Boots Levinson: ‘Haiti’

January 24, 2011 in Documentary | Tags: , , , , , | by | Leave a comment

Last November, I delivered a lecture entitled Photography and Haiti’s Prisons in the Aftermath of the Earthquake. (Listen here, prep here.)

The lecture was more about how scant photographic evidence compounded the scare-mongering in written media following the escape of over 4,000 prisoners from Haiti’s National Penitentiary, Port-au-Prince.

I also paid tribute to The New York Times for their tenacious investigation of a prison massacre cover-up at Les Cayes Prison, 100 miles west of Port-au-Prince.

I encouraged students to have both critical stances on these contested and emotional narratives, but also keep a look out for media follow ups to the situation in Haiti regarding prison conditions, the reconstruction of the justice/prison system, and policing in the capitol.

Today Bite Magazine! published a 10 image essay by Boots Levinson of the ongoing “round-up” of prisoners.

Prior to the earthquake, Haiti’s prisons were renowned for corruption. Levinson’s images show us policing activities but they do not answer whether these prisoners were guilty of a serious crime in the first place.

#PICBOD

So successful was Jonathan Worth’s Photography & Narrative (#PHONAR) course, that Coventry University has decided to repeat the open and free, web-based format once-more. Classes are already underway for the Picturing the Body (#PICBOD) course. I am pleased to say I shall be involved again. More on that later.

Visit the site #PICBOD website.

Fernando Moleres: ‘Merciless Justice’

January 24, 2011 in Documentary | Tags: , , , , | by | 5 comments

Each year, UNICEF Germany grants the “UNICEF Photo of the Year Award” to photo series that best depict the personality and living conditions of children across the globe.

Among the 2010 Honorable Mentions was Spanish freelancer Fernando Moleres for his documents of children in Central Prison, usually known as Pademba Road Prison, in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown.

Click here, scroll down and click on his name to see the full UNICEF portfolio. Click here for Moleres’ full portfolio.

It’s often difficult to engage an audience with “new” images of prisons, but Moleres succeeded with the image of the collapsed official at his desk (above). The disorganisation of paperwork in this image works as metaphor for a broken institution – much as Hogarth’s littered furniture and bodies are metaphors for broken society.

It also works as a foil (for those who are familiar with) to Jan Banning’s Bureaucratics portfolio; even those of Banning’s subjects amid seeming disarray, never appear defeated like Moleres’ prison administrator.

“Pademba Road Prison was built for 300 prisoners, but it has more than 1,100 prisoners at present, many of whom are children,” explains Moleres.

Conditions are appalling and hearing trials is based more on chance than process. “Countless cases of unspeakable misery – that’s the life of those who are imprisoned here,” says Moleres. “There are no beds, mattresses or sanitary facilities. No electricity and no water. Hardly any food. Their relatives often don’t know anything about the fate of the prisoners.”

A broken, hectic institution.

Moleres continues with three examples, “Teenagers like 16-year-old Lebbise*, sentenced without trial to three years in prison because he allegedly stole 100,000 Leones (25 Euros). 17-year-old Hilmani*, sentenced without trial because he allegedly stole his uncle’s scooter. 17-year-old Manyu*, sentenced without trial to three years in prison because he allegedly stole two sheep. He died in prison in spring 2010.”

*Names changed

As an audience to this type of imagery, we should note that, in 2006, Lynsey Addario photographed in Pademba Road Prison as well as jails in Uganda. On the evidence of the photographs, conditions have not improved.

Moreles paints a picture of a wasteful, desperate and predatory environment in Pademba Road Prison. This is the common view of prisons in many African countries, and sadly the reality for children caught in these systems. Many of Moleres’ photographs repeat the scenes of prisons photographed by others working in Africa, eg, Nathalie Mohadjer (Burundi), Julie Remy (Guinea), Joao Silva (Malawi) and Tom Martin (Burundi).

The common threads of these portfolios is tension, filth, depleted light, malnutrition, overcrowding and the solitary gaze of a forlorn child.

Prisons are most destructive to young lives that are not prepared for induction to the unpredictable environment. I would say this of prisons in America and the UK just as readily.

UNICEF is right to shed light upon the most upsetting (and unseen) realities for the most disenfranchised children in our global society.

FERNANDO MOLERES

Moleres also won the Luis Valtuena International Humanitarian Photography Award for his story on the prison system in Sierra Leone.

Molores has photographed children and the issues that affect their since 1992. in over 30 countries. He has been recipient of a Mother Jones Grant, (1994), the “Juan Carlos King of Spain” International Prize (1995), an Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation Grant, Sweden (1996), a finalist for the Eugene Smith Prize (1997), World Press Photo award for “Children at work” daily life series (1998), W. Eugene Smith Prize, 2nd prize (1999), World Press Photo, Art category (2002), Revela International Award, Spain, (2009), Honorable Mention Philantropy Award (2010) and an Honorable mention for the Gijon international Prize.

http://www.fernandomoleres.com/

UNICEF PHOTO OF THE YEAR

The prizes for the UNICEF Photo of the Year, 2010 went to First: Ed Kashi; Second: Majid Saeedi; Third: GMB Akash.

Poulomi Basu’s ‘To Conquer Her Land’

January 21, 2011 in Documentary, Fine Art, Photography: Non-Prison | Tags: , , , , , , , | by | Leave a comment

© Poulomi Basu

The border areas between India and Pakistan are dangerous and in many areas lawless.

Indian women have very recently become part of the military response to arms dealing, drug smuggling and people trafficking.

“On September 2009, India’s first ever batch of women soldiers of The Border Security Armed Force were deployed in these infamous borders of Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir as the country’s first line of defence,” says Basu.

Poulomi Basu spent time with the young women (aged 17-25), both Hindus and Muslims, at boot camps, homes and on the front-line documenting their “transformation from women to soldiers.”

Basu believes these women are not only fighting their enemies but also the military tradition and the attitudes of a patriarchal society. Less than 1% of India’s 1.2 million armed forces are women.

To Conquer Her Land is about new forms of stress – related to combatant life – that has never existed for Indian women before in history. Basu says To Conquer Her Land wrestles with “intricate issues of conflict, psychological warfare, class, youth, gender, love, peace, the concept of home, an undefined idea of patriotism, and the strength of the mind.”

The series is a beguiling mix of fine art portraiture, B&W documentary images and PJ style theatre-of-war shots. The mixture can be quite disorienting; blurry B&W akin to Japanese art photography interrupted by delicate double and group portraits in colour. Basu even goes all Robert-Capa on us!

© Poulomi Basu

ALSO WORTH A LOOK

Photographer, Rachel Papo’s Serial #3817131 follows young Israeli girls through the mandatory military service.

Papo and Basu’s work have things in common, although Papo’s work is concerned with her own biography. Papo says, “Serial #3817131 represents my effort to come to terms with the experiences of being a soldier from the perspective of an adult. My service had been a period of utter loneliness, mixed with apathy and pensiveness, and at the time I was too young to understand it all. Through the camera’s lens, I tried to reconstruct facets of my military life, hopeful to reconcile matters that had been left unresolved.”

Photobook History, Yours for Less Than a Grand

January 20, 2011 in Words | Tags: , , , , , , | by | Leave a comment

“Images à la Sauvette (The Decisive Moment) is a monograph of Cartier-Bresson’s best work, but it has overriding unifying factors that elevate it into a great photobook. The first is the concept of the ‘decisive moment’ itself, which defines the elegance of Cartier-Bresson’s imagery… No one achieved it more often or better, but allied with it was Cartier-Bresson’s thoroughly clear-eyed view of the world-astute, non-sentimental, beautiful, profound… Images à la Sauvette is one of the greatest of all photobooks”

Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. I, p.208

Last year, I mentioned the time I found one of the greatest photography monographs of all time in a bin full of donated books at Seattle’s Books to Prisoners program.

Well, now it’s up for sale on eBay. At $850 (or buy it now $1,300) it’s an absolute steal.

So, if you’ve got some spare change and fancy covering the postage on 400 packages of books to US prisoners, then pop on over and buy it.

 


Fazzina’s ‘A Million Shillings’ Published in Arabic

January 20, 2011 in Photography: Non-Prison, Photojournalism | Tags: , , , | by | Leave a comment

Says Trolley Books:

The Arabic version of Alixandra Fazzina’s latest book A Million Shillings – Escape from Somalia (Trolley, 2010) was officially launched last Friday the 14th of January at the government buildings in Aden, Yemen, by António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Whilst the English version of the book keeps getting much attention and critical acclaim, both by the media and official institutions, it is hoped that the Arabic version will help it reach an even wider audience across the world, and to continue to advocate for the cause of these people who deserve a better treatment and better conditions, both at home and in the receiving countries.

The case for why this important book should be published in the language of the lands which it describes is as huge as my embarrassment that it had never, would never have, occurred to me.

My embarrassment is compounded by the fact that I rarely ever think about photobooks published outside of the English language.

So obvious.

FURTHER READING/VIEWING

Book review: A Million Shillings: Escape From Somalia by Alixandra Fazzina, Sean O’Hagan, the Guardian.

Gallery: A Million Shillings: Escape From Somalia, Alixandra Fazzina photographs of refugees and migrants from civil war-torn Somalia, the uprooted people who risk all to cross the Gulf of Aden in search of a better life.

Exodus, British Journal of Photography article on the work of photojournalists covering migration. Details extreme danger of Fazzina’s work in Somlalia.

Review: A Million Shillings: Escape from Somalia by Alixandra Fazzina, by Wayne Ford.

A Million Shillings also made it on to Sean O’Hagan and Colin Pantall‘s Best Books Lists for 2010.

© Alixandra Fazzina

Dalia Khamissy’s ‘Lebanon’s Missing’

January 19, 2011 in Activist Art, Documentary, Photojournalism | Tags: , | by | 1 comment

“It was everything: kidnapping people, shelling civilian quarters, bombs, torturing, electrical shots, killing in the streets or killing in the prisons. And I did not think that what I was doing was bad.”

– Testimony of a perpetrator of crimes featured in ‘Lebanon’s Missing‘, a film by Dalia Khamissy

When Benjamin Chesterton of duckrabbit came across Dalia Khamissy‘s work from Lebanon, he was hooked and worked to present her work as a radio documentary combining Khamissy’s commentary with her photographs and film footage.

Ben hopes it will be the first of many such collaborations/presentations with the BBC World Service.

In my email inbox, from Ben:

Today, [Lebanon’s Missing] the first documentary and photofilm was published. It will be played worldwide seven times on the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4.

It’s about the estimated 17,000 people kidnapped during the Lebanese civil war and never seen again. It’s a genuinely brilliant presentation by Dalia, with some great photos and video for the film (which is really meant as a teaser for the documentary).

Few know about the Missing in Lebanon, which is why I think it’s an important story to be heard. Not because the broadcast will change anything dramatically but because memory is resistance against the same atrocities being repeated.

Please take five minutes to watch the film and, if it moves you, download the podcast of the documentary. Dalia deserves enormous respect for this work. It was a brave story for her to take on.

Hopefully, the BBC will commission more programs of this nature, which would be great for photographers working on important stories who would like to reach a genuinely large audience.

I hope so too Ben, and I hope the duck magic becomes a permanent fixture on the World Service wires.

FURTHER READING

Conscientious: A Conversation with Dalia Khamissy

The Dying Art of the Photographic Darkroom

January 19, 2011 in Documentary, Photography: Non-Prison | Tags: , | by | Leave a comment

Following up on yesterdays activities, the Guardian has produced this video about Richard Nicholson‘s series Analog.

The Big Picture’s Big Stats (Now on the Move)

January 18, 2011 in Non-Prison, Press, Visual Feeds | Tags: , , , | by | Leave a comment

Nieman Labs reports:

“Starting in February, The Atlantic will have a new section on its website: In Focus, a photography blog featuring “photo essays on the major news and trends of the day.” Editing the site will be Alan Taylor, who’s moving to the magazine from the Boston Globe, where, for the past two-and-a-half years, he edited Boston.com’s celebrated photo-essay feature, The Big Picture.”

The incredible thing about this story is the figures it detailed. The Big Picture had 8 million page views per month. That is an incredible number of eyes on an incredible number of images. Rather naively, I’d never imagined that scale of internet image distribution … and I don’t really know what it means.

EMAIL

prisonphotography [at] gmail [dot] com

Prison Photography Archives

Post Categories