journalism
Good morning 2012
Roma Christmas, Manchester.
“I think it’s simply beautiful and just goes to show what can happen when people start to write their own story, both for real and on the page.” Jake Bowers, English Romani journalist and broadcaster
So, the MA is done, Christmas is over and we’re well into the new year. 2012…where did that come from? The past month or so has been the kind of hectic where you have little to show for it, plus some much needed rest, recuperation and family time. I’ve had lots of lovely feedback about Elvira and Me, my collaboration with Ramona, which has been viewed more than 1,100 times in less than two months. Many people seem to have read it cover to cover, which is amazing. I’ve been thinking hard about where to go with this work – the problem with creating a book is that mentally it feels like a project is finished, even as someone’s life and struggles go on and the desire to document them continues. Ramona has become a close friend though so I think our collaboration will continue – albeit at a more sedate pace – as long as she wants it to. Perhaps the project will be expanded to look at other Roma migrants, possibly using a different approach to the photography, or perhaps not. Time will tell and much will depend on funding. So now comes the time to start taking photos again and building up my freelance business, after two quite intense but highly worthwhile years of study. Am I more photographer or more writer? I’m still not really sure, but maybe that question doesn’t matter as much as I used to think.
Oops. Belated Derker Streetfighters update.
Forgot to post this when it was published. The corpse of Pathfinder continues to twitch in many areas of northern England. And my Streetfighters project also limps on.
Participatory budgeting
“An awful, needless and desperately sad situation”
Elvira and Me – final
So. It’s over. I’ve submitted all my MA work and now just need to physically hand my book in on Monday. Most importantly for me though, this afternoon I’ve given Ramona her hardback copy – which I wanted to do before I shared it online. The reaction was very positive and I am so glad I had the project translated into Romanian (cu multe mulţumiri Daniel şi Dorothea!) because members of her family were immediately able to check it out for themselves…who knows, maybe they will learn something about her.
But now I’m doing that thing which I so often do with my own work – I’m mentally over it before I’ve even showed it to anyone. The dissemination part is something I am fairly weak at, since if I’m honest I shoot/cover stories primarily to indulge my own curiosity. I stick things on my blog and show them to the few colleagues I know well but beyond that am never quite sure what to do with my personal work. Anyway I think this is actually the first time that I’ve been truly proud of a body of work, and I finally feel I’m really saying something worthwhile – no doubt because this project is a collaboration – all I’ve done in this case is act as facilitator, supporting someone else to represent themselves. I intend this to be the start of a larger body of work on the UK’s new Roma communities.
Please check out my book layout.
If viewing on Issuu is a problem, you can download the low-res pdf from here.
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A couple of short clips of Ramona talking can be seen below – she has such an amazing voice that it seems criminal not to share her words. These are not part of my MA submission….
and
Teetering on the brink
I’m feeling a bit demob happy today – prematurely I’m sure, but I’m on the cusp of finishing my work for my MA and it couldn’t really happen too soon. I’ve loved the past few months and I’m sure I’m going to feel quite bereft once I hand in my work, but part of me is itching to stride out once again into the big wide world of full-time freelancing. I’m a bit sick of spending all my spare time looking at InDesign and am missing working as a proper journalist. I have all but finished my work – once I’ve received my final bit of Romanian translation I’ll be able to order my book, hand in my work, give a copy to Ramona and move forward with my life. Inevitably my mind is now turning to The Next Step – how to get this work in front of people with an interest in such things, and possible ways to take the project further, while keeping it relevant on a journalistic and photographic level and of course being able to still pay the rent. Exciting times ahead.
Roma education report
A selection of my photographs from Cedar Mount, a high school near my home, has been used to illustrate a study into the experiences of migrant Roma children in UK schools, written by Equality and published by the Roma Education Fund. Cedar Mount has about 100 Romanian Roma children – roughly one in eight pupils – as well as smaller numbers of Roma children from other Eastern European countries. I wrote about the school’s successes – and the challenges it faces – for Times Educational Supplement Magazine earlier this year. One of the things Manchester’s education authority has started doing – with great foresight in my opinion – is employing classroom assistants from the Romanian Roma community, almost all young adults who speak English but have not themselves benefitted from a formal education. There are several reasons for this – it shows the community that they are valued in this city; it raises aspirations by proving to Roma children that they can have the same ambitions and expectations as the rest of us in the UK, and it builds the confidence of this group of adults, who will hopefully go on to become links between different sections of the population. Ramona, who I have been focusing on for my major project, and who appears in the image above, is one of these people and the only woman. The report is available at Equality’s website.
UK riots in Big Issue in the North
one of my images has been used on the front of this week’s Big Issue in the North.
Liverpool riots aftermath
ABOVE: An Iraqi Kurdish shopkeeper in his bargain store on Lawrence Road, Wavertree, which was raided by looters on 9 August. The businessman, who prefers to stay anonymous, was alerted by a neighbour and went to guard his shop with several friends – staying from midnight to 7am to prevent more looting. He believes he recognised the raiders on his CCTV, and now wants to close his shop and leave the UK. “They took maybe £5,000 worth of stock and I have no insurance,” he said. “More than the money though, this has hurt me. On the CCTV I can see them laughing as they were doing it. This is not about the shop, it’s about my dignity. The police couldn’t protect my shop and I couldn’t protect my shop. That is a horrible feeling.”
BELOW:
In Toxteth, local people launched a coordinated response aimed at reclaiming their streets in the wake of the violence. The Tiber Project and the Unity Youth and Community Centre, both in the Lodge Lane area, joined with other community organisations to form Toxteth Against the Riots. Concerned residents held a packed emergency meeting and organised themselves into groups which patrolled the streets tirelessly following the first night of trouble. All week, the centre is staying open until the early hours of the morning to provide the volunteers with food and hot drinks. Julie Smith, Unity Centre coordinator (pictured below) said: “It was petrifying, there were police horse charges and the intensity of the gangs which were roaming was scary. Our staff went out, young and old, along with other community members, many of them parents. We had 19 year olds out there trying to talk their peers into taking their hoods down and going home. The adults were telling them the same things but it can have more impact sometimes when other youths are trying to reason with them. I was really proud of our young people that night. A key problem was that a number of people out there causing trouble – especially as it got later – weren’t from L8 and didn’t know us, so our presence didn’t have the same impact on those ones.”
