I’m still not feeling it hugely with my pictures from the Roma family in Istanbul – while they’re being great with me I’m struggling to stop them posing, smiling and pulling odd faces in my portraits. I need to start shooing family members on their own and closer up. Hopefully tomorrow there should be someone there for a while who can translate for me. Two days to go until the end of this workshop so the pressure is kind of on…
….and he’s still waiting to be be chucked out of his house.
Last time I saw him he suffered three of what I can only assume were panic attacks in an hour. His face kind of crumples up into a heart-breaking mask of pain while they’re happening. They are terrifying to watch, so I can’t imagine how they must feel for him. It’s the stress that brings them on, he says.
Anyway I did my best to get Elijah’s story out there to a wider public but I’ve never struggled more with any story since going freelance. Two national papers took it and then spiked it (unless the second one used it over the last few days that is – now pretty doubtful). A national TV broadcaster was interested, and then wasn’t. Each time I had to tell Elijah, got his hopes up, and then he was let down. The problem is that it looks like me who’s done the stringing along and letting down.
A regional magazine has at least used it and now it looks like a current affairs radio show may also highlight his story. I am keeping everything crossed that they follow through with it. I don’t believe it can change anything for Elijah – since the ownership of his house has already legally transferred to Oldham Council under a Compulsory Purchase Order – but from his point of view, at least it will kick the authorities in the teeth with a little adverse publicity.
I hope he manages to enjoy his 90th, despite the dispicable way he’s being treated by the powers that be. Let’s just listen to his words again…..
I spent this afternoon taking some pictures at the shanty home of a lovely family of Roma Gypsies who live on the Asian side of Istanbul and whose original house was demolished – with all their belongings inside – by the authorities under an urban renewal scheme. Ahem. Two of my main subjects dovetailing into one there.
I got a few nice frames and am returning tomorrow…I did an audio interview with them – through an local activist who I really owe bigtime – the other day but communication was predictably difficult this afternoon. Embarrassingly they also took it upon themselves to try to feed me all the time i was there – humbling and awkward when you’ve already had lunch and your hosts can so little afford it.
I’m not sure whether they’ll be able to tolerate my presence all week though. I’m in Rena Effendi’s class at the Foundry workshop this week and the focus of our projects is meant to be telling stories through portraiture, something I’m keen to improve on. If you don’t know her work, check it out because it’s quite incredible.
I’ve been in beautiful Istanbul for three days and I’ve only taken about 20 photos so far…
I’m here for the Foundry photojournalism workshop, which starts tomorrow, and have been scratching around trying to set up a story to shoot over the coming week. I want to cover something journalistic of course and something relevant to my areas of expertise but the language barrier is significant here and is making life difficult for everyone at this point.
Today I did a little bit of sightseeing but the place is seriously heaving with tourists. In any case, the more I use photography for journalism, the less interested I become in shooting single images for their own sake. I just can’t get motivated any more to be the scattergun style snapper that I used to be…sparing is probably better though.
Although I love travelling and have enjoyed occasional work trips abroad over the past few years, I’m starting to appreciate that I’m more cut out for working in the UK. I’ve recently learned to appreciate that one of my strengths is getting close to people over a period of time, earning trust and learning a lot about their situations.
That is difficult when you need to rely on an interpreter (and they aren’t always so convincing) or when you actually can’t communicate directly with the people at all. It’s putting me right out of my comfort zone and inevitably means that whatever will come out of it will unfortunately lack the depth that in a perfect world I’d like to achieve. Then again there are of course limits to what is possible for anyone to achieve in a week.
Fingers crossed it’ll all come together.
I’ve put an edit of my Travellers’ wedding photos from yesterday onto my Photoshelter site. I think this portrait is one of my favourites. I love the lady’s posture.
I don’t think I’ll ever make my living as a wedding photographer but I enjoyed shooting a traveller wedding in Cheshire today. It was an invite-only affair and so the couple was spared the free-for-all chaos that these dos sometimes have a reputation for. Once I wrestled back control from the video man and stopped him from barging into all my shots I actually started having fun. The fact that the bride has only just turned 19 though makes me feel ancient.
Burnage, Manchester, during tonight’s England v USA match.
A few more Appleby portraits, following on from this.
…from Appleby Horse Fair, which turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag for me this year. Photographically it didn’t fall into place as I felt it did last year – partly because I was trying not to simply re-shoot the same pictures and hoped to approach the event from a different angle. Although I realise everyone must have moments when nothing seems to go right, I have to admit that this got to me a bit as the weekend went on. On the other hand I enjoyed myself and spent time with people I like and respect a great deal. That was valuable in itself and will hopefully yield other opportunities in the near future….
I have a piece in today’s Guardian Education section about the Young Carers Revolution. Their film will be launched on June 11th but the fantastic trailer can be seen on the Guardian website. It also contains a few of my stills, and the full film should contain more.
My young carers audio slideshow will be going out to schools along with the film on the DVD. It’s a relief that this won’t be wasted because I haven’t managed to place it anywhere in the media, either paid for or free. That is not for lack of trying and despite many people telling me they liked it.
This gets me seriously wondering about all this energy me and other photographers/journalists are currently investing in multimedia. I love taking audio and in many ways find it a more effective way of interviewing than writing everything down in shorthand, as I was trained to do. I love working with people’s voices and pairing them with images to construct narratives, which I think of like solving a huge audio jigsaw puzzle.
BUT, what’s the point if no one wants it? A three-minute audio slideshow takes me up to three days to produce….and for nothing. I can’t even give them away with my written stories. So who are we making them for – other photographers?