I am in a taxi, stuck in a big traffic jam. I am on my way to Auto China, 2008, and we are edging our way along ring road 3, about to join the airport expressway going to the newly opened China International Exhibition Centre, where this event is held. There are six ring roads in Beijing, and except for ring road 1, which is a track round the Forbidden City, they are all four lane motorways.
Most of the time you are as likely to be stationary, rather than moving.
When you consider that private ownership of cars was only sanctioned in 1980, Beijing has now joined that super league of gridlocked cities such as Dubai, Sao Paulo and Bangkok, in record time. Beijing could soon become the city with more cars than any other on the planet. This year alone the auto industry expects to sell nine million cars in China, so you can start to understand why this event is taken very seriously indeed, by sellers and buyers in equal measure.
While car sales in the West are currently suppressed there is only one word for the Chinese car market, growth. This is currently running at around 25%. When you consider that 90% of families in the West own a car and in China it is a mere 6%, you will understand why the motor industry thinks that China will rescue it from a down turn.
The Chinese do not just love cars, they worship them. In the section where luxury brands display their latest models, the stands are mobbed. In this section you are not allowed to come up to the cars unless you look like a potential customer. But everyone gawps and takes photos, happy to have seen a real Rolls Royce or a Porsche.
Almost everything we buy in the West is now made in China, with the big exception of cars. But the Chinese are trying to catch up. There were over twenty Chinese car manufacturers at the show, Chery being the top of the league. This firm exports more cars than any other Chinese company. However, their main export markets are the ex Russian countries of Eastern Europe, and South America. They do not sell in Europe or the USA, probably because they would not meet the safety regulations.
Chery also make the cheapest car in China, the QQ. Sadly this was not on display because, as I was told " everyone knows it." This sells for roughly $4,000.
Taking photographs of the cars is the way in which the Chinese define their visit to the show. This process is all helped along by a lavish sprinkling of car girls. Such is the importance of the girls' contribution, there are competitions for the best girl in each show hall. Car brochures abound, and are picked up enthusiastically. Sometimes a queue will form for these, which will make the queue escalate; no-one wants to be outdone.
As a British citizen I took particular delight in encountering the Roewe stand. Roewe is the name given to the newly-launched Rover group that was bought by the Chinese a few years back. They took the brand, brought all the equipment over from Longbridge and have re-jigged the car for the Chinese market. The marketing is re-assuringly British. Britain now has no major car manufacturer at all. Such is the dynamic of the new world order, which like so much of life is defined by our love of cars.
I am sitting in a café having a good plate of pasta. Nothing remarkable about this, but this is Moscow, and I still carry memories of struggling to find anything half decent to eat when I first visited this city in the early 90s. Now there are good eating places everywhere, as this is a city flush with cash. The Gucci store in downtown Moscow generates more income per sq metre than any other Gucci outlet in the world.
I came to Moscow in 1992 and photographed in the first McDonalds that opened here. There were long queues to experience this icon of the America. I still remember, with almost disbelief, the excitement and thrill of the diners. Now of course, there are Yellow arches everywhere here, and not a queue in sight.
Funnily enough, it is the only time I have been granted permission to photograph in a McDonalds. I have asked since, and always had permission declined.
This does not prevent me going in and shooting, especially in the likes of China, where being thrown out by a faintly embarrassed duty manager gives a certain thrill. And remember like speed dating, there is always another target just down the road.
Back to Moscow, where I am photographing the 2nd Millionaire's Fair. Talk about bling, the Muscovites have no hesitation in showing off their wealth. One can buy a helicopter, mobile phones encrusted with diamonds or an apartment in Dubai.
One suspects the really wealthy do not want to be seen here, but those that do show up on the opening night are exactly what you think the wealthy should look like. The women wear the latest label, the younger women all have glowing long hair, many keep their furs on, despite the heat. Champagne is everywhere, and never seems to run out, there are people rolling cigars and handing these out, canapés come at you at every angle.
Traditionally poverty has been the front line for the concerned photographer, I am happy to reverse this, and for many years have photographed the wealth of the West. These images will all accumulate towards a suite of photographs entitled "Luxury" I am convinced that the non stop growth and the wealth we create has many problems associated with this.
The Millionaire's Fair is in Krokus Park, an exhibition Centre about 20 KM from the centre of Moscow. Getting there can take up to 2 hours, when I return late at night, it takes 25 min, such is the congestion on Moscow's roads.
The next stop on this wealth tour is the Chinese Motor show in Beijing next April. I must get a hotel where I can walk there, rather than being stuck in traffic.
"We, the undersigned, believe that the new rules currently under consideration for Film Permits (Chapter 9, Title 43 of the City Rules of New York) will have an irrevocable impact on independent filmmakers and photographers and their ability to engage in creative work in New York."
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.
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.
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.
Muhamad Kapaalaga, 48, installs a newly received bed net for his daughter Hawa Barbirye, 4, on April 21, 2007 in Uganda. On the right is his son Isa Kalange, 9. Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum on Malaria
Bed net distribution event in Uganda. Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum on Malaria
Before bed nets are distributed, demonstrations are performed to show recipients how to hang them. Everyone who comes learns what malaria is and the importance of using bed nets to prevent mosquito bites—an integral part of the distribution strategy. Health workers read from a list of pre-registered families. 13,600 bed nets were handed out today in 12 different locations. This distribution is part of a nationwide strategy to provide bed nets to pregnant mothers and families with children under the age of 5. By the end of May 580,000 bed nets in total will be handed out throughout the country.
Roughly 500,000 bed nets sit in a storage facility in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, ready for distribution through various partners including Malaria No More and the President’s Malaria Initiative. It is part of a nationwide effort to effectively cover half of Uganda’s most vulnerable people, women and children.
A mother and child wait outside the children’s ward at the Kabale Regional Hospital. Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum on Malaria
Kabale, Uganda: I always have a bit of dread before I enter a children's ward of a hospital. I've been to several through the years in a number of developing countries and today, being in the largest hospital of southern Uganda, serving 1.5 million people, was no different. Thirty metal and thinly mattressed beds, all occupied with children, none older than 5, filled the Kabale Regional Hospital and not surprisingly 30 to 40 percent of the cases were due to malaria.
Last week, Annette Kyarikunda's daughter Asimwe had a high fever, was losing consciousness and falling down frequently.
As the national industry producing anti-malaria medicine matures, farmers are meeting the demand by growing artemesia which pays more than tilling Uganda's dark soil for food crops. From Chien-Chi Chang's trip in Uganda, exploring the many facets of malaria with writer Kyu-Young Lee, here are three examples of older entrepreneurs who have changed their businesses in response to the country's needs.
At 82, Theodore Riutonda, is taking on a new job of growing artemesia which he believes will be lucrative. Artemesia is processed into a drug that can treat malaria and save thousands of lives each day in Africa. Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum on Malaria
Flora Twikirize, who is 4 months pregnant, is being successfully treated for Malaria at the Kabale Regional Hospital in Kabale, Uganda on April 17, 2007. Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum on Malaria
Flora Twikirize, who is 4 months pregnant, was brought to the Kabale Regional Hospital by a neighbor after collapsing and losing consciousness in her own home. A week ago, when she fell ill with fever and headaches, her husband brought her to a local private clinic where she was tested and diagnosed with having malaria. She paid about $8 and was given chloroquine which in the past several years has proved to be ineffective against malaria in Africa. Though the malaria parasite has grown resistant, many private clinics still prescribe the drug because their inventories are full of it.
Kyampure Bates takes a short break from tilling to feed her 3 month old daughter Alnebyona Fortunate. Her son Ahsimbisbwe Naboth, 3 years old, sleeps in front of her. Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum on Malaria
It’s 9:30 am when Chien-Chi and I hit the main road on our way to the fields where people are planting shrubs that when processed into a drug, is a proven life-saver. The plant is called artemisia and Africans are now producing it for themselves. It is the essential part of ACTs,or artemisinin combination therapy, the first line of defense against malaria which claims more than 3,000 children’s lives every day in sub-Saharan Africa.
We’re in Kabale which lies in the south western tip of Uganda. At this time in the morning a mist envelops the city like a halo, as if enshrining a holy land. Winding between giant green hills, I look over and see farmers buzzing with activity. Here are a few photos from the field, and the factory where they process the plant.
I have just returned from Dubai where I was photographing the first Dubai DIFC Art Fair. We all know that Dubai is the fastest growing city in the world and this fair was part of an ongoing strategy to try and position Dubai as a cultural destination, to compliment their known love of tourism and business.
Dubai. 2007. Martin Parr/Magnum Photos
This city has a lot of cash swashing around, and when you have bought all the cars, houses, plastic surgery and clothes you need the only thing left to buy is Art. And this is what appeared to be happening at the VIP launch of this fair last Thursday evening. What for me was interesting, is that the normal art fair crowd was entirely different. There were the normal Western Europeans and Americans, but also of course, the Arabs, the wealthy Indians, and the Asians too. This heady mix was wonderful to photograph, it was really a truly international event. The way people dressed and their demeanour was very Bling, not a word I have encountered much, but you know it when you see it.
I was asked by Magnum’s Tokyo office to attend the opening of a newly curated Magnum Group exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. Tokyo, as aficionados know, offers many things to the passing visitor: disarming politeness, a profusion of electronic noises and gadgets, a city district dedicated to people’s obsessions, and rice wine.
Tokyo, Japan. 1997. Restaurant. Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos. Part of the exhibition “Tokyo Seen by Magnum Photographers" at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.
Alienated by jet lag and language difficulties such offerings are a welcome sign of having arrived somewhere with a distinct local culture but at the same at a truly global city.
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.
I am now back home in the UK, after completing my tour of South America, where I have been shooting the beaches for a project that documents the four biggest beach resorts.
My final destination was Argentina where I went to Mar del Plata, which is by far its biggest resort. What a remarkable place. We all know those scenes of post-war Coney Island, with crammed beaches. Well this is just like that, but still going strong 50 years later. The place is packed.
Martin Parr has visited Argentina before. This image is from a trip to Buenos Aires in 1998.
Unlike the Chileans, the beach is crowded by mid-morning, where virtually everything under the planet is brought around and sold. There are wagons loaded with swim wear, various Argentine snacks and of course the usual trays of cheap jewellery sold by black Africans. These guys are the only people who give you grief when you pick up a camera within their vicinity. Otherwise it is wonderful to photograph in Argentina, people are friendly and not at all suspicious of photographers as the public has become in the West.
I am currently staying in the Cap Ducal Hotel in Vina del Mar in Chile. This is probably the most memorable hotel I have ever stayed in. As their literature says, "We are not so much by the sea, but ON the sea." Built in 1936, it is an Art Deco-style, concrete-based liner with spectacular views from all the rooms and the restaurant that stretches over three floors. In the morning you can watch the resident seal while you sip your cafe con leche. The hotel is delightfully run down and, as you can imagine, has a loyal and interesting clientèle.
I am here because I am doing a tour of South American beach resorts in the height of summer. Two days earlier, I met a group of Chilean photographers organised by a photographer called Luis Weinstein. He circumnavigates the tricky problem of earning a living in Chile as a photographer by being a TV weather man. He works three hours a day, half the week, and is home to watch himself do the weather after the main TV news. At this most pleasant encounter, I learnt that the main gripe from the photographers is that there is no market for photography, little interest in buying prints, and the magazines are terrible.
On my way to Indonesia for a month-long assignment in Jakarta, I look out the window of Northwest Airlines flight 07 and take in a sight I used to enjoy. The graceful sweeping wing, the engine humming underneath, and beyond them the gentle gradients of color where the Pacific Ocean meets the atmosphere. But I sit less easily on jet planes now than I used to. It's not that I suddenly harbor fears of terrorist bombs or mechanical errors. Rather, I am assaulted by the reality of some simple, but brutal, numbers:
Right now, by occupying this one coach class seat, I am personally accountable for the release of about eight metric tons of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. That is roughly the same amount as the total CO2 emissions if I drove a Hummer H2 SUV every day for an entire year, based on the American suburban annual average of 19,300km.
Dec. 11, 2006. Midway across the Pacific Ocean, 35,000 feet.
Goodbye, and so long, Moral High Ground.
I, like so many of us in photojournalism, do a lot of flying. Earlier this year, I worked in seven countries on three continents within a five-week period. I enjoy Elite Frequent Flyer status on all the major carriers. Truth be told, if I quit traveling like I do, I could probably maintain a fleet of ten sports utility vehicles, leave all the appliances in my apartment on 24/365, and still come out carbon-cleaner than I do right now.
