Magnum Blog / Crisis or Agression?

Crisis or Agression?

Over the years I often get to airports very early so I can take pictures, and with time to kill recently at Tesla Airport, Belgrade I took a walk to the somewhat decaying, but highly atmospheric Soviet-era Aircraft Museum next door. I was interested to see how it dealt with the Balkan War and was not disappointed. There were exhibitions of parts of shot-down aircraft, from WW2 but also from more recent history; an F16 tailplane, a canopy and a pilot’s personal effects on the ejector seat of a B117.

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SERBIA. Belgrade.The Museum of Yugoslav Aviation 2007. © Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos I visited Belgrade, Serbia, for a small exhibition of my landscapes and a workshop with Serbian photojournalists. I always like to find out first who is in the audience and asked who still shoots with film, out of about sixty people only one hand went up! Not surprising in a city with no E6 lab only one place to process C41. During the workshop we had very limited time so I proposed a very simple project on ‘Hands’. I used Canon 5D and went with the group, to the park and market place near the gallery, and for an hour we all had great fun in the sun finding hands to photograph.

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SERBIA. Belgrade. Project workshop with Belgrade photographers supported by HP. Work by Peter Marlow conducted with the workshop group on the theme of 'Hands'. 2007. © Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos I was first in Serbia on a family holiday with my twin brother Chris, and my father, I remember it well, it was the first time I had got drunk, with a cheap bottle of the local wine, and a shop that did not mind selling it to two ten year olds.

marum

i want one card like this one!!without the helmet of course...

Damien Chng

I quote Peter Marlow ''where it was impossible to sleep as the F16’s and F14’s took off above our heads, within feet of our beds''

I am not too sure that the F-16s are aircraft carrier capable and perhaps there is an accidental mistake made in the statement.

Cheers, Damien

Filippo

Yep Marum, I think always want that card :)
Anyway I don't have any problem to wear that helmet....

Peter Marlow

Marum, sorry but I can't help you on that! In over thirty years as a photographer, I am always amazed how little people ask to see an ID or Press Card. Obviously when I was covering news, British and French professional cards were reasonably useful, especially in choreographed set-piece situations, In my Sygma days I became expert with coloured felt tip pens changing the photo-pool numbers on passes at the major events at the UN in Geneva and New York nowadays with Photoshop, there are no limits to what can be done. However the most useful thing I have found over the years is a sensible and friendly attitude, looking the part, may be useful as well, but not essential in my experience. The best way to be 'Invisible' is to look like a tourist, one simple camera, no bag, and a pocket full of film, or flash cards. There are so many small cameras these days which produce professional quality images. I got some great advice from Chris Killip when I was starting out, I wanted to hear from him what he thought I should do after showing him my work, he simply said...'go out and take pictures'...simple eh?

Terry Carroll

"the most useful thing I have found over the years is a sensible and friendly attitude"

Peter, along with the advice you received from Chris Killip ("go out and take pictures") no truer words have been spoken about the art of public photography. I've never worked as a pro, never even faked a press pass, but I have managed through the decades to take thousands of intriguing images by simply following those two sets of instructions. Thanks for sharing. Good luck, everyone.

peter marlow

Damien, you are absolutely right, I checked with my notebook entries from the shoot in 1999, and I should have written F18, not F16. As you are no doubt aware the F16 is land-based. I will ask our Blog editor to make the correction, thanks for pointing this out. Eitherway, it was impossible to sleep.

Patricio Murphy

Interesting and sensible point of view. I' for one, look forward to that exhibit of the two sides of the coin, almost sure that there's no absolute truth in either...

asim rafiqui

peter; your experience with the serbian photojournalists reminded me of a recent experience i had with some japanese manga artists. while on assignment in japan i had the opportunity to speak to a couple manga artists famous for their works depicting the horrors of the aftermath of the hiroshima bombings. i was moved by the power of their work and by the immediacy of their memories of the terribly day of the bombing. their work powerfully depicted the sufferings, and later the humiliating abandonment of the victums by their own fellow japanese. however, i was also very perplexed when i realized that throughout our conversations we avoided any discussions about the broader, historical context of the event. no one mentioned that japan at that time was a nation at war, that millions had died in countries in asia resisting her expansionism, that her occupations iin south-east asia and south asia were brutal and resulted in unmentionable atrocities and so on and so forth. we only talked about hiroshima decontextualized from wider events.

the issue of history, japan's role in WWII, her occupations and war crimes of course remain controversial issues even today and her history books continue to face criticism for their avoidance of specific facts.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies

these are painful issues and not easily resolved. and i am not suggesting that the war justified the hiroshima bombings. i am merely suggesting that ignoring facts is an act of will, a choice that one makes perhaps because one is determined to hold on to one's prejudices or beliefs. or simply that playing the role of a victim takes less effort!

calling the war in kosovo merely 'NATO aggression' is neither historically correct nor a defensible position. it is an act of transforming oneself into 'a victim', hence excused from broader moral issues. it encourages us to simply not make an effort beyond our current beliefs. it is a prejudice that suggests a determination to not examine or give a hearing to the wider issues at play in the conflict, including human manufacturing of history, the use of propaganda, the cold lies and manipulations of politicians, the atrocities and injustices carried out 'in the name of the nation' and other abstract, little examined assumptions.

your suggestion for a series of workshops in serbia is a fabulous idea. i do believe however that photography can avoid falling into the trap of pandering to any one side 'of the same story', but to use photography' to develop an awareness of the broader story, to help a nation question her prejudices, to encourage citizens to confront uncomfortable truths and view points and use photography as a way to raise awareness, change ideas, and develop new dialogues where previously only rhetoric may have existed. kosovo and serbia have continued to hold on to their rigid myths with little or no effort to develop a new dialogue that may spare them further wars and further suffering of their people. prejudice, hate, and self confirming and aggrandizing beliefs still fill the air in both regions. photography may never convince people to change their ideas, but it can certainly begin the process by encouraging them to step into uncomfortable situations and confronting those we may have previously dismissed or disliked.

i am sorry that this is so poorly written. i am still waking up here in sweden :) today we are told that photography has no role to play in bringing forth the truth, and that it is merely to be reduced to illustration or art. but i disagree. photography is not just the pictures, but also the research and act of stepping out to take the pictures. these intellectual and physical elements also differentiate one photographer from another. some are better at it than others in clearly measurable ways!

and they are perhaps the most important elements in helping us learn, grow and change - we have to read, and we have to step out into new world, confront people there, and actually engage and deal with them. this is where photography outdoes literature, poetry, paintings etc. because it is the only creative endeavor that forces us to create and maintain a dialogue with our subjects. other endeavors allow this dialogue, but do not necessarily demand it (i will say nothing about works by people like jeff wall etc.)

imagine, a group of serbian photographers having to do personal stories about life in kosovo, or on the edges of divided cities like mitrojvica! i can see the workshop going far beyond the banality of aesthetics, exposure control, RAW processing or frame filling! it steps into a whole new world where perhaps we can once again begin to discover the reasons why man picked up the camera in the first place and started to bring pictures back home - to amaze us with the incredible things we saw in the world, and to surprise us with what we had never expected!

asim

david burnett

Wow: Asim.. far from "poorly written", your note is absolutely stunning in both insight and the quality of your words. You speak of the attitudes behind the phrases which seem to keep popping up both in an international context ("..Nato aggression.." for example) and in nearly every local politcal discussion (and believe me, as the US Presidential elections go forward, we have more than enough rhetoric, with less and less reasoned understanding behind it). One never knows what one will see or hear. I happened to have been in a ski resort in Serbia near the Kosovo border on Sept 11th, 2001, working on a story on young Serbian professional basketball players seeking a life in the NBA in the US. Around 4 in the afternoon, the mobile fone of the coach began to ring and ring and ring.... friends of his calling to tell him that the World Trade Center buildings in NY had been attacked with airplanes. He spoke very bad English, and I virtually no Serbo-Croatian. Eventually, however, I understood what had happened, though I didnt see it on tv for myself till late that night. But i must tell you.... hearing the news of 9/11 from a Serbian/Belgrade resident, one who lived across the street from Yugoslav Television headquarters i Belgrade, one who watched that building attacked by cruise missiles... well, it was a very very different way of learning about the attacks on the US than most people. The coach was not gloating, nor happy about the news, but his immediate sense of outrage, and empathy for New York was tempered by the fact that he had been across the street from a very similar kind of explosive attack. Whatever one's politics, that kind of physical proximity creates in the mind of the person telling the story a different attitude from a more neutral observer. Your thoughts about the linkage of truth to those phrases reminded me of that day. Peter... good on ya for bringing all this up. Keep it up! David Burnett / New York 24/7/07

majumder

Thanks for the article you wrote coz it brings up many questions.Terrorism being a key issue in the world today there is a big question mark there as well.I guess the ones who are been called terrorists by political parties in power are freedom fighters or revolutionaries for others.So peter as a photographer how would you respond to such a circumstance when you are actually shooting in any place of conflict.Also do you think that photographers have to pay a price because of this issue(as a lot of photographers are losing their lives in warzones)?

Peter Marlow

Asim and David, that is a hell of a lot to think about, Asim if you can write that half asleep, god knows what you can do by lunchtime! I am going to get back to you later today on the issues you raised, but in the meantime have been tied up today with 'Work'. Peter.

Peter Marlow

David and Asim, in some ways you are bringing us similar points, the notion that photography can change the world is one that when I started out, I really believed in, over the years I start to wonder, though of course it is a hugely important factor in creating the ‘evidence’ together with the written word and moving images, that can help us make up our own minds. What I was trying to raise in my initial post was there are always many ways of looking at the same event, photography is always in some respects, a fiction, this was very graphic to me in Belgrade when we started talking about the war. In fact I did an interview at the the State TV station one morning and the damage on one side of the studios is still very evident. I was politely asked to not mention the War, hard when Belgrade is still pock marked with the results of precison bombing eight years later. (A great subject for any photographers out there). Years ago in Northern Ireland my reaction was very much of the mind to say, for God’s sake isn’t it about time you people started a new chapter, attitudes so ingrained and stained by the historical context, make this difficult. I was shooting in Belfast recently and spoke to the a cab driver, always a good reader of the political temperature of a place, and he said, things had changed in Northern Ireland because the young people just weren’t interested in aligning themselves in a sectarian way, they wanted to go out at night, go to clubs, have a good time, and mix. So perhaps we need to wait a generation, that has been fully assimilated into the bland ways of Hollywood and good old Global Capitalism.

In some respects we can as photojournalists hide behind the mask of not having an overt opinion, however as David points out, this is hard when your own back yard is under attack, all I can say is that I still get even more upset these days as I get older and see suffering, injustice, and plain stupidity, whether or not our photography can make any difference is another point altogether, but we can at least use it to express those personal feelings, however fruitless; the act of working in photography for me always makes me feel ‘better’; being published has never really done much for me, just doing it has always been just enough.

Andrew Spearin

Wow, I am headed to the Balkans on Saturday... and part of my short trip there will be spent in Kosovo (here's hoping). It's amazing to me how this and other posts are popping up just as I am about to go!

It's extremely exciting for me, as a student, to be reading your words and seeing your pictures... and knowing that I will be in the same places in just a few days.

Thank you so much for sharing that Peter!

Radomir Dikosavljevic

Hi:
I was one of the attendees at your workshop in Belgrade. To be more precise, I attended the presentation session at the O3ONE gallery. I came to it from another city, Novi Sad, some 80 km north of Belgrade. I had to convince a friend to give me a ride since I couldn't possibly make it in time by bus to the session since my work day ended at 5 PM.

Huh, it's hard to tell you this, but I had much greater expectations from what I have seen. I have expected to hear more about what was going in your mind while photographing projects which you presented. Photos can be seen online, in a book, or at some exhibit, but when one meets Peter Marlow, or any other known photographer, for that matter, one wants to get to know him better; to learn about the reasoning behind the images, the things that make him take a photo one way, not the other – or, if he/she chose one shot over several others taken, why that particular one?

My personal impression was that you didn't come across as the one willing, or able, to share that intimate part of photo-making. I'm afraid many other photographers in the room had similar impressions. Maybe that's why there were no lively discussions at the end of your presentation. It could be just my very subjective reading of that evening, though...

Oh, yes, regarding the fact that you were told ‘rather sharply’ by one photographer that the correct expression was “The NATO Aggression”, believe me, it was told half-jokingly. I was there. If you remember, everyone laughed. Serbs like to make sharp puns and thus seem harsh and unfriendly to strangers who don’t know them. No wonder if you felt uneasy at the moment. After all, I’ve endured similar jokes in billiard bars which I frequented, in USA. I felt very uneasy, until I got to know the patrons there. After that, it was a totally different story... Hopefully, you will have more opportunities to get to know people in Serbia better- not from an aircraft carrier, but in person.

Peter Marlow

Radomir, thanks for taking the time to comment on this. I am sorry if you felt the talk was lacking in intimacy. I was not implying that all the participants were raving supporters of the previous regime, only that there are always sensitivities that an outsider, in my case a visiting photographer, can only discover, as I did, when they 'put their foot in it' by saying the 'wrong' thing.

As far as the intimate secrets of photography, I personally don't have many to share sadly. Photography is simply the act of going out, relating to the world, large or microscopic, you find yourself in, and taking photographs. What you do with them afterwards is something we all rightly struggle with.

My visit in some respects really restored my faith in what photoghraphy can do, and how it can bring people together, by experiencing the committment and energy of many Serbian photographers I met and spoke with on the trip, it was a very refreshing contrast to the navel-gazing, by photographers here and in the USA, who really don't know how lucky there are to have economic freedom . I met a Cuban photographer recently who said the only way they could print photos was to bleach newspaper in the sunshine, then beg to use the inkjet printers of some of the local NGO's to achieve a printed result. He had some of the most interesting work I have seen in a long time.

With respect Peter.

Bob H

Peter. It's great to see that a Magnum photographer is interested in Belgrade. It's such a vibrant city, with so much more going for it than bombed buildings.
After having lived in Belgrade for three years, I can say that there is at least one E6 processing lab here. Though it took me a while to find.
I'd love to know if you plan to return here in the future.
Bob