Magnum Blog / Pixelated youth - the photo blog of Magnum Photos

In an ongoing email conversation with British Magnum photographer Simon Wheatley about photographing youth in different countries, Wheatley also touched upon the fear that the U.K. may be introducing measures that will restrict street photography. He answered a few questions from Malaysia where he is currently working.

Blois, France. 2005. The monotony of another boring afternoon for two youths who have been excluded from school. Simon Wheatley/Magnum Photos

What would be the implications of such legislation for you?
I’m not sure exactly what is being proposed, but if France is anything to go by then it’s very worrying. When you take someone’s eyes away or blur a facial expression you can remove the meaning of the picture. There was a debate on lightstalkers after my story from the banlieue of Blois was placed on the Magnum website. Someone said he mourned the death of photojournalism in France, and I share that sentiment if this is really the way things must go. But France has become very interesting and I do retain hope that the work in Blois might be the beginning of my efforts there. Another comment on lightstalkers said that it would have been more respectful of me to obtain people’s permission before publication, but most of the youths in my pictures from Blois are extremely alienated, and would probably have ripped up any piece of paper I’d ask them to sign. A 14 year old boy of Algerian origin did exactly that with a contact sheet in which he spotted his younger sister, who’d actually asked me to take her picture! I would not expect such a heated reaction in London but I don’t think many of the youth I’ve photographed there would be exactly queuing up to sign releases.

Can you compare your work in Blois and your work about inner-city youth in London?
The two experiences have really been very different. I’ve been around London for some time and the body of work has just emerged, subconsciously. There are some places in east London particularly where I don’t feel like a stranger, and I enjoy good relations with many people in the inner city who are aware of my work.

London, UK. 2005. Members of the E14 movement on Aberfeldy Road. Simon Wheatley/Magnum Photos

Blois, on the other hand, is a small town I visited about eight times in total, consciously aware that I was trying to make a story to reflect upon the suburban riots of November 2005. One person helped me at the beginning, introducing me to an alienated youth of 17, but left me to fend for myself from there. In Blois, I always had the feeling that while I was getting closer, I would never get close enough. Some of the pictures resulted from rather short encounters; the tolerance threshold could be very low. And when I asked people if I could come into their homes they usually thought I was mad. Sometimes I’d wander for hours alone, not finding anyone willing to have me around, and I was always very much an outsider. I decided to end the project when I realised that the only way to go really deep with the youth was to live there and become part of them… but it was a grim and depressing place and it might have taken years before I was truly accepted.

In terms of the issues, what strikes me most is the much greater solidarity amongst immigrant youth in France. Algerians and Congolese are like brothers, for example, they realise they are in the same struggle. In London, however, there is the phenomenon of black-on-black violence while relations between black and Bangladeshi youth in east London are somehow fraught with tension. While I was engaged with the Blois project but back in London I would tell some youths I knew there that they were jokers, strutting around trying to play Mr Gangster, and that in France there really was a war – 18 nights of consecutive suburban violence is surely tantamount to that. In London, a youth can get stabbed just for walking through an estate where he doesn’t live, even though he may have never had problems with anyone there. The violence can be very banal.

There was definitely more alienation in Blois, and a clear concept of ‘us and them’. I felt Ramadan would be a time of peace but the place seemed to be seething silently… and if Sarkozy wins the forthcoming election the banlieue may well explode again - the immigrant youth hate him after what he said about them being scum. Discrimination has become a huge problem in France and I suspect we are dealing with a lost generation, young men who may never find a meaningful place in French society. One guy in Blois, a peaceful and respectful person incidentally, told me he has on occasions been into an employment agency and said ‘bonjour’ only for the French women working there to not even acknowledge his presence.

It’s more relevant to compare the issue of discrimination with the situation faced by Bangladeshi youths because of the Islamic connection. In London if you’ve got a Muslim name your CV might well get passed to the rejection pile, as a Guardian experiment - fictional characters with identical qualifications but clearly different ethnicities applying for the same positions - has indicated. But a young Bangladeshi can probably get a job doing something, a retail position for example. Discrimination probably sets in at about £20,000 per year but in France it may well begin at zero.

Contrary to some perceptions, I think Islam actually provides hope in Europe. Within London’s Caribbean community, the church going tradition of the first generation of immigrants has withered away, and the youth today are generally devoid of any spiritual reference. I feel that a young Bangladeshi caught up in crime may one day see the light that Islam can provide. He has a safety net within his community but the Afro-Caribbean youth usually doesn’t.

I am reminded of when I was in Amsterdam, where the alienated Moroccan youth became a massive issue in the wake of 9/11 and then the slaying of Theo van Gogh at the hands of a Muslim radical. Integration suddenly became the political buzzword as it dawned that ghettoes had formed over 2 or 3 decades in which Moroccans were living far removed from Dutch society. Many seemed to think that Islam was contrary to the notion of integration, but the original schism between the Dutch population and the Moroccan youth had in fact occurred pre 9/11, stemming from delinquent behaviour and criminality. I reckoned that Islam was actually the one force capable of delivering a young Moroccan onto a more civil path within Dutch society and that it could therefore be a positive force for integration. Yes, I’m digressing... but as long as we live according to ever more material principles there will always be severe problems with youth, whether in Blois, London or Kuala Lumpur from where I write.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 2001. Fast food restaurant in east Amsterdam. Simon Wheatley/Magnum Photos.

Are there any parallels between youth in France and in the UK with youth in Malaysia?
The concept of ever more information and ever less intelligence seems to apply everywhere, particularly within lower-income groups where levels of education are low and television can assume a dangerously influential role. And in Malaysia, delinquency is becoming a very serious issue amongst the poorer groups. Technology has also become double-edged because the more creative it gets the less creative young people are often inclined to be. These are universal things that apply beyond the three countries you mention, though I notice them especially in a Malaysia that has undergone extensive modernization recently. And as happened in France and the UK, the youth in Malaysia seem seduced by whatever comes out of the USA. I find that especially sad in Asia where the indigenous cultures are often much deeper and richer.

If I can’t photograph in the UK or France then there’s plenty to work on out here. Nonetheless, we must try and fight the proposed and existing legislation however we can.

Reader comments (14)

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Hi Simon, very much looking forward to seeing what you’ve been up to out there.

Comment posted by James Cox on March 5, 2007

great interview. very informative with lot's difficult issues brought up and important points made.

i look forward to the next of Simon's work.

Comment posted by Kayne on March 5, 2007

The most oblivious and the most informed; the youth we always see and observe throughout the world is a reflection of that society and culture. A thought well put with honesty at its core, Mr.Wheatley. And especially when we talk about the ever growing "Islamophobia", this particular reaction could not fall more into place. The aggression that these young people carry or not carry for that matter (in areas that you mentioned); is just a reminder of how changes taking place on a bigger level surface on a human level. The fear will grow among the people and trust has become a liability. So for privacy laws and consent letters to be distributed just springs out a different genre of "action vs reaction" among people. It can only be hoped that this intensity subsides and the right to observe and communicate (may it be photography) to all can be implemented. The way it has been in previous years of anthropological documentation.

Comment posted by Sana Manzoor on March 6, 2007

Great discussion and the concerns are real. I've been living in Quebec Canada for ten years now and was surprised to recently learn that Quebec is the only place in North America where photographers are required to get permission from the subjects of photographs that will be presented to the public. The only situations where such a permission is not mandatory is when the photo is of a crowd, if it’s considered legitimate news or considered to be in the public interest.

The whole thing started back in 1988 when a young woman was photographed on the steps of a building (without having given her explicit permission). The youth claimed that the photo led people to “laugh” at her. She demanded $10,000 in compensation.

Longer story short, in 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the young woman and ordered the photographer to pay her $2000 in compensation. This set precedence. Though Quebec is the only province where the French Civil Code prevails over common law (practiced elsewhere in North America), one can only wonder how long it might take for such laws to creep across all of Canada.

Read more here: http://www.montrealmirror.com/2005/080405/news1.html

Comment posted by Daniel Seguin on March 6, 2007

Challenging insight.Thanks Simon. The next economic downturn will see a further increase in Islamophobia and disenchanted youth. Legal restrictions on street photography are another way of reducing documentary & street photographers ability to 'speak truth to power'.

While you are in Malaysia you should come to Singapore - at the other end of the spectrum, more and more old people are homeless and have to take on cleaning and fast food jobs to survive as the gap between rich and poor widens.

Comment posted by Jon on March 7, 2007

The privacy is often a concern of rich countries when the privacy is about them.
When a photographer goes to Africa taking people dying in Darfur for example, the privacy question is never asked. I guess it is important to think about it in global term. Either we accept the privacy rules for anyone on earth, either we go the way free for all.

It illustrates something which is not privacy at all, but more about intimacy. The human relationships and the social network is made of opacity. The social opacity is this thickness which helps to keep distances between people, which increases time and physical times between the source of a message and the receiver. When in a broadcast media, the receiver and the source are very close in time and distance, then privacy issues are raised. Because we do not have this part of intimacy, this social opacity which protects us.

Comment posted by karl on March 7, 2007

Regarding the Quebec law: Who determines what "legitimate news" is, or what's "in the public interest"? It seems that documenting social conditions, even if that documentation is simply the way we all look when we go about our daily business in public is as much in the public interest (if even only in a historical sense) as three quarters of the work that's considered "legitimate news".

Comment posted by Mat on March 7, 2007

Hi Simon, it's interesting to hear your comments about the pixelation. The Blois pictures are hard to connect to because of it. Looking at the first pic up top there -- are there welling tears in his eyes? A little sneer maybe? All the slight subtlties of expression and attitude are not available to us viewers. I don't blame you for this of course, you do what you have to do. It's just difficult to participate and understand what's going on there. The necessity for this seems like another version of "kill the messenger". Thanks, Michael.

Comment posted by Michael Eckels on March 8, 2007

Salut Simon !
Je crois que tu as bien résumé la situation et bien analysé le "boring blois".
Tu as essayé d'aller au fond mais il faudrais vraiment habiter à la zup pour explorer cet océan de contradictions.
Les jeunes se réclament de l'Islam mais tu as bien vu à quel point ils s'éloignent des principes de cette religion et à quel point les repaires deviennent cryptés, pixelated...
Tu aurais pu faire un sujet sur l'Islam en France mais les réseaux et les gens à rencontrer auraient étés différents de ce que tu as vu et tu aurais rencontré le même soucis pour "rentrer" dans le sujet, il faudrais s'immerger plusieurs années (et encore...)pour pouvoir photographier les musulmans comme ils sont.
La génération que tu as vu représente bien "l'arabe en France" mais pas "le musulman de France" ce qui est vraiment différent.
Comme tu l'as remarqué, je pense que l'Islam est trés positif dans cet environnement pour "désaliéniser" les jeunes.
Mais notre gouvernenement aime les délinquants...c'est un buisness, une matière sur laquelle on peut s'appuyer quand les éléctions arrivent et donc si les jeunes deviennent citoyens, ce n'est pas bon pour Sarko' ou Lepen.
Il préfèrent une bonne petite génération de "racailles" à nettoyer au karcher pour justifier leurs politique sécuritaire au détriment de millions de gens qui n'ont rien demandé de plus que de vivre en paix.
Vas tu venir pendant les présidentielles ?
Ton sujet est-il "closed" ?
Yo' bro' !
à bientôt mon ami.

Sayf.

Comment posted by Sayf on March 8, 2007

While I'm in total agreement that any over zealous implementation of privacy laws, as seems to be in danger of developing and, frankly, is already the case in places like France, risks to seriously impeed photographers 'freedom of speech' as it were, and though I'm a photographer myself, I really am a wee bit shocked by Simon Wheatley's project. Nothing wrong with the photographs in themselves. But add the text...

I lived in Blois myself for 7 years. Sheer coincidence, I left for Paris just after Lang lost his place at La Mairie in 1999. I still have lots of friends there. Whom I've been contacting since this reportage first came to my attention, just to get some direct feedback. Not trusting that my own remembrances of the place would still be accurate after 7 1/2 years absence (give or take a few return visits meanwhile). Given the trust I still have in an organisation like Magnum to - what?

I can't argue against the evident veracity of the images Simon Wheatley has produced. Pixelated or not, the original images obviously to correspond to what he saw, and has successfully captured as photos. But the context they've been placed in is bullshit. Yeah, for a small town ZUP, Blois' has long had a surprisingly bad reputation, on a par with some places in Paris - but is this mentioned? And even so, from there to calling it a banlieu is absurd! A petit bourgeois little place with a population of around 50 million? If nothing else, even if, as I believe and from my own observations of the places in France visited as a whole, immigrants are distinctly ghettoised - where are the images of older generations, of the vibrant twice weekly markets in Blois' ZUP, where is any real exploration of the 'therm and us' thing described in the above interview?

For me, though I'm a bloody photographer myself - and have worked in Blois remember (plus at Magnum, for my sins), excuse me! - this suddenly has me wondering whether photojournalists ARE really to be trusted or not. Are said interested in questioning, exploring, reflecting things anymore? Or is it just question of finding keys, stylistic degrees of 'miserablism', text and image, sufficient to justify the pumping up in importance of a project in, say, a fairly insignificant and undangerous place by comparison to Marseille and Paris, like the ZUP at Blois, in the hopes of winning the next Press Photo competition? Wish I'd known? Well, no actually. Count me out!

Comment posted by f:lux on March 27, 2007

Re: F.Lux. - My work is not about bravado. There may be notorious parts of Marseille and Paris but it so happened that I was sent to Blois by Time magazine on the first night of the curfew that ended the rioting in November 2005, and decided to turn the short commission into a personal project. Having always worked in big cities, I was intrigued by a small town, and its demographics (two fifths of Blois' population living in buildings far removed from the historic town centre I had visited on a school trip back in the 80's). No one has tried to "pump up the importance" of what I have done there, it's merely a reflection of life in a French suburb focussing mainly on alienated youth who were involved in the riots. The text I wrote to accompany the pix on the Magnum site neither exaggerates nor sensationalizes anything. And is a story about immigrant youth in Blois as valid a piece of journalism as one in Paris, Marseille, Lille, Lyon... or anywhere else in France?

I am primarily interested in youth culture and less interested in photographing older people, though I conversed with some of them for their perspectives on the burning issue of the younger generation. I did shoot the markets once in a while but I don't feel the images are very strong. I do not claim to have made a wide-ranging story about Blois: my work was specifically a reflection upon the riots of November 2005.

I did photograph the 'us versus them' syndrome, as you will see from the pictures made in the old town centre. I would admit, however, that I didn't 'explore' anything very much at all. As I wrote, it would have taken me years to have been truly accepted rather than just tolerated from time to time.

There's a contradicition in what you wrote. " Yeah, for a small town ZUP, Blois' has long had a surprisingly bad reputation, on a par with some places in Paris..." BUT "... a fairly nsignificant and undangerous place by comparison to Marseille and Paris, like the ZUP at Blois."

Finally, I did not enter the world press competition, and to accuse me of making this work so I might win a prize there is wrong. I have certainly never made any pictures or bodies of work with a view to winning prizes.

I can willingly accept criticism for that is how one learns but I do not understand the nature of your comments, and find them a bit vicious.

Simon Wheatley

Comment posted by Simon Wheatley on April 12, 2007

re: flux

yeah flux your comments seem a bit random! Another outburst buy some pissed off photographer. whats new? no photographer can photograph everything. i mean if there was a law saying all picture storys have to be shot within a 100 mile radius then yeah whatever. what im trying to blab about is Mr wheatleys work like mine is only a snippet of the big picture. If we all pulled a freaking Phillip jones Griffith on every project we ever did then yeah great but sometimes stories are best kept small and sweet. and thats all photojournalism is right? story telling? one mans story on a subject...

anyway dont mean to get all deep etc...

I think, wheatley your work is great keep it up and the interview above was interesting to read. peace out ma homies!

Comment posted by mohamad a miah on April 20, 2007

Hi Simon, reading your interview i see you have a deep prospective on your subject matters. Im glad you have done work on the Bangladeshi community cant wait to see how that comes along .
You are real my friend, I hope you prosper within the agency.

Comment posted by Haze on December 3, 2007

Hi Simon, I'm an AS Photography student & have chosen you & your work to immitate for my college project. The E14 Movement to be precise. Only I will be focusing on the NW of London. I have a fairly relaxed relationship with the teenagers I will be working with (an asset as time is extremely limited) as most are my teenage daughter's friends.
I appreciate the fact that you are busy & may not have time to respond to me directly, however, if you could spare me a few minutes I would greatly appreciate any tips or advice you could pass on to me. I do not own a digital camera & will be using a manual SLR.
Also-without sounding too cheeky-I would be elated if you could answer a few questions for my own personal benefit-as I have an essay to write. I have spent several hours..days...weeks scouring the web for info but I still have a few niggles I would like to ask.
So, if you reply please let me know wether or not you have the time for a short questionnaire.
I would prefere a direct reply to my e-mail address if appropriate.
Thank you very much for reading this (if you do)& I will await your reply with anticipation.

Michelle

Comment posted by michelle on February 15, 2008

Pixelated youth

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