Another side to the Delemare story

The international press is full of vitriol following Tom Cholmondely’s sentencing of eight months for manslaughter. Language like Old Etonian, Aristocrat, Expat, Cad and especially the clichéd Happy Valley conjure provocative and ugly images of a man who deserves a much less lenient term, particularly given that in 2005 he was acquitted of murdering an undercover game warden whom he encountered on his farm. Read more>>

7 June 2009 - 1:13pm — Admin

Oldies but goodies

I don't know about you but I love the old Nikons. My first camera was a Nikon FM. People go on and on about the fact that it's the person's 'eye' that takes the picture not the camera - yes we know - but I still love the sheer beauty of the mechanics, the feel, the sound of the shutter etc etc. I love to love the old classics, and there is some pleasure in the fact that it doesn't have to be a Leica!

A year ago I bought a second hand nikon FM2 for £30. I couldn't believe my luck. But a couple of weeks later I accidentally stuck my little finger through the shutter blades! The blades remained,  slightly, but permanently bent, despite my best efforts. I was destroyed, yet consoled, at least, by the fact that it cost me so little. The camera ended up gathering dust on the top shelf.

Last week, I thought I'd just give it a go with a role of film and I was astonished to find that it still works just fine!

23 May 2009 - 8:56am — Admin

Diana Arbus - Revelations

5 April 2009 - 9:33am — Admin

Paul Seawright's Invisible Cities

Seawright in conversation with Russell Roberts:

RS: For some your work might be in danger of creating a neo-colonial perspective as it is firmly situated within the narrow confines of the Western art world. Is this something you have considered?

PS: Obviously I have considered it, worried about it even. After my first trip to Africa I considered moving on to something else, uncertain how to resolve what was inevitably going to be problematic, no matter how I approached it...

...I'd argue that an external perspective has value and maybe is even enhanced by a post-colonial perspective, or at least a perspective that rejects the dominant Western iconography of the African continent.

Seawright recognises that Africa is a photographers trap. His method, which give priority to a 'neutral' and muted stance, attempts to deny dramatisation.

I wonder though, if, by rejecting the dominating iconography, by stepping into his specialised world of art, and succeeding, that by this very action, he stumps himself. Perhaps, with this book, he'll fail to find appeal, and so also fail to inspire the prerequisite deluge of imitatative imagery straining to establish its own domination (Africa is to be avoided like the plague, I've noticed). No, I doubt it. I detect, even in Seawright's desolation, his vacant spaces, a faint pictorialism, a seductive aura, even if it is conceptual, that inspires us viewers, even while our attention is called to notice the buzzing electricity that bypasses the shanty town.

This book contains an introductory text by John Reader, and, at the back, a coversation with with Russell Roberts. I would set it right beside Guy Tillim's Avenue Patrice Lumumba on the shelf. Both books are on my list of favourites.

4 March 2009 - 11:26pm — Admin

Avenue Patrice Lumumba

Tillim's summation of his book, 'Avenue Patrice Lumumba':

"These photographs are not collapsed histories of post-colonial African states or a meditation on aspects of late-modernist colonial structures, but a walk though avenues of dreams. Patrice Lumumba's dream, his nationalism, is discernible in the structures, if one reads certain clues, as is the death of his dream, in these de facto monuments. How strange that modernism, which eschewed monument and past for nature and future, should carry such memory so well."

The devil is in the detail:

Wires linked to private generators, apartment block, Luanda, Angola, 2007.

Every man for himself?

How about the image below: Court records, Lumbumbashi, DR Congo, 2007.

I've seen offices like this - lives are held ransom or forgotten entirely! If your documents are misfiled, too bad.

...and at the first office, you are told to wait...before being sent to the second office:

City Hall offices, Lubumbashi, DR Congo, 2007

• Tears, fire and blood - a short history of Patrice Lumumba

23 February 2009 - 12:04am — Admin

Suginami : a book by James Luckett

James, author of consumptive has been around since the beginning of time in photography blog years and I'm happy to announce his book, subtle, beautiful and understated.

7x7 inches / 78 pages / 68 tritone photographs
hardcover with dust jacket

Available for purchase from Blurb.com: http://tinyurl.com/BlurbSuginami

all the photographs from Suginami can be previewed on Flickr:
http://tinyurl.com/SuginamiPreview

also see an interview by Stacy Oborn at her blog The Space In Between:
One Thing Done Two Ways: Elijiah Gowin and James Luckett on Making a Book.

18 February 2009 - 9:57am — Admin

Tom Cholmondeley - over three years now, no verdict

"Tom is being starved to death in the prison, and wasn’t allowed any beakfast or lunch in the cells under the Court on Tuesday, in spite of a court order to say he could be fed. He is very thin and pale, and is pining for protein. The prisoners in Kamiti are not allowed “Welfare” any more, so can’t even buy milk or bread, and visitors are only allowed to take him fruit once a week, no protein. He ate Wednesday’s too quickly, and gave himself a tummy upset, and won’t get any more till next week. One is only allowed to take him reading matter and drinking water." More >>

7 February 2009 - 2:19pm — Admin

Francoise Huguier - Kommounalki

I came across Francoise Huguier's book, Kommounalki which presents images taken while renting a room in a communal apartment (Kommunalka in Russian) in Saint Petersburg. This book, with French texts, is a rarity, which you can purchase for only £20.

In her own words:

My very first days in these communal apartments in St Petersburg were absolutely perplexing, and I realised it would take me several stays and an inside contact to get to the bottom of these weird, closed-off environments.

Over several years I photographed the place and the daily life of the residents – and especially of Natacha, who set the rhythm of my visits. Implicitly, and without my realising it, she became the main strand in my narrative and in my desire to be there and stay there. She embodies the quintessence of these communal worlds and the magnetism of a city that has been gnawing at me for so many years. How many times have I stood simply hypnotised by these disturbing visions of light and shade?

Who spoke to me of ghosts? Who told me that at night in St Petersburg you can see the invisible and dream of the unutterable

Listen to an audio interview:

6 November 2008 - 2:16pm — Admin

Maya Goded - 'Good Girls'

Mexico city. 2000. Afrodita is getting ready for her first communion by her mother, a prostitute. her father is the pimp of her mother.

Mexico city. 1999. Patti, 16 comes from Chiapas. When she arrived in Mexico city, she was raped by several men. She was rescued by the police who asked her to testify against her rapists. Afterwards, one of the police and her lawyer put her on the streets and became her pimps.

7 October 2008 - 9:52pm — Admin

On Lamu rats and kitty cats

Night life on a Lamu rooftop, 1994 - © Philip Cartland

Excerpt from 'Cargoes of the East', by Desmond Bradley Martin:

At high tide when, when the seawater level is almost as high as that of the drains, rats are forced up through the drains. Little boys enjoy catching them and showing them to little old ladies from Chicago. After such a display of doubtful goodwill, it is highly unlikely that the ladies will want to make another visit to Lamu. Attempts have been made to eliminate the rats, many of which are much larger than the Lamu cats. The last really major effort was made in the late 1950s. In 1959 the district commissioner proudly reported that 949 rats were caught, but a little later he lamented, 'Again the courage and stamina of the Lamu cats failed them and it is believed that rats actually eat the cats here. ~ Lamu district annual report, Kenya, 1959

Night life on a Lamu rooftop, 1994 - © Philip Cartland

I heard these little fellahs (which must be the children of the big fellahs) before I saw them, I can't remember whether I switched the light on or used a flash, but it was one of those times where I didn't give myself much chance of catching anything at all, and in fact I forgot completely until several years later when i noticed them among my negatives.

17 September 2008 - 8:54pm — Admin