really wanted to say that in spite of its problems, South Africa is on a par with London: look at all this great stuff that’s happening.

to emulate a Jurgen Teller shoot and that really confuses people. You can really only get the experience you need from assisting.

MH Apart from new photographic work, what inspires you? ER I really loved Nest magazine. It’s amazing. It’s the most incredible design and the paper engineering is extraordinary. Also, I go to hundreds of exhibitions, fine art more than photographic. There’s lots of crossfertilisation.

MH What’s the worst portfolio crime? ER There’s so much talent around. Of course, there’s a lot of ill-conceived, technically useless stuff too. I don’t like being harangued by agents. I don’t like people phoning me who have clearly never even looked at a copy of Dazed. I like to see a well-edited portfolio, really thought through. And then it’s about character. I get lots of recommendations, and it’s so lovely when you hear about people getting on and doing well. Art buyers will phone me for contacts. I’m doing their job for them – but I want to help the photographers. I’ll give people a chance, even two or three goes. We create a family here and I hope photographers feel part of our family. I’m lucky, because I work with hundreds of people but it can be lonely out there. My advice is to do your best – and then it’s out in the magazine. It’s out! 8

MH What advice would you give to a photographer trying to get a break? ER To all the young photographers with beautiful work who want to go into fashion, my advice is: learn your craft. Don’t come straight from college. MH Why does it have to take so long to cut it in fashion? ER Each season it changes. The quality of the models, the hair, the make-up, what they’re conveying in the clothes, working in a style. It’s such a specific language. It looks easy

>Inside

Max Houghton talks to Emma Reeves, photographic director at Dazed & Confused and Another Magazine, about the things that make her go Ooooh!

MH Did you choose Anders Edstrom to capture a specific mood? ER Absolutely. He’s more a fine art photographer – and there

N REMOVES THE BIRD’S DECORATIVE HOOD, LIKE TAKING THE SAFETY OFF A GUN.

We generate every single page – it’s part of the whole feeling of the magazines. It feels all over the place, but in a coherent way

they wouldn’t fit with other press images.

issue of Dazed, where we really wanted to say that in spite of its problems, South Africa is on a par with London: look at all this great stuff that’s happening.

to emulate a Jurgen Teller shoot and that really confuses people. You can really only get the experience you need from assisting.

>Reviews >Diary >Listings >Scene

The Valley Larry Sultan Published by Scalo www.scalo.com £49.50 (132PP Hardback)

Americans are strange people. Regardless of national origin, they seem driven by a combination of competition and insecurity. “Ah-nold” Schwarzenegger, from playing Predator, Terminator and Conan the Barbarian, has now become governor of California. They believe in “keeping up with the Joneses”. They worry that someone else is “getting more” – more money or more sex. This combination of envy and sexuality is one of the main drivers of the American Dream. For Larry Sultan, this nexus is most strongly manifest in the San Fernando Valley, the centre of the pornography industry, just north of Los Angeles off the 405. Here, in the most representative site of the American Dream, the doctors and dentists of “the Valley” rent out their suburban homes to the porn industry for use as sets in sex movies. Larry Sultan is a documentary photographer, activist, commercial photographer and teacher, among other things. For 30 years he has been concerned with the depiction of suburbia in all its manifestations. Sultan’s parents moved to the Valley in the 1950s during the great migration after the Second World War that was fuelled by promises of cheap gasoline, sun, sand, blondes and ready jobs in aerospace and advertising. Here, in the tract homes and mansions, with their aqua blue pools and wooden fences, the decor is familiar. The living rooms with their shag carpets and mass market furnishings, the dens and passion pits, faux marble fireplaces, the three car garages, pseudo-Grecian pavilions, and manicured lawns are the visual part and parcel of the good life a la California just as much as the endless summer of any number of surf movies. Sultan’s grammar of images is based on the multiple uses of these nouns and adjectives. It’s not about pornography, per se, it’s about banality not conjugation. He declines the obvious images of people fucking, relegates them to the side, or presents them, at the risk of boredom, during their down time, on cell phones, waiting around on couches, or staring out the kitchen window. His work plays on the imagination but eschews the clichés. Sultan’s viewers know the houses and the furnishings, and they can imagine the shenanigans behind closed doors or just over the fence. The mix of familiarity and envy is totally palpable: the neighbours are getting it on, why aren’t we? The Valley debuted to great success this past summer in San Francisco – in a culture as far removed from LA as that of London – at the SF MOMA and began its European tour in Cologne, Germany. The handsomely printed catalogue with its waiting blonde and otherwise empty bed on the cover piques the viewer’s imagination and seems to define Sultan’s perspective. Here is your suburban wet dream, but is it a movie or a painting? Clearly, it’s a Hopper, but by whom, Edward or Dennis? BK

Meetings Paul Shambroom Published by Chris Boot www.chrisboot.com £29.95 (128PP Hardback)

It is curiously appropriate that, at a time when the media has been saturated by the presidential election coverage, Paul Shambroom’s photographs of meetings have been published in this thoughtfully designed book. His pictures of small town committees seem banal at first glance. However, as examples of American governance at its most grassroots level, they have a particular resonance as the world’s most powerful democracy goes to the polls. From 1999 to 2003, Paul Shambroom attended and recorded hundreds of town council meetings across the United States. His pictures are reproduced one per double page spread in this landscape format book. Text is kept to a minimum with factual information on each meeting’s location, the population of the town, committee name, date and names of members opposite each image. The minutes of each meeting are reproduced in an appendix at the back in small print on an ultra-lightweight stock. In matter-of-fact colour photographs taken at eye level, Shambroom records groups of people behind desks in cluttered offices or seated at “official” furniture in chambers reserved for debate. His compositions are redolent of the Last Supper. Goodness knows how many frames he must have taken to capture just the right mix of sombre expressions, of concentration and thoughtfulness, on the faces of his sitters which suffuse these images with their solemnity. That Shambroom has been exploring the nature of power and politics in his photography since the early 1980s (his most recent body of work prior to Meetings being a 10-year project documenting America’s nuclear arsenal) serves as a guide to how we should approach these images. As does the book’s introductory text from Democracy in America by the great post-Revolutionary polemicist, Alexis De Tocqueville. Photographed on large format panoramic camera, the subject matter is elevated by its heroic proportions. Shambroom gives it the same scale as the sweeping historical canvases of the masters – the salon paintings of David for example, a contemporary of De Tocqueville, with their classical scenes of noble governance painted to enshrine the ideals of the French republic. The first exhibition outing of Meetings at the Recontres d’Arles this July, made these references more explicit with a softened photographic reproduction combined with textured canvas giving a very painterly effect. The photographs in Meetings record the mundane reality of small town bureaucracy and yet endow it with greater significance by their clever use of composition and scale. This is a book worth exploring and a timely record of real American democracy in action. SW

Meetings: Van Buren, Indiana, pop 935. Town Council, 21July 1999 (below left). Manhattan District 7, NY, pop 207,699. Community Board, 5 March 2002 (right). © Paul Shambroom

Rowing to Alaska and other true stories Wayne McLennan Published by Granta Books www.granta.com £12.99 (239PP Softback)

Wayne McLennan is a rare thing – a man who is equally at home and accomplished drinking in the world’s toughest bars as he is writing prose. Captured here in 15 story-length chapters – each one a separate episode that has only McLennan as its continuous reference point – we travel with the author as he works his way around the globe undertaking a series of demanding jobs in romantic yet remote corners. Born in the mid-Fifties and raised in a small Australian town in the Hunter Valley coal fields, McLennan was determined not to follow his forbears down the mines – and so, somewhat improbably given his outgoing approach to life, he got a job as a bank clerk. Soon bored beyond belief by the petty mindedness and bureaucracy of his mercantile

existence, he vowed to himself that he would never again stick to one job and that he would travel as widely as possible. True to himself he took off, travelling first, like so many Antipodeans before him, to London and Earl’s Court, where he worked in a pub and on a building site, before buying a camper van and driving through France to Spain to the running of the bulls at Pamplona. These adventures which form the book’s early chapters – like those that he undertakes in his own country, among them killing a wild pig to prove his machismo – are early rites of passage: tests he unconsciously sets himself before heading for the serious trials and adventures on the other side of the world. Despite the initial implausibility of McLennan’s bucaneering adventures in the late 20th century, the stories ultimately have a ring of truth. He panhandles for gold in Costa Rica, captains his own fishing boat off Nicaragua, rows with a mate a thousand miles from Seattle to Alaska but is never boastful about his exploits. His role at the centre of each story is merely to act as the hub around which the stories revolve, freewheeling from a humorous episode in one paragraph to a big-hearted understanding of others’ lives in the next. In the tough places he finds

himself, movingly, even heroically, McLennan seems driven to prove his own worth to himself – and his ever more adventurous (but dangerous) exploits could be read as a man seeking to find his place and purpose in life. Although it is never fully explained, in the book’s final chapter we gain an insight into his motivations as he recalls his friendship with a highly respected Australian flyweight boxing champion Darryl Wallace, aka Charlie Brown, against whom he fought and lost. It is a Eureka moment for McLennan, and for the reader an invitation to understand what makes him tick and to discover, in McLennan’s view, what makes a man truly a man. It is perfectly pitched and underscores McLennan’s sensitively realised take on life. Rowing to Alaska is Boy’s Own without the bravado: a life-affirming book full of wonderful characters, amazing adventures and great stories beautifully told. GM

Festival Review Photo New York 14 –17 Oct 2004 Paris Photo 10 –14 Nov 2004 Noorderlicht Photofestival 5 Sept – 26 Oct 2004 www.photony.com www.paris-photo.fr www.noorderlicht.com Sun Tzu’s adage, “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted,” should resonate with every photojournalist. Understanding one’s subject matter is, like understanding one’s own personal style, as much a part of a successful photograph or portfolio as being in the right place at the right time with a camera. This is equally true for photographers wishing to enter the art market. Fortunately, there are plenty of venues where one can learn about photography galleries without spending vast sums of hard-won cash. One key step is to attend a photography fair that brings together a wide range of galleries, curators and collectors as well as numerous other photographers both famous and not so famous. Two dealers’ shows provide ample opportunity for learning about the process and how one can best profit from it. The recent Photo New York, which took place in New York City’s current art Mecca, Chelsea, is the latest in Los Angeles gallerist Stephen Cohen’s series of successful photography fairs that follows those in LA and San Francisco and represents one approach. This new fair presented a mix of 33 galleries from the US, Europe and Latin America with a very good mix of new, established contemporary, and vintage photography and represents an alternative to Aipad’s (the Association of Independent Photography Art Dealers) Photography Show. The emphasis was on new work – vital for keeping the photography scene fresh. New galleries such as Lyonswier, Katrina Doerner, and Foley, from New York, Brown Bag Contemporary of San Francisco,

and Galerie Poller of Frankfurt prominently featured new material. For a new photographer this is a Godsend, but with this opportunity comes a cautionary note. It is extremely important to do research at these fairs, to learn the tastes of the galleries, to see which might be appropriate for one’s own work, to gather cards and get on mailing lists – but absolutely not to bother the gallerists by asking to show work or by pretending to be a collector. And under no circumstances attempt to come between a dealer and a potential client. The key here is to do the necessary reconnaissance and to do the follow up later. As Stephen Cohen points out, to intrude during a sales opportunity is certainly the fastest way to be put on the gallery’s reject list. For European-based photographers, the annual Paris Photo fair which takes place in the Carrousel du Louvre in the centre of the French capital each November is another golden opportunity. There a broader spectrum of photography that ranges from classic reportage, to contemporary fine art, fashion, and vintage work. Paris Photo is much larger with 105 galleries from 16 countries. With collectors’ seminars, special events, and a tie-in to the Mois de la Photo a Paris, organised by the Maison Européene de la Photographie, with myriad photo shows scattered throughout the City of Light, Paris Photo is both more exciting and more challenging for emerging photographers because of the preponderance of established galleries with equally established photographers. Still, as an educational opportunity and the chance to mingle with other photographers and friends it can be extremely rewarding. The same rules apply: check out the galleries, take cards, get on lists, and don’t hassle anyone. In Paris even more money is at stake. In any case, Paris Photo can also serve as practice for the forthcoming Photo London that will take place in the Royal Academy in London in May 2005. Follow up is everything. A wellpresented and well-edited portfolio, of 10-20 images –

today, CDs are perfectly in order despite a lingering love for real prints – a brief statement, contact information on everything and much patience is vital. There is a vast amount of highly talented competition out there, and preparation and determination to stick with it, as well as a certain grace under fire, are one’s best weapons. The traditional vision of photography from the Arab world seems to consist exclusively of sepia-toned images of camels and pyramids, photos of massed prayer ceremonies or funerals, and the bloody images from the ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Iraq. So this year’s incarnation of Noorderlicht, the Dutch photography festival, is a wellneeded correction to Western myopias and prejudices. Titled Nazar from the Arabic for seeing, insight, and vision, and curated by festival director Wim Melis and spread across three venues in Leeuwarden in central Holland, more than 50 exhibitions of vintage and contemporary work by Western, Arab and Iranian photographers, cover more than 100 years of material across a world ranging from Morocco to Iran. Works featured include the classic movie stars and celebrities from the Van Leo Studio and Youssef Nabil of 1920s- 40s Cairo and the Arab

Image Foundation’s archive of pre-1948 Palestine imagery. There is work from the early days of the Algerian war by Dutch Magnum member Kryn Taconis and French Army photographer Marc Garanger’s almost arty identity portraits of unveiled Algerian women. If Western media are dominated by Western photographers who fulfill Western clichés, it is good to see work like that of Syrian Issaa Touma’s portfolio of Sufi dervishes, Saudi photographer Reem al Faisal’s images of the Hadj, or the Tina Barney-like family sequences by the Lebanese-Canadian Rawi Hage. The ability to be accepted as local, or, indeed, to be local, provides an immediacy of access and understanding that potentially allows Arab photographers to present deeper stories. Likewise, the only positive thing that may be said about the horrors of the Intifada and the war in Iraq is that despite the kidnappings, beheadings, and limited access to Western photographers, the photo agencies, led by AFP, have been supporting their stringers in the field and thus creating a new crop of talented photojournalists whose work will doubtless be seen everywhere in the future. BK

Nazar 2004 Noorderlicht Catalogue Published by Aurora Borealis www.noorderlicht.com 35 Euros (268PP Hardback)

Potentially infinite in scope, but eloquently curated, Nazar is a collection of photographs from the Arab world, published in tandem with the Noorderlicht festival.

and issues of misrepresentation since the inaugural 1990 festival, yet this latest pertinent collection demands urgent study. We witness the work of the new generation of Palestinian photographers who worked as assistants to the Western press pack during the first Intifada in 1988; people like Awad Awad, Ahmed Jadallah and Rula Halawami, who have provided the world with images from the occupied territories from a unique position of understanding. Soap-operatic images from Egyptian cinema, patriarchal portraits from Morocco, or graphic news images of blood and bullets seen through the prism of orientalism, the rich, visual tapestry presented here has much to teach us if only we

have the eyes to see. In the West, the ubiquity of images of death and destruction from the Arab world – so often, tragically, from Palestine – serves to anaesthetise us while at the same time accepting a violence at the heart of Arab culture, which in truth does not exist. MH

(left) © Barry Iverson, (centre) © Diana Matar (right) © Van Leo

Robed in purple and gold, Nazar is an enticing prospect and its genre-busting approach is as welcome as a hammam after a hard day. Reportage, landscape, studio and conceptual photography – each holds its own alongside vintage images from the Arab Image Foundation archive. From this era of pre-1948 Palestine, the sight of three confident, alluring women decorating the bonnet of a car utterly confounds the stereotypical image of a subservient, veiled Arab woman; a surrealist tableau of a disembodied head shakes off the sheikh fixation with an elegant flourish. Noorderlicht has been challenging cultural assumptions

Lodz Ghetto Album Henryk Ross Published by Chris Boot www.chrisboot.com £24.95 (160PP Hardback)

Lodz Ghetto Album brings together an extraordinary series of images for the first time, in a book made possible by the Archive of Modern Conflict, of which they form a part. Incarcerated in Lodz Ghetto, Poland, by the Nazis during the Second World War, Henryk Ross, a newspaper photographer before 1939, was employed by the Department of Statistics to produce identity shots and propaganda images. At the same time he risked his life to create this album, secretly documenting the deportations, starvations and other atrocities that took place there. When the Nazis began the liquidation of the ghetto in 1944 Ross buried his negatives, subsequently digging them up after the war. His photographs are reportage at its most raw and make gruelling and at times surprising viewing. Selected by Timothy Prus, curator of the Archive of Modern Conflict, and Magnum photographer Martin Parr, these photographs are reproduced in their original state. Retaining the damage from their time in the ground, the unrepaired state of some of the photographs is a reminder of their role as historical documents; the simple, unshowy design of the book also allows these images to speak for themselves. Cultural historian Robert Jan van Pelt provides an eloquent foreword and author Thomas Weber’s introduction explains the significance of Ross’s little-known

collection, which comprises more than 3,000 negatives and other items, such as identity cards, posters and maps, reproduced with Weber’s text. Most interestingly, Weber revises the traditional history of this ghetto in the light of Ross’s photographs and suggests a reappraisal of his work. The collection is further supplemented by a chronology of the Lodz Ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski, Leader of the Jewish Council of Lodz’s gutwrenching speech to its inhabitants in 1942 “Give me your Children” and Henryk Ross’s testimony at the trial of Adolf Eichmann after the war. Lodz ghetto held up to a quarter of a million Jews during the years 1940-1944. This population was made up of Jews from Lodz and the surrounding countryside, along with deportees from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Luxembourg – people representing every spectrum of life. Put to work in such jobs as the manufacture of uniforms and shoes for the German army, food rations were inadequate to say the least and many starved to death. The population was further depleted by the deportations to what came to be known within the ghetto as the “frying pan” – the

concentration camps such as Auschwitz. In 1944 what was left of the population was almost entirely liquidated by the Nazis. Ross’s images are divided into two sections: public and private. The public pictures are the more familiar scenes recording the hardship and horror of ghetto life – released or from the same frames of those released by Ross in his lifetime. Inhabitants wrap up from the cold to take part in makeshift street trading. Children, their clothes muddy and torn, search for food in the ground. Hungry and anxious, a crowd waits in front of the soup kitchen. A child falls down in the street from hunger grasping weakly at the frame of a window. In a blurred image, water damaged and pitted, a body hangs from the gallows in a snow covered square. Most shocking of all, illuminated by pale light, a pile of contorted bodies are heaped in a bath, their separated heads stored in a smaller box. This nightmarish scene almost takes your breath away. The reader then flicks back into pictures recording people at work, in the tailoring department in a factory, in the hospital kitchens and the ghetto police and those images of deportation, of people entering the ghetto and

those leaving it for the camps. The mood of the images changes radically with those included in the private section. Equally shocking in their own way they depict ghetto inhabitants joking around, laughing, loving – getting on with their lives under horrendous conditions. At times it is difficult to remember you are looking at a ghetto at all. In a private moment hidden among the leaves a couple kiss passionately, Ross’s wife Stefania basks on her back in the sun, a girl stands proudly amongst sunflower stalks and cabbages in a vegetable garden. Ghetto policeman – until recently, always depicted as collaborators and partners in Nazi barbarity – goof around, party and proudly display their families or pets. There are children playing and sitting smiling at table, one year after the majority of those in the ghettos had been deported. All these sitters seem smartly dressed – these are the privileged among the ghetto inhabitants, those with more money or holding official positions. In subsequent years, Ross has been left out of the history of the Lodz ghetto – Weber suggests that survivors may have seen him as colluding with the Nazis by

Persepolis 2 Marjane Satrapi Published by Jonathan Cape www.randomhouse.co.uk £12.99 (187PP Hardback)

associating too closely with those more privileged members of the community. There is certainly a familiarity and ease in the sitters of the private images that suggests he was an accepted member of their group. This may be one reason for why he so carefully controlled the release of these photographs during his lifetime. But Thomas Weber argues persuasively that to get a proper understanding of the experience of the ghetto all the information available needs to be addressed and it must not be forgotten that Henryk Ross, whatever his role, did risk his life to record some of his images. As Robert Jan van Pelt reminds us when seeing this hierarchy of the privileged surviving in the midst of the ghetto, it is a sobering thought to think that most were to perish, whatever their position, during the Holocaust. These images by Ross are probably best read as a testimony to human resilience and offer an important addition to our understanding of these inhumane times. SW

Persepolis 2 is the comic book sequel to the autobiography of Iranian author and illustrator Marjane Satrapi. The first volume, published in 2003, was praised for its ability to convey the real state of affairs in Iran through the eyes of a young Satrapi. Persepolis 2 picks up where that left off. It is 1984 and Satrapi is 14 years old. At her parents’ request, she has moved to Austria to begin studying and escape the unstable Iran. Not only are we taken through the compellingly honest frustrations and insecurities of being a typical teenager but also the struggle to be accepted as a misunderstood foreigner. From the outset she is portrayed as exceptionally politically aware for her age, although not necessarily better off for it. When shocked by the interests of a childhood friend she thinks to herself “What a traitor! While people were dying in our country she was talking to me about trivial things.”

Satrapi endures a series of misfortunes and decides to return home to Iran, but here extreme conservatism clashes with her adopted Western habits of partying and dating. Her initial culture shock lends many clues to the political environment of Iran, “It wasn’t just the veil I have to readjust, there were also the images: the 65ft high murals representing martyrs, adorned with slogans honouring them,” not to mention having to ask oneself when leaving the house, “Can my make-up be seen?” instead of, “Where is my freedom of thought?” Satrapi’s adjustment becomes complete as she again begins to speak her mind against authority, undaunted by the consequences. Stopped in the street for “obscene” movements when running she yells at a stunned Guardian of the Revolution, “Well, then don’t look at my ass!” Persepolis 2’s may seem an unconventional medium to tell such a story. Yet its format is what sets this coming of age story apart. The simplicity of the black and white ink drawings brings life to what is being said and also what is not. A criticism of this work may be just that, the content is so engaging that one does not take full notice of the subtle intricacies in the illustrations. After reading and viewing Persepolis 2 – ideally more than once – you begin to appreciate the harmony between the telling of such a unique story and witnessing it played out, almost like seeing it at a cinema. As it seems all films come in threes these days, hopefully the third is on its way. LH

Return, Afghanistan Zalmai Published by Aperture www.aperture.org £22.00 (128PP Hardback) On the back cover of this impressive book we see a family trekking across a snow-covered mountain pass near Banian, returning to Afghanistan. It is a trek Zalmai and his brother made, aged 15, when their family packed them off and they fled this same country. Back then – 1980 – the country had declined into war and walking out across the mountains, Zalmai promised his brother that one day he would be a photographer and would return. He found refuge in Switzerland, and later became a citizen. But it was to be 16 years before he went back, as a photographer, on assignment for a French language newspaper to chronicle the further destruction of his country under the Taliban. After 11 September 2001, then the ensuing war and fall of the Taliban, he says, he saw the beginning of a new chapter for Afghanistan. By 2003 with some 2.5 million of the Afghan diaspora returning home, he says he began to see the colour coming back. Zalmai’s experience and knowledge of the Afghan people grants us a privileged view of their lives. Clinging to the ruins of a house in deep winter against the backdrop of the unforgiving snow-covered mountains or crawling amongst the ruins of the great Buddhas of Banian, which the Taliban destroyed, the Afghan

people in his photographs display a proud hope. The life they have returned to is uncompromisingly harsh, and the means to survive and rebuild frustratingly absent, yet the faces we see look at us with desire and determination.

of Baghdad is shown from many angles on huge screens on the streets of New York. In only one of the images do the pedestrians seem to have noticed the dramatic images above their heads.

The sweeping panoramic format of the book and the warm hues of the colour prints pull the reader in. Zalmai’s camera provides an unsentimental glimpse of an Afghanistan emerging into the light after decades in darkness. “And so I set out to find this hope, with – for the first time – colour film in my camera” says Zalmai. With these photographs he cements the second part of that promise he uttered all those years ago, to return. JL

Later, the capture of Saddam Hussein is shown as a series of television screens across a single spread thus leaving us to make our own conclusions. Newspaper vending machines are seen frequently showing us the headlines including “It’s War” and “Attack in Iraq”, while in San Francisco they are used to block a street during one of the anti-war demonstrations. Intense feelings were aroused by the war and nowhere is this more evident than when demonstrators from both sides clash. The pro-war supporter telling the anti-war advocates that “Saddam thanks you for your support”. The biggest crowd are at a rally supporting the troops.

Fear This Anthony Suau Co-published by Aperture and Grazia Neria www.aperture.org www.grazianeri.com £13.95 (186PP Flexicover) Anthony Suau has photographed world events for many years but this is the first time he has turned his attention to his home country, the US. The book documents most of 2003 taking us from preIraq war diplomacy at the United Nations, through the declaration of war and on to the conflict. The opening picture is inside a CNN studio showing a large screen with “War in Iraq” emblazoned across it. The dramatic graphic immediately reminds us of the omnipresent media in Western civilisation, so ubiquitous we are often oblivious to it. The bombing

In contrast, we are also treated to a journey across an America that

is expressed by pithy tributes to troops. These are seen everywhere, outside diners and chapels while reminding passersby to try “fresh tender home cooked turtle”. It is also an America that expresses its patriotism on anything from porches to grain silos. The pictures are left to tell the story with short factual captions, interspersed with text charting the timeline of war. We are taken through events via a mixture of television screens and reality. The coverage of the subject is comprehensive, from the depths of the UN in New York to the Illinois funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. Although the images are powerful they feel somehow detached. Suau visited a bar in California on 17 March – the night Bush gave Saddam 48 hours to leave Iraq. The pictures are suitably atmospheric but using five is excessive.Some of the juxtapositions work very well but the book still seems more like a collection of pictures on a theme than a cohesive body of work. SB

most geographically based photography books only skim, to capture the essence of music within the culture and faces of its devotees. While relying heavily on the vibrant colours that we can only expect from this region, the images of evening festivals beautifully unite the luminescent sky and blurred movement of the festival goers in their trance-like states.

Hunting With Hounds Homer Sykes Published by Mansion Editions www.mansioneditions.com £20.00 (112PP Hardback) The first thing you notice about Hunting with Hounds is the beauty of its reproduction: rich black and white images exquisitely printed as duotones from Homer Sykes’ original darkroom prints. The effect is to allow the photographs to exist both as current document and rich nostalgia. Sykes maps out his territory straight away: “I love the English countryside” [and] “hunting is one of man’s most natural instincts” he begins in this, his latest book. Inside, Sykes spans nine separate hunting activities: from hare-coursing and fox-hunting, to stag and mink-hunting. Sykes provides the reader with a gentle and approving look at the people and the friendships that underpin these differing hunt communities. We meet the foot soldiers of this now threatened pastime – professional huntsmen and their staff – as well as the members, paying riders, landowners, and spectators who define this community and whose patronage has bankrolled it through the ages. Through Sykes’ friendly lens we see them warming at the meet before the hunt, follow on foot,

even forge a river in hot pursuit of their quarry, hounds in tow. But mostly we see the supporting cast – those who come to watch. The women we will see again at the annual ball bedecked in mink, the men having a “civilised” drink out of a car boot bar, well turned out in camel hair coats or Barbours. Homer Sykes’ celebrates that part of England many see disappearing fast; a rural scene and way of life lost to dual-carriageways, village bypasses and superstores. You don’t have to be pro-hunting to recognise that. JL Troubadoure Allahs Peter Pannke and Horst A Friedrichs Published by Frederking & Thaler Euros 19.90 www.frederking-thaler.de (192PP Hardback) Horst Friedrichs’ photographic portrayal of Sufi musicians in India goes beneath the surface that

The level of intimacy reached with these subjects is evident through the detail and concentration given to specific individuals. What sets this book apart is the inclusion of a 10-track CD of Sufi music, which enhances the act of viewing to a mysteriously hypnotic experience. This impressive photographic and musical journey is now on view at the Horniman Museum until 27 February. LH The Great Life Photographers Published by Thames & Hudson www.thamesandhudson.com £24.95 (608PP Hardback) Presented over 600 pages, The Great Life Photographers is a chronicle of the mid-20th century as recorded by Life magazine photographers between 19361972, the beginning and end of the publication’s first incarnation. In total, the work of 88 of the 90 Life staffers is documented, many of them celebrated – Robert Capa, Larry Burrows and W Eugene Smith among them – but lesser-known snappers’ records of people, places and events are also presented. It is a bold egalitarian move by the editors that is backed up by the alphabetisation of the photographers’ work, rather than putting the big hitters up front for maximum impact. Each photographer is introduced with a short biographical paragraph, followed by a selection of images presented over 10 pages, others six, and a few across just a double page spread. Many of the photographs are rendered full page, but most are half and quarter size in duotone and colour – with sometimes both on the same

page. The format is effective if one uses the book as a reference tool but inherently it causes chronological problems, not to mention thematic ones. In quick succession celebrity portraits are followed by reportage which in turn is succeeded by wildlife photos, often within one photographer’s chapter and frequently from one to the next. As such it demonstrates the versatility of the individual snappers and Life’s scope. But because of the limitations of space and the breadth of each photographer’s body of work, more often than not the overall feel is one of a book of single images rather than of stories. In truth, the editors undertook a Herculean task. Imagine the editorial meeting: OK, edit Robert Capa’s life’s work to a maximum of 15 images over 10 pages; and do the same for Anthony Link, and Bob Landry and 85 others. Oh, and don’t forget to look through over three decades of archives too. Ultimately, as a digest of Life magazine and its snappers, The Great Life Photographers is an honest, hard-working introduction to the men and women who documented last century’s seminal moments for one of the most respected magazines of its time. GM We have five copies of The Great Life Photographers to give away. To have a chance of winning one, complete the EI8HT Survey online at http://www.foto8.com/survey/

>Diary Alison Jacques Gallery 4 Clifford Street, London Catherine Yass Portraying the Israel/Palestine wall as an imposing yet surreal object. 18 November – 23 December Alphabet 61-63 Beak Street, London How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Politically charged photo-montage reacting to the last four years of Bush’s presidency. Until 5 December AOP Gallery 81 Leonard Street, London Fonetography Famous photographers asked to ‘capture the moment’ with a mobile phone camera to support the MENCAP charity. Until 27 November Capture One image chosen by each photographer as their most memorable over the last year. 2 December – 27 January Brunei Gallery SOAS, University of London Thornhaugh Street, London Frederique Cifuentes, Sufi Festival in Sudan Broad exploration of the Sufi way of life. Until 12 December County Gallery House South Bank, London Don McCullin, Life Interrupted McCullin revisits Africa and the lives of people infected with AIDS. 26 November – 10 January Dimbola Lodge Museum Terrace Lane, Freshwater Bay Isle of Wight Save the Children, Eye to Eye Special project undertaken by Palestinian children living in refugee camps, as a way to creatively communicate with the outside world. Until 12 December

Above: © Mathew Pillsbury, Screen-Lives/ Michael Hoppen Right: © Catherine Yass/ Alison Jaques Gallery Far right: © Stephen Vaughan, Opened Landscape/ Photofusion

Ffotogallery Chapter, Market Road, Cardiff Johannes Hepp, The Days After Visiting recently bombed cities to record everyday life after the event. Until 5 December FOAM Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam Guy Bourdin Exhibition of his vibrant, glamorous prints. Until 5 January Fotostiftung Schweiz Gruzentrasse 45, Zurich Jakob Tuggener, Ball Nights Capturing fleeting moments during glamorous events of the 1930s. 27 November – 20 February The Foundry 84-86 Great Eastern Street London Charlotte Player, Palestine 2004 Photography and film from the occupied territories. Until 28 November The Freud Museum 20 Maresfield Gardens, London Nick Cunard, Head Space Photographs of psychotherapeutic environments. Until 12 December Front Corridor Gallery The Royal London Hospital Whitechapel, London Alexander Brattell, Word on the Street Revealing imagery found in the London environment. Until 7 January Fruitmarket Gallery 45 Market Street, Edinburgh Somewhere Everywhere Nowhere Wide range of international contemporary art from the French Regional Art collections. Until 28 November Galerie Johannes Faber Brahmsplatz 7, Vienna Elliott Erwitt, Magnum Works and Okky Offerhaus, Memories Two recognized photographers and their classic works spanning from the 1950s to 70s. Until 27 November Recent Acquisitions Images from1840 to today. 3 December – 29 January

Galerie van Kranendonk Westeinde 29, Den Haag Stephane Couturier, Oeuvre Barren interiors and structures. Until 23 December Galleria Colonna Piazza S. Apostoli 66, Rome Matilde Gattoni, Eritrea: Between Drought and War Reportage on the enviromental disaster of this area. Until 28 November Galleria Grazia Neri Via Maroncelli 14, Milan Gered Mankowitz and Paul Saltzman The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. 14 December – 21 January Geffrye Museum 136 Kingsland Road, London Robert Teed, Kitchen Voices Still lives offering a glimpse into how people live. Until 16 January Hackelbury Fine Art Ltd 4 Launceston Place, London Berenice Abbott New York City during the Great Depression. Until 31 January

In Focus Galerie Marzellenstrasse 9, Koln Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas and Bruce Davidson, In America Iconic black and white by these three major photographers. Until 23 December Irish Museum of Modern Art Royal Hospital, Military Road Dublin Dreaming of the Dragon’s Nation, Contemporary Art from China Including the photography of Zhao Bandi and Yang Fu Dong. Until 6 February Kicken Berlin Linienstrasse 155, Berlin Goetz Diergarten Beach huts found in coastal Belgium and France. Until 15 January Kowasa Gallery Calle Mallorca 235, Barcelona Joachim Froese, Rhopography The theatrics of insects at a grand scale. 24 November – 12 January

Hoopers Gallery 15 Clerkenwell Close, London John Blakemore, Early Landscapes His classic black and white landscapes from 1970 to 1981. Until 26 November Horniman Museum 100 London Road Forest Hill, London Horst A. Friedrichs, Troubadours of Allah Photographs that document the spirit of Sufi musicians. Until 27 February Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401, Amsterdam Oleg Klimov, Heritage of an Empire This Russian photographer focuses on his own country. 11 December – 27 February Impressions Gallery 29 Castlegate, York Facing East Landscape photography by artists from Nordic and Baltic countries. 20 November – 22 January

Leica Gallery Suite 500, 670 Broadway New York The English Eye Extensive exhibition of a wide range of British photography. Until 4 December Witness to a Century, Part 1 Focusing on Leica’s place in the history of photography. 10 December – 15 January The Lowry Pier 8, Salford Quays Manchester This is America The working class struggle in 1930s and 40s America. Until 2 January

Michael Hoppen Contemporary 2nd Floor, 3 Jubilee Place London Mathew Pillsbury, Screen-Lives The influence of technology and its ability to isolate. Until 8 January Peter Beard, Living Sculpture Revisiting lost or forgotten images of Africa with intricate collages. 1 December – 29 January Musée de l’Elysée 18 Avenue de l’Elysée Lausanne Jean-Pascal Imsand, The Milky Way Series of photomontages with a documentary edge. Until 30 January The National Gallery Trafalgar Square, London Tom Hunter Staged photos of Hackney residents resembling Renaissance paintings. 7 December – 12 March The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television Manchester Road, Bradford Tony Ray-Jones, A Gentle Madness A rarely seen body of work featuring his satire of English culture. Until 9 January Open Eye Gallery 28-32 Wood Street, Liverpool Alec South, Sleeping by the Mississippi American life and landscape in the South. 4 December – 29 January Photofusion 17a Electric Lane, London Stephen Vaughan, Opened Landscape: Lindow, Tollund, Grauballe Large format colour landscapes dealing with archaeology, memory and myth. 19 November – 15 January

The Photographers’ Gallery 5 Great Newport Street London Lynn Saville, Nightscapes City landscapes at twilight and dawn. 25 November – 15 January Bettina von Zwehl, Alina Portraits of women captured whilst engaged in listening to music. 10 December – 9 January Picture House Centre for Photography 3rd Floor, International House 125 Granby Street, Leicester 3˚ Showcasing five emerging photographers from the East Midlands. Until 19 November Rhodes + Mann 37 Hackney Road, London Melanie Manchot, Moscow Girls Portraits of young Russian women along with their personal stories. Until 28 November Scottish National Portrait Gallery 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh Keeping Faith Specially commissioned work documenting religious diversity in Scotland. Until 6 February Side Photographic Gallery 5-9 Side, Newcastle upon Tyne Howard Davies, Into the Asylum Asylum seekers living in the UK. Phillip Jones Griffiths, Agent Orange The long term impact of the use of this chemical on the Vietnamese. Until 5 December Spitalfields Gallery 7-15 Greatorex Street, London Mona Schulz, Iraqi Livingrooms A glimpse into the lives of Iraqis living in the UK. Until 26 November Tate Modern Bankside, London Mohammed Camara, Untitled: The Public World of the Private Space Intimate view of the artist’s life as seen through interiors. Until 21 November Robert Frank, Storylines

Events

A major retrospective including many lesser-known works. Until 23 January Tate St. Ives Porthmeor Beach, St. Ives Cornwall Jem Southam, From a Distance Large scale industrial images of the Cornish landscape. Until 9 January

Dokument 2004 This annual festival based in Sundsvall, Sweden, focuses on various areas of photojournalism and documentary photography with a series of lectures and seminars. 3 – 4 December http://www.dokument04.se Mediawar, Covering Conflicts after Iraq A one-night event bringing together media intellectuals to discuss the failings of the reporting and coverage leading up to and during the Iraq war. 26 November The Guardian Newsroom Contact j.rutherford@mdx.ac.uk to reserve seats

Tom Blau Gallery 21 Queen Elizabeth Street London Lost and Found A diverse collection of vintage prints from the Camera Press archive. Until 7 January Towner Art Gallery High Street, Old Town Eastbourne The House in the Middle, Interior Design in a Nuclear Age Featuring a range of photographers dealing with domestic interiors. Until 5 December

Rhubarb-Rhubarb Gaining commissioned work and creating exhibitions seminars, with presentations from photographers and other industry professionals. 27 November The Orange Studio, Cannon Street, Birmingham Contact info@rhubardrhubarb.net for bookings

Trinity Fine Art Ltd 29 Bruton Street, London Milton Gendel Classic images of 1950s Italy. 17 November – 26 November White Cube 48 Hoxton Square, London Sam Taylor-Wood, Crying Men Portraits of famous actors crying in front of the camera. Until 4 December

EI8HT welcomes exhibition listings. Please email: listings@foto8.com or post to: Listings, EI8HT, 18 Great Portland St, London W1W 8QP. Every effort has been made to ensure that information is correct at time of going to press. EI8HT accepts no responsibility for any changes to dates of exhibitions.

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>Scene Nativity Peter Dench

I was at the Wintershall Estate near Guildford, photographing what is known as the grandest nativity in England. That’s “estate” as in Brideshead Revisited, not council estate. The production is put on in an 18th century barn by the landowner, Peter Hutley, a septuagenarian property investor, who writes, casts, produces and narrates the nativity each year. He has a £110 million business, but halfway through his life experienced a religious conversion, and feels his script is guided by the Holy Spirit. It’s quite spectacular; they use real horses, real sheep and Mary and Joseph struggle up a real hill on a real donkey. They even use a real baby, “Mary’s” daughter, Milly-May. Then the barn doors burst open and the nativity begins. In the rehearsals, it was starting to look like a scene from the ancient television sitcom The Good Life, with a bolted-on religious angle. The actors were sitting around reading the Daily Telegraph, bickering about who was going to play the innkeeper. Someone else had been demoted to merely riding a horse. I think they were a bit startled it hadn’t got air conditioning. I have to say I didn’t see the final production but, such is its popularity, tickets for the 2004 Nativity are already sold out. I caught the Archangel Gabriel outside smoking a Marlboro Light. You would if you had that kind of responsibility, wouldn’t you? 8 82

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