Having wandered down to the quayside of the small north German town of Eckernfoerde, our aim was to feed dried bread to a bunch of hungry seagulls. They were sitting on ice in Eckernfoerde's small port, awaiting charitable donations from passers-by or the odd fishing boat coming in.
Once we opened our bag, I understood how Hitchcock made his scare-movie 'The Birds'. The gulls got very excited and started circling us, picking bread from our extended hands. An outright brawl erupted on the ground in front when we dropped some pieces. From then on, it was easy taking pictures: place camera on icy floor, aim, push button and hope for the best. The G10's shutter lag made precise timing impossible, as the cloud of squabbling and fighting gulls resembled a cartoon whirlwind. Although this won't win any prizes for authentic wildlife documentation or revolutionary art photography, I nevertheless enjoyed it tremendously.
A less flattering side-story to the Wikileaks scandal concerns the hacktivst group anonymous. Shortly after several major companies and banks announced that they would no longer do business with Wikileaks, hackers around the world united to crash the corporate websites of those companies through distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. This has been widely written about, but less widely photographed as, well, you can't, really.
We have all seen pictures of 404 errros when websites are down, but much less so of the people who cause them. Seeing the live IRC chatrooms where hackers co-ordinate and group into 'hives' to carry out attacks was truly fascinating, but I was still lacking that photographic illustration. The media widely reported that the group calling itself 'Anonymous' was behind the attacks; my subjects claim that anonymous is such an amorphous body of people it would be nearly impossible to pin-point the mastermind behind it all. Apparently, there are several sub-groups, the most aggressive being Anon Ops which claimed responsibility for the majority of recent DDoS attacks.
Now before anybody jumps to conclusions - the two brave guys who allowed me to photograph them emphatically stated that they were part of Anonymous, but did NOT - I repeat NOT - participate in the DDoS attacks. Make of that what you will, I am grateful they had enough trust and courage to face my camera.
Recently released by British Police, I now have the rest of my images back from a Greenpeace action photographed more than a year ago. The original action concentrated on the energy company EON which was planning to expand its coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. Back in June 2009, Greenpeace boarded one of their ships, the coal freighter Sir Charles Parsons in the Thames Estuary to protest the delivery of coal to the Kingsnorth power station. My photos were seized from a team of runners who were transporting the memory cards from our inflatable boat to a location on land from where they were to be transmitted to the news media. Click here to see the first blog post from June 2009.
Subsequently, the company has abandoned plans to expand the plant late last year. Anyway, here is a small set of the remaining pictures from the last Greenpeace action at the plant:
The Tarnished Earth exhibition will open in Birmingham, Centenary Way Bridge, on 10th January 2011 at 12:00 and will be on display until 11th February 2011. View location map.
This one is just too tempting: I haven't got the foggiest idea what to write about, other than that I just spent a night shooting street lighting in dense fog in West London.
It's part of an assignment for an existing client, and the idea is to create an identical set of images of 'before' and 'after' scenarios with new, LED-illuminated street lighting. This sounds simple enough, but actually, isn't. We all take street lamps in big cities for granted, to the point of not noticing they're there. Now go and try to make that look interesting...
Anyway, I digress. Below is my favourite image from a night where most of the images turned out to be useless, as the assignment requires clear skies. Ah well, I like the picture anyway, and I'll have to find time for a reshoot in due course.
Like most good things, the idea was conceived in a pub whilst not quite sober. My friends invited me to a traditional carp harvest in Moravia, during the last weekend of October. Fish farming is fairly common in the Czech lands, with carp being the staple meal on Christmas Day. Thus come autumn time, many ponds are emptied and the fish picked up from the muddy floor.
It's a fairly dirty business, with fishermen getting stuck in the mud and splattered by the resisting fish. On this occasion, many visitors turned up for a family outing day, there were warm drinks, the obligatory Slivovice and fresh fish on offer from the nearby cottage. The weather worked in our favour, it was a sunny and bright day - even the fish sales were satisfactory, so a good day was had by all. Here's an excerpt:
We probably caught the last nice day this autumn and it's been raining ever since. My good friend Tony Sleep and I jumped on our bikes, armed with a tank of petrol and some cameras and headed for the coast. After all, what better thing to do on a boring Thursday while the sun is shining? It's something we'd wanted to do for quite some time but for various reasons haven't managed yet. Either a computer was dying, or the weather was bad, or there was no time, or no money, or a combination of the above. I'm sure I forgot some other unfathomable reasons, but anyways, now we did, and I feel it's only the start of many more visits to the sea.
For those of you that can't make it to the exhibition itself, here's a small gallery of what the thing looks like. It's nice, even if I say so myself...
Following on from the spectacular opening of the Tarnished Earth exhibition two weeks ago, CBC has now broadcast an interview with me alongside some context of the ongoing tarsands PR battle. Have a look here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1602545044
Although over three months old, the Green Technologies assignment, conceived under severe time pressures, is worth showing I think. In a three-week period, I visited China, Hong Kong, Bombay, New York and London and photographed aspects of low-carbon technologies as applied in these places. Luckily, I had help on the ground by wonderful people doing most of the talking and door-opening (hey, I just can't learn Mandarin on the plane), and I could influence the brief sufficiently to bring back a good spread of images.
To me, the key term was 'technologies': this meant research, development, manufacturing, deployment on infrastructure projects, retail and consumer aspects of doing our bit for the planet. Given the short time we had available, I am pretty chuffed with the results. They are by no means exhaustive, and of course there is plenty more to photograph on this story, but this will suffice for now. Go see the story here or below:
Swiftly following on from last year's launch of the book itself, I have finally released version 1.1 of the empty london website. Here you can read about the project, take a sneak preview of the book's layout, view a gallery of all the book's images, travel around on a Google map of the area, and even order the book itself. A preview of the book is included below.
For all those who for reasons of geographical spread, busy schedules or otherwise impossible obstacles cannot view the exhibition, I have prepared a Gallery slideshow of the key images for you. Feedback is - as always - welcome.
It is with great pride and pleasure that I can announce the opening of my first major exhibition in London on the 14th September 2010 at City Hall, 110 Queens Walk, London SE1 2AA. The open-air exhibition will be at the more London site until the 14th of October, after which date it will travel to seven major cities across the UK.
Sponsored by the Co-Operative Bank and in collaboration with WWF and Greenpeace, Tarnished Earth tells the story of the tarsands - an ecological and climate disaster unfolding in Alberta, Canada.
Guest speakers at the opening ceremony include Ray Mears, a TV personality and survival expert, and Chief Al Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, Alberta, Canada.
On the eve of the exhibition, the 13th of September, a website called www.tarnishedearth.co.uk will go live with additional images and information about the Alberta Tarsands.
I have to admit it - I've been slow off the mark when it comes to updating my blog, website, facebook page, twitter and whatnot else one is required to keep on top of these days. Instead, I've been enjoying a rather long break from my cameras, and consequently, my computers.
Now - there is a major exhibition of my work from the tarsands in Canada coming up, and the Guardian pre-empted my announcement by a day or so. View the gallery first, and I'll tell you the details later.
Not being content with one action against a coal freighter heading to Israel, our good friends at Greenpeace struck again: this time, a week later, and on land. Eight activists landed on the Hadera coal terminal and swiftly proceeded to occupy the loading cranes outside the plant, and another team moved in to paint slogans in Hebrew and English on the side of the ship that was unloading coal. See a few of the picture highlights here.
Following last week's enthusiastic reception of the first part of the Canada Tarsands story, aCurator has now published the second and final part. Seeing the plight of the First Nations communities downriver from the industry is something that has become an issue close to my heart. To expose and publicise their cause something of a mission, and a good reason to do the job I do.
In the spirit of the current world cup fever, my good friends at Greenpeace scored the first goal this morning by stopping a coal shipment into Israel. Boarding the 290-metre long Orient Venus at the crack of dawn, the operation went smooth as clockwork: three activists were on board within minutes, and pictures travelled to the world's media without a hitch in time for the breakfast news in Europe. Life could hardly be better here on board the Rainbow Warrior right now...
Over at aCurator, run by the lovely Julie Grahame, the first part of my reportage on Canada's Tarsands has just been published. Featuring a full-screen slideshow of my images, I can't help but oogle at the slick design and prominent display of these large images taken during the past few years.
The first part of this story, published today, focuses on the tarsands industry and its impact on the environment. The second set of images examines the uneasy coexistence between the First Nations people living downstream from this giant and destructive industry, due to be published this coming Thursday.
I first came across the Alberta tarsands on assignment for WWF in 2007 and again in 2009 on several trips on behalf of Greenpeace. My first impression of the industry in northern Alberta was one of grandiose developments, in a negative sense of the word. Mining and energy extraction are never pretty, but the scale and pace at which big oil is operating in Canada is truly staggering. How could it be that Canada, widely regarded as a friendly, environmentally conscious and ‘nice’ country condones such destructive projects in its own backyard?
One answer I found whilst talking to people was cultural: whilst most Europeans, and indeed many people around the globe live with a notion of resource scarcity, Canadians apparently take the opposite approach: abundance. The mining pits, steam and upgrader plants north of Fort McMurray are truly gigantic, the impression of a stinking moonscape poisoned with toxis tailings and the sounds of cannons designed to scare off migratory birds apparent to anyone who ventures half an hour north along Highway 63. How on earth would anyone in their right mind condone this doomsday scenario?
Apparenty, Canada has plenty of it all, and wasting an estimated 10-15% of its Boreal Forest, one of the last, prime forests left on the planet is not an issue. In my own cynical mind, this scene would have not surprised me if it had been in say Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Kazachstan, Bangladesh or any other place governed by big oil – I have seen similar sights in other parts of the world – but to witness this in the First World, where one would assume the existence of a functional society with a healthy respect for civil rights, for its environment and its people was humbling.
You can take a view on the destruction of the land, the size and scale of things to come in the next decades – the projects already designed, approved and underway will occupy an area the size of Florida. However, the province of Alberta alone is roughly equivalent to the size of France: if you take off from Calgary, you’ll fly for at least two hours before reaching Fort McMurray, the epicentre of oil developments, and you’re still in Alberta. To sacrifice a proportion of that for petrodollars, jobs and prosperity is an obvious and well-rehearsed choice seen the world over.
However, what got me most is the blatant disregard for the people living downstream from this deadly industry: Canada’s First Nations. Gentle, soft-spoken, patient, suffering yet by and large indecisive, they are the true losers here. Several communities living along Lake Athabasca have been ravaged by cancers unheard of before oil developments began on a large scale. Their water is not safe to drink, the numbers of fish, migratory birds, moose, bear and other wildlife have shrunk and are no longer safe to eat, their ancient way of life seems to be over for good. I find it hard to accept and reconcile this with the notion of a democratic, first world government that Canada claims to have – this scenario feels more at home in the darkest periods of colonisation many of us have hoped were condemned to the past, to a chapter in the history books.
I hope that the images I present will give you a notion of how alive that history still is today.
I have returned from my various globe-trotting adventures for the green tech assignment and am now busy editing this stuff down to something manageable. In total, I have shot somewhere over 13000 frames across five cities in three continents in the space of less than four weeks. Still recovering from jet lag, we had to be brutal with the images and selected a final 19 for the upcoming exhibition. Today I received my invite: The HSBC Climate Partnership has kindly invited me to The Orangery at Kensington Palace where these and other images will be shown. A sneak preview of my edit is here:
Last week I began shooting an exciting global assignment on green technologies for a new client. We're looking at low-carbon industries and initiatives that seek to reduce the carbon footprint of transport, lighting and energy uses in order to counter the effects of climate change. I will be working in five world cities, and have (almost) completed the first stage in London; next on the list are Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai and finally, New York. I can't wait...
A few days ago I was commissioned by a large German Sunday newspaper to shoot a feature on Mothers' Day. We found the rather lovely German actress Susanne Gaertner who agreed to do a shoot with her young son Callum while doing some gardening on her allotment plot. The only caveat was that Callum should not be recognisable in the pictures in order to protect her young family's privacy.
Given that she has recently starred in the ZDF TV drama by Rosamunde Pilcher, "Liebe am Horizont", I thought it apt to shoot the feature with an equally 'ideal world' feel as the movie. So we used some extra lights and filters, the sunny weather and the bright colours she wore helped it along tremendously. The end result is almost too kitch to be true, but somehow it happened, and it felt good. Susanne has been a dream to work with, easy-going and trusting; Personally, I think there's a lot more to come from this rising star. View the full portrait gallery of Susanne Gaertner here.
Just ahead of the general election, I get asked to photograph a bit of clandestine campaigning. Take a pressure washer, a few drums of water, a van and a stencil, and set off to clean the city's pavements in a particular style. Pavement graffiti removes the dirt and grime from select parts of any surface, leaving a cleaner area which carries the messaging plotted through the stencil.
At the Tate Modern, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz held a presentation and briefing for the press, and I was assigned to attend a one-on-one interview with her, followed by a short portrait session. She's an impressive, very forward and challenging woman, American in style and demeanour and certainly a top-ranking CEO in the world of internet business. I have compiled a short slideshow below, and go here for the full set of portraits of Carol Bartz.
Once again, for the third time in twelve years, I have been invited to participate in the traditional Easter Monday celebrations in the Moravian village of Banov in the east of the Czech Republic. It's a long while since I first got here, courtesy of my good friend Jan who introduced me to the world of folklore, dress, song and dance customary for this part of Moravia. Back then, we were younger, dumber, slimmer and less resistant to the lures of Slivovice, the fiery plum brandy served in every household we visit.
Now, eight years since my last visit, Jan's father Jiri is balding, but his energy, voice and joie de vivre is unbroken as we make the rounds through the village, come rain, wind or hell itself. We walk, talk, sing, dance a little, walk and sing some more, and everywhere we go, I witness the startling hospitality by the proud locals, welcoming us into their homes, serving snacks and their best homemade Slivovice. The day passes very quickly, and once again, it's been a pleasure and a privilege to have been invited with my camera.
I've just come back from my excursion at the power plant in the Czech Republic only to see what things look like at the illuminated billboards at Piccadilly Circus when the lights go out. Welcome to Earth Hour, a global event organized by WWF, held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.
In its fourth year, a record 128 countries and territories joined the global display of climate action. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Asia Pacific to Europe and Africa to the Americas switched off. People across the world from all walks of life turned off their lights and came together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet.
I was a small part of that in central London, and a few images you can see below.
Greenpeace has done it many times, and here once again. We have climbed and occupied the 300-metre high chimney of the Czech Prunerov II coal-fired power plant for three days. Highlighting the plant's enormous contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change, the activists named it 'global shame'.
Taking pictures in these dizzying heights at wind speeds above 30 knots and in temperatures close to zero at night, this job was certainly more than a good day in the office. What can I say folks? I just love my job...
When it comes to protests, you can't really go wrong with monkeys. That philosophy was recently applied by my good friends at Greenpeace UK who staged a protest outside Nestle's HQ in Croydon, south London.
Highlighting the plight of Orang-Utans due to rainforest destruction in Indonesia, Nestle is accused of complicity by purchasing palm oil from the region. So to drive the point home, activists dressed as monkeys paid the company a visit and got down to some rather funny monkey business. Even the police liked it and the day went past with a lot of amusement and smiles all around - except for those working inside the Nestle building. A quick excerpt you can view below:
In the small village of Nedvezi, its 200-odd inhabitants look forward to one event in the year's festive calendar more than any other: their children's carnival. It is as much an opportunity to show off the elaborate, colourful costumes proud mothers make for their kids, as it is for the menfolk to get together and socialise, preferably at the bar. As the afternoon and evening progress, the programme, music, dancing and chatter turn into a blur as we collectively toast to eternal friendship, the best event of the year, another round of shots and back to eternal friendship again.
As part of my second book project, I am very keen to participate and see local traditions, get to know the people and hear their stories, joys and worries in life - it helps me to understand and hopefully, produce a body of work that reflects those lifestyles in these times of change and uncertainty.
From my hazy memory of that particular evening, the locals' hospitality was humbling, the alcohol strong and plentiful, and the pictures, ah well, see for yourselves.
I've been away again, for several weeks this time, and again it's been to the calm, soothing, middle-of-nowhere village of Nedvezi in the Czech Republic.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon, we went for a walk to clear that hangover, and I got to play with light and shade on my trusty G10. Here are the results:
Oh dear... my friend Tony Sleep over at Copyright Action has written up the latest litany on the soon-to-be law on orphan works, also known as the Digital Economy Bill. It does not make for cheerful reading, as the UK government seeks to a) legalise the commercial use of unattributable photographs, and b) ban photography in public places, for reasons of 'data protection'.
It's a dark day for photographers and photojournalists indeed, read the full article here.
Being around any beauty pageant should normally evoke associations of glamour, stardom, celebrity excesses and a diva-like lady at centre stage.Well, I bagged an assignment for Spiegel Magazine and we headed out to follow Katrina Hodge, the acting Miss England 2009-10 on a promo tour in the north of England.
Folks, what can I say? The 22-year old Katrina is about as professional as it gets and patiently endured our probing existence and shadowing for a few days. The locations could not have been much less glamorous: Wigan football stadium, including the boozy VIP lounge after a match, Morecambe pier, and various radio stations in and around Preston.Nicknamed 'combat barbie', Hodge is currently on leave from her employers, the British Army, she does her utmost to promote the armed forces and a dating website for personnel in uniform.
I was pretty impressed with the young lady, but have no illusions about the apparent glamour that holding any 'Miss' title may or may not entail. It's pretty hard graft, and the look behind the scenes is hopefully illuminating. Enjoy.
Last Saturday about 2000 of us had a ball. The demonstration organised by campaign group I'm a Photographer, not a Terrorist took place in Trafalgar Square, the epicentre of the dispute between professional photographers and increasingly restrictive policies applied by city councils and the police, had more the character of an arthouse happening.
Although the issues at stake are fundamental and important, namely press freedom and the right to take pictures in public spaces, the demo was above all fun. Recent high profile cases of police harassment and the use of anti-terror legislation to stop photographers from going about their perfectly legal business of taking pictures in public spaces have highlighted the need for protest. Luckily we live in a country where this is possible without repercussions, and I damn sure hope it stays that way. It did strike me as odd that the usually overzealous swath of 'heritage wardens' and community support officers were notably absent during the gathering... I wonder why?
Courtesy of uRetouch, I have finally managed to put up a retouched and edited gallery of my oldest pictures, the very precious black and white collection of daily life imagery from Bangladesh. These are my photographic beginnings, the first frames I ever took with any kind of purpose in mind, the first manifestations of the long and painful process of seeing images in everyday situations. Some are hit and miss, some I still marvel at, incredulous and fascinated with the detail, the light, composition. These pictures are very dear to me, they feel timeless and I can still recollect the smells, noises and moods of the days during which I took them.
This is now more than 16 years ago, and yet it feels like they just happened yesterday. Often, I remember the unparalleled access and availability of time (neary two years) that I enjoyed while making these, way before turning into a professional photographer. Thus I believe these photos would not be possible today, given usually tight deadlines and clearly defined subjects. All the more reason to see the slideshow.
A happy birthday to Luise Rainer, a German film actress who was the first woman to win two Academy Awards, and the first person to win them back to back. Born on January 12th, 1910, her career spans nearly 70 years, the cusp of her Hollywood stardom having been in the late 1930s. Rainer later commented that by winning two consecutive Oscars, "nothing worse could have happened to me", as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill.
Well, today the grand dame of the cinema is celebrating her 100th birthday and we visited her the day before. Despite the frailties of old age, she is a mesmerising, energetic and still somewhat theatrical lady who deeply impressed me with her vitality, optimism and sharp view of the world. It's almost impossible to imagine that she has witnessed an entire century, and most of the personalities within it first hand - I was literally speechless in her presence. Thus after photographing her, I feel grateful for the opportunity, kindness and trust with which she met my camera.
Folks, if this event is an indication of how the rest of my year is gonna go, it certainly promises to be interesting, and dare I say it? Interactive. Yesterday I photographed the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg at an event in the docklands. It's Monday morning, most people (including me) are still a little sleepy and grumbly in the face of a full work week ahead of them.
Clegg enters the stage, alone on the podium talking into his mike while two TV cameras are trained at him. The scene was interesting, and I shot a few frames before an irate producer pulled my arm and motioned me to stop. I was perplexed, as I was asked to shoot the event and put it down to over-inflated busybody egos interfering with my job at hand. So I ignored her and kept shooting though I did turn the flash off.
Later, after the interview was done, Nick Clegg walks over to me and says, feigning incredulity, that 'You don't take pictures during a TV interview'. I mumbled some half-hearted apology but said that it was worth it. Or something to that tune, anyway... We both smiled and left each other alone after that. Here's a few pictures of the encounter.
