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January 31, 2008 Photo of the week: The Church of God of Prophecy
Photograph from Carl De Keyzer's amazing 1992 book God Inc.
January 23, 2008 The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 5: Development is on the doorstep...
During rainy season the place is flooded, muddy. The people sleep with rats feeding on the pile of garbage thrown from the upper floors of the "Building", built by architect Vann Molyvann and once a showcase for modernity. But it is also the area where Kong Nay, the famous "chappey" player, the bluesman of the Mekong, is living.
If they are lucky they get some kind of a compensation like a 3mx6m brick compartment (not really a house) or a few thousand dollars. That's today. A few years ago the whole slum would burn down in a couple of hours. How the fire started nobody would know for sure. Or people would be dumped in an empty rice field without sanitation, water, school, market, leaving NGO's to cope with the mess. My estimate is that over 15000 people will have been kicked out to allow the construction of what will become the new Phnom Penh, trying to catch up with Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok in terms of high rises...
It seems as if the lessons learned during all the social struggles over the last two centuries have still to penetrate the minds of Cambodians, those with power that is. Cambodia went straight from colonialism to a war, with a short intermission of prosperity, and then to plain horror. Today it is finally learning about development but also about 19th century paternalism... Links:
January 21, 2008 Sharing bad weather and good photographyI started out in photography with very little formal schooling. In many ways, my education in this business was a one-year internship I did at the Magnum office in London, in 1996-97. I was nineteen at the time, but many responsibilities rested on my young shoulders. I made coffee for thirsty staff members, filed away returns (this was in the pre-digital age), answered phone calls, made tea for staff members, filed away more pictures, and ran to the post office. Mundane as it sounds, this year turned out to be one of the most valuable experiences I ever had. By being around the offices, I got to spend a lot of time around Magnum photographers coming and going. Seeing them at work, talking to them about photography, showing them my own early stabs at taking pictures, gave me a crash-course in both the great ideals and hard realities of the working photographer. Looking back, I always think that simply being around the office, absorbing the tremendous creative energy of this prolific group of photographers and personalities taught me more than I’d ever learn if I went and got a bachelors degree in photography. This is part of the reason why I got involved in Magnum Education. I talk to so many young photographers who feel frustrated by traditional photographic education. Students often feel they lack of realistic perspective on the fast-changing industry of photography, or miss exposure to hard-working photographers who realize their own personal projects. I meet many young photographers who are getting assignments and are working hard, but have difficulties formulating their visions for their own, more personal work. Thinking back on my own start, I frequently think a dose or two of the exchange of ideas I got as an intern at Magnum would help many photographers looking for the next step. That’s what I hope our first Magnum Education event in Oslo March 4th-8th can offer photographers looking for a push. This will be more than just a normal workshop. Since we’ll have 10 Magnum photographers around that week, sharing views and work, I hope students will be part of an unusually intense dialogue about our craft. It will surely be a lot of fun as well, and I hope we manage to make a good informal atmosphere that everyone feels inspired by. Some people have come to me worrying about the weather up here in sub-arctic Oslo that time of year. March usually brings long-lasting light after the dark winter, and heralds spring. There are, though of course no guarantees of a blizzard-free event, that is the nature of life up north. But fear not! One of the best rules-of-thumb I ever learned as a photographer is - The worse the weather, the better the picture.
Look forward to seeing people here (but bring layers of clothes)! PS: If you have any questions regarding the workshop don’t hesitate to ask them here. I’ll be frequently checking comments over the next week and will reply as soon as possible. We have had a lot of applicants to the workshops thus far, and it looks like we will fill every slot in the first round of reviewing applicants – deadline January 30th. So those who want to come join us should get their applications in before all the places have gone!
January 12, 2008 Magnum Workshop Oslo
The Magnum Workshop Oslo is a five day event organized to provide maximum personal photographic growth through a combination of small, intensive, progressive shooting masterclasses with Magnum photographers, subject-specific seminars and lectures, and ample informal time allowing for cross-pollination and networking between students and instructors. All of our instructors are experienced teachers as well as masters of their craft, and are dedicated to sharing their knowledge and experiences. Students will select one of the following Magnum photographers as a workshop leader: David Alan Harvey, Paolo Pelegrin, Alex Majoli, Christopher Anderson, Jonas Bendiksen, Alessandra Sanguinetti, or Alex Webb (joined by Rebecca Norris Webb), and will also have access to all participating Workshop leaders through the week. The event is organized in collaboration with the Norwegian Press Photographer’s Association, Bilder Nordic Photography School, and the Oslo College of Photojournalism. The Masterclasses: The Festival: Who is the Workshop aimed at? More information regarding requirements, accomodation and how to register for the workshop can be found on our workshop site. Spaces are filling up quickly...
January 8, 2008 It's That Time of Year Again
I have just spent an hour and a half with a saw and many plastic rubbish bags clearing up the family Christmas tree at home in London. Not my favorite job, as my children, safely out of the way at school, think we have same tree, called "Charlie", each year. "Charlie" gets collected after Christmas and sent to Scotland to be re planted, so each year it has to come back bigger, and this year, at three metres plus, it was almost impossible to transport it up the stairs!
It is also at this time of year that the area I live in in London is dotted with abandoned trees simply dumped on the street to be collected and re-cycled by the local council. In 2005 I made a short collection of pictures of this phenomenon, which is I am sure repeated all over the world.
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It has been seven years now that the area along the Bassac river in Phnom Penh has been under intense pressure from real estate developers. Seven years that I document the mutations of a territory where thousands of people were scraping a living thanks to the proximity of the center of town. They all have small jobs. They all have precarious living conditions. They make a couple of dollars a day collecting tin cans or scrap metal, selling shells, sugar cane or their virginity.
