So you want to be a photographer?

The question of cash for writing reminds me of Paul Theroux; a while ago i read his book 'Sir Vidias Shadow'. Some writers, as Paul Theroux reveals about himself in this book, often have a sense of having to 'hide' (or at least not reveal, solidly) the fact that they are writers until they achieve some form of recognition (this is also true for photographers, as noted by Robert Adams who felt apologetic for being a photographer until he was earning money).

Saying that you want to write, or you intend to be a writer is not the same as saying, with confidence and absolute self belief, 'I am a writer.'

Publishing a book is one kind of recognition; a form of ritualised initiation, receiving acceptance from a successful writer is another (Naipaul accepts Theroux as writer). Any writer would be satisfied with this, but a little something is missing: would our writer not want to establish absolute certainty? Money may or may not be forthcoming - but gladly accepted if and when it does, it is the cherry on the cake, a final recognition; a medal of achievement from the reader. Money means that a writer can do writing all day and everyday if it so pleases him. When someone asks, ‚"What do you do?" you reply with comfortable finality: "I am a writer"

Had Theroux not achieved his recognition, would he have eventually stopped writing, I wonder? Probably not, but would he have called himself a writer? I propose, he would still be calling himself a teacher of English.

Ultimately it is the reader who bestows the title and money is one gauge of this, but writing from the heart does not require a title, nor recognition - except, surely, by at least one reader.

There is another perspective though, one where writing is a necessary skill for everyone. A journalist is a writer, a traveller can be a writer. Sebald, a master of writing (and found images - which he splices amongst his texts) himself, finds scientists to be better writers that bona fide 'writers'. Come to think of it, my favourite books are not written by writers but by journalists, scientists, investigators and the new writers of the age bloggers.

It seems this line of thought may also be true - we all now have a camera of sorts - for photgraphers. So you want to be a photographer? Perhaps this is good advice:

Don't, whatever you do, take a fine arts degree in photography, take a science degree (or a degree covering your subject matter to be, anything but photography) such as zoology, ecology, biology, agricultural science, or perhaps even an athropology degree, - being a doctor, too, would be ideal. This way your profession will pay for you, take you to interesting places and while your out there you can do photography.

Reflective reality and Ryszard Kapuscinski

I heard somewhere that journalists are second only to politicians and estate agents as the most hated among the British public. Who actually proposed this and what survey (everything has to have a survey attached these days) provided the evidence, I don't know, but I do know my own thoughts:

If by participating in life, somehow, regardless of intentions, you inevitably participate in its decline, what can you do to transcend it? Well i think, you can, at least, describe it.

Describing is what journalists do, so I don't feel so bad for liking and aspiring to the best of journalism. There is, though, a wide margin between the endless conveyor belt of cheap shots thrown out by newspapers forced to scratch out content on a daily basis (many blogs fall in this category by sprouting their particular versions of instant drama), and what could be termed literary reportage; well documented, described, commented upon, stories.

For me, regardless of actual possibilities of photography, the interesting thing about the medium is its ability to capture, for lack of a better term, a reflective reality. This is a kind of journalism, a report on perceived reality. It may only be a fraction of a second, but it's a story nevertheless, and when done in a certain way faithfully reflects reality. This kind of journalism does not cancel out imagination, neither is it separate from art.

There is one particular journalist who fits the bill for me, and there are moments in his descriptions that could easily have been photographs, they are in any case photographs etched on the memory and conveyed by words. The journalist is Ryszard Kapuscinski.

Very memorable for me, in the context of photographic lucid imagery in a written form, is his description of dogs in Angola, in his book: Another Day of Life (1976), a unique and closely observed account of the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Angola. The particular scene occurs after the departure of all the wealthy Portuguese from their suburb properties in Luanda:

The dogs were still alive.

They were pets, abandoned by owners fleeing in panic. You could see dogs of all the most expensive breeds, without masters - boxers, bulldogs, greyhounds, Dobermans, dachshunds, Airedales, spaniels, even Scotch terriers and Great Danes, pugs and poodles. Deserted, stray, they roamed in a great pack looking for food. As long as the Portuguese army was there, the dogs gathered every morning on the the square in front of the general headquarters and the sentries fed them with canned NATO rations. It was like watching an international pedigreed dog show. Afterwards the fed, satisfied pack moved to the soft, juicy mowed lawn of the Government Palace . An unlikely mass sex orgy began, excited and indefatigable madness, chasing and tumbling to the point of utter abandon. It gave the bored sentries a lot of ribald amusement.

Miguel Rio Branco

There's quite a good photo book shop near Kings Cross, London, where I went hoping to find books by Bernard Plossu.

On the web, if you type in plossu.com you'll get a single page with two photos and the title: 'The Garden of Dust' (Le Jardin De Poussiere), and this is the book I thought myself fortunate to find in this little shop. But, from the first page, I was disappointed, and since this has been the case with almost all Plossu's books which I have actually seen for sale, I'm beginning to wonder if what I think he is is perhaps not what he is. There is something of the Parr in him, printing a zillion books, of which a select few hit the spot. I have not given in yet, a recent retrospective (Retrospective 1963-2006) looks promising as does that rare 'Le Voyage Mexicain 1965-1966'.

Anyway, after exclaiming too soon to the bookseller about what a great find 'the' book was, I was suddenly obligated to put my money where my mouth was. One look at the price tag, though, made me run for the nearest escape route. Despite my very particular tastes, I set about finding another book in the hopes that it would be sufficient an excuse to miss out on the Plossu.

After scouring the shelves from top to bottom, I came across a book, at a bargain price, by Miguel Rio Branco. I bought it without even asking for its plastic wrapper to be removed.

It was a new 1998 first edition, perhaps there were too many copies around and he had trouble selling it - I don't really know how these things work. It's an easy book to get hold of elsewhere too, it seems.

I'm not sure about the reproduction quality, I have a Gracielle Iturbide book, similarly printed by Aperture with the printing too contrasty for her images. Anyway, without adjacent reference, it makes not the slightest difference given the strength of the images themselves, and the book is nicely covered with canvas.

The book is a dark poetic vision, spiced with an intense and fleeting beauty. This is expressed aptly by David Levi Strauss's title to the forward: 'Beauty and the Beast, Right Between the Eyes', and indeed the book begins and ends with one of Branco's 'eyes' installations as shown in the attached images. There is something of 'Apocalypse Now' in its mood (the 'Jim Morrison' sacrifice scene at the end of the film, for example), vivid blood reds, and dark shadows, but in the book the mood is expanded on, more varied in its subtleties, slower to digest and at times uncomfortably jarring and violent.

I'm pleased to have the book. Its effect for me comes mostly from its amplified sensuality which is accentuated by being set within a saturated world of scars, violence and primal animal instinct. In that sense it is a rather sad book because though psychological and imaginary, simultaneously, it seems to reflect real individuals, real living and real suffering. It's a powerful book, perhaps turning a tad heavy, and I've probably had my fill with just this one book. Nevertheless, there are books that I want off my shelf, this isn't one of them.

To top it off, the afterword is written by Lélia Wanick Salgado and Sebastiao Salgado.

Leopold and Mobutu - Guy Tillim

A while ago I visited the photographer's gallery and saw Guy Tillims pigment printed series, 'Leopold and Mobutu". I also bought the book of the same name. It's a tall washed out book of mixed color and black and white photographs compiling snippets of physical evidence of Mobutu's lost grandeur and King Leopold's great colonial land grab (spearheaded by his agent the explorer Henry Morton Stanley).

The preface of the book couldn't be written by a more authoritative man than Adam Hochschild whose short text summarises what he has covered in depth in his own book, King Leopold's Ghost - namely the extraction of ivory and, subsequently, wild rubber by means of a brutal system of forced labor, to feed a booming Western appetite (arising from advent of the bicycle tube and later the automobile).

While untold millions of Congolese (estimated to be 10 million!) died and Leopold is said to have generated todays equivalent of one billion dollars of profit, in modern times, Mobutu still managed to exceed Leopold's monetary feeding frenzy 4 times over in his 32 yrs. of rule.

Tillim's images string the past and present together: Stanley's barely discernible veranda overlooking the Congo river beside side Mobutu's looted and abandoned palace veranda, while in the foreground/present UN helicopters fly in and out and child soldiers train to kill.

Images of intense Graham Green-like atmosphere and masterful 'accidental' composition, particular to Tillim, fall between the dead scenes.

At a time when it feels more comfortable to forget about Africa - its heart draining lunacy swinging simultaneously with its seduction - Tillim manages to bring alive a neglected chunk of history, renewing the 'traditionional' 'Heart of Darkness' spirit and blending it with historical fact. It's a semi softcover book printed in subdued color and matt texture matching its content.

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