Photographers | >Re-PHOTO

‘Bangladesh 1971’ at Autograph

I was surprised not to see more people at the press view of ‘Bangladesh 1971‘ yesterday, at Autograph ABP‘s superb new premises that opened last year in Rivington Place in London’s now-trendy Shoreditch.

Women preparing for battle prior to the crackdown of 25th March 1971
Photographer: Rashid Talukder, courtesy of Drik and Autograph ABP

Produced in partnership with Shahidul Alam and the Drik Picture Library (I was disappointed not to meet Shahidul, having corresponded with him over the years, and read his newsletters, but he was held up getting his visa for Croatia) this is in several ways an important show, and one that curators Mark Sealy of Autograph and Shahidul Alam can be proud of.

The show in the superb ground-floor gallery is of photographs, taken mainly by Bangladeshi photographers, of the events that led to independence for Bangladesh. One of the bitterest and bloodiest conflicts ever, many of the details are not widely known and still contested, and one of the aims of the curators was simply to provide a true account through photographs.

As they state, “For Bangladesh, ravaged by the war and subsequent political turmoil, it has been a difficult task to reconstruct its own history. It is only during the last few years that this important Bangladeshi photographic history has begun to emerge.” After showing here it is hoped that this exhibition will return to Bangladesh and become a part of a museum collection there. Although it is a show with considerable photographic interest, it is also one where the historical background is vital for fuller appreciation.

In an attempt to impose its will on the country the Pakistan army implemented the systematic killing of Bengali members of military forces, intellectuals and students, along with any other able-boded men they came across. Estimates of the number killed range from 200,000 to three millions (although an official Pakistan government investigation somehow arrived at a figure of only 26,000.) Similarly, estimates of the number of women raped during the atrocities cover range between 3000 and 400,000.

Over two million refugees fled from the army atrocities over the border to India. I also watched the film ‘Bangladesh 1971‘, part of the associated ‘Bangladesh 1971 Film Season‘ at nearby Rich Mix Cultural Centre, which includes powerful scenes from film made during the liberation struggle. We see refugees stepping through deep mud on their journey and of an old, near blind woman making her way by putting down a bamboo staff flat on the ground every few steps to find a route.

The 60 minute film, produced by a group at the Rainbow Film Society in Bethnal Green, describes the events in a clear time line, with footage of some of the key scenes also covered by the still photographs – and I think one or two of the featured photographers may be seen in it.

This show is politically important, and not just for Bangladesh, or the British Bangladeshi community- many of whom live in neighbouring Tower Hamlets – but also is very much relates to the British history of involvement in India since the days of ‘John Company‘, founded in 1600 “for the honour of the nation, the wealth of the peoples” of England, leading to over 300 years of colonial exploitation (in some respects little changed by independence in 1947.) The partition of India at independence was an unsatisfactory (and also extremely bloody) solution, and one which underlies the events of 1971.

US support of Pakistan, both through military aid and at the UN, also had disastrous consequences, and it would be good to see this show put on in the America. President Nixon even urged the Chinese (who also armed and supported Pakistan) to mobilise its forces on the Indian border, as well as sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal. Such support encouraged Pakistan to launch a ‘pre-emptive’ attack on India, and it was the failure of this followed by the rapid intervention of Indian forces against the Pakistan army in Bangladesh that brought the war for independence there to a speedy victory.

If I’ve spent too long on history and politics, it is because this show is in several respects an importantly political one (and if I have a criticism it would be that the exhibition needs to have more background material on display, including a time-line of the main events.)

But it is also an powerful show in terms of the actual photography – and also one that relates to the politics of photography. These are pictures taken by photographers from Bangladesh, several of whom deserve to be far more widely known. Although some of the images are important simply for what they show and in other respects are typical or even rather poor press images, there are also some outstanding pictures here. There are several very fine photographers among the dozen or so included here (and at least one excellent anonymous image) but the work of Rashid Talukder (b1939, India) and Abdul Hamid Raihan is outstanding.

Two boys stand among rocket bombs left by Pakistani army at the picnic corner in Jessore, Bangladesh. 11/12/1971
Photographer: Abdul Hamid Raihan, Courtesy of Drik and Autograph ABP

One picture by Raihan which stays in my mind is of a man standing in the ruins that were once his house. You can see it, along with another 32 of his pictures at Majority World, a “collaboration between The Drik Picture Library of Bangladesh and kijijiVision in the UK to champion the cause of indigenous photographers from the developing world and the global South.”

Talukder’s work is also striking, and in many cases not for the squeamish, with a startling picture of the discarded head of an intellectual along with bricks in a puddle, or the public bayoneting of a collaborator by guerillas. He also has a fine images of more peaceful events, including the release of a dove by Bangabandhu in 1973. Again you can see more of his work – over 90 images – on Majority World.

Drik, set up in 1989 by a small group including Shahidul Alam, its name the Sanskit for ‘vision,’ has pioneered the representation of photographers from the majority world, seeing it “vibrant source of human energy and a challenge to an exploitative global economic system.” It has very much challenged “western media hegemony“, promoting work from the majority world, running education programmes and setting up the first Asian photography festival, Chobi Mela.

The show – and the work of Drik – also raise questions about the future. We live in a rapidly changing world, one where India is fast becoming a leading power in the world economy, and also one where Bangladesh itself is under considerable threat from rising sea levels as a result of global warming.

The exhibition opens April 4 and runs until May 31, 2008. It is hoped it may also show elsewhere in the UK.

Conscientious Interviews

Talking of Jörg Colberg – as I was in my previous post on David Spero one of the best things about his Conscientious blog are the interviews with photographers.

I have an ambivalence about interviews, and I don’t think I’m very good at conducting them myself. It is too easy to be distracted by the personality of the photographer (and amusing incident) rather than really use them to gain a greater insight into the work. It is really difficult to engage with the person and at the same time to retain a kind of critical distance that enables you to view their work with real insight.

Although I’m a great believer in the ‘first hand’, interviews I find most useful at a second-hand distance, where you can assess question and response at leisure.

Fortunately the two photographers who Colberg had a ‘conversation’ with recently both talk interestingly about their work – and also their work is very much worth talking about. I think you will find his conversations with both Bert Teunissen and Miguel Rio Branco of interest. In the past I’ve written about both these photographers, but neither articles are currently available.

You can of course see more of Rio Branco’s work on the Magnum site (and the interview is also on the Magnum blog), and Teunissen has a good web site and you can also read his travel diaries.

David Spero – Urban Churches

Taking one of my regular looks at the ‘Conscientious‘ blog I was interested to see a familiar building from Finsbury Park, London, the former cinema which became the ‘United Church of the Kingdom of God.’

This is one of a series of 15 churches in various odd buildings mainly around London photographed by David Spero, a photographer born in 1963 who studied at the Royal College of Art. Most of the locations in the series were familiar to me, although in one or two cases I’d photographed the same buildings before they were in use as churches.

Spero goes for the clear overall view, and does it well, and like
Jörg Colberg I find this the most impressive of his projects. Part of the reason for this is I think in the very variety of the buildings concerned as in some of his other projects (both when I’ve seen them on gallery walls and on his web site) I find the images too similar. Of course to Spero this was perhaps the point, but I find it a little tedious and long for a little more surprise in the next image in some of his work.

Some of projects in the ‘archive’ section of the site are represented by a very small number of images. ‘Interiors‘, ‘Boardrooms‘, ‘Control Towers‘ look like promising areas, but what he shows us is enough to tantalise but not to satisfy. It seems hardly worth putting only 4 or 5 images from each on the site – it isn’t as if the web was an expensive medium to use.

The churches project is a good example of how concentrating on a small subject and presenting it can work well. Although I’ve shown images of such urban buildings pressed into new use, and particularly images of black-led churches, I’ve never approached it as a discrete subject in this way.

Finsbury Park

One of my best-hidden web sites does however take a look at Finsbury Park and the surrounding area (although I’ve also photographed it on quite a few other occasions.) The pictures I put on those pages were made when I had just started to work seriously with a Hasselblad Xpan, and don’t actually include the church/cinema though I’ve photographed it on several occasions and probably while making these images.

Finsbury Park, London, 2002

A rather prettier picture of the New River in Finsbury Park from the series actually won a photo competition concerned with the regeneration of the area.

At the time I posted the images and wrote on-line that I had walked around the area carrying the Hasselblad I got several messages from people telling me I must be mad to go on the streets there with an expensive camera. One at least came from someone who had lived in a flat there for some years. But if you are sensible – and at least slightly street-wise, London remains a very safe city.

Druid Spring

Tower Hill

Easter weekend has been long and busy for me and I’m only now beginning to catch up. Thursday was the start of Spring, marked this year with biting northerly winds, threats of snow and some bouts of cold driving rain.

The Order of Druids were lucky that the rain held off until the end of their Spring Equinox celebration at Tower Hill, but their long file back to their starting place was through the rain.

Through the subway

As always when photographing in rain, it was hard to avoid the odd drop on the front of the lens, giving some diffusion – as you can see in a couple of areas of this picture. With a wide-angle lens, you can’t use a lens hood that will effectively protect against rain, and when the wind is sweeping the rain fairly close to horizontal umbrellas are tricky to hold and rather ineffectual. Working without an assistant they get rather in the way in any case.

Like most photojournalists in similar conditions I work with a microfibre cloth or chamois leather, wiping the front of the lens at frequent intervals and keeping the cloth balled in front of the lens with my hand in front of it when not taking pictures. But there is still the second or so when you actually frame the image for the rain to descend.

At such times I always think of the Martin Parr book, Bad Weather, in which he sought out the effects of water drops on the lens, flash bounce from rain and snow and more, often working with an underwater camera for the purpose. Interesting though the pictures are, I think few editors would have the vision to see it in his way. But perhaps the main thing that makes the pictures I took of the Spring Equinox this year differ from those I made last year is the weather. There is after all something timeless about the Druids, whose origins stretch back into the deepest ancient history even if the particular order I was photographing was only inaugurated for the Autumn Equinox at Primrose Hill in 1717!

Phillip Jones Griffiths 1936-2008

Phillip Jones Griffiths died yesterday at his home in London, aged 72.

You can read more about him on the Magnum Blog, in a short tribute by Stuart Franklin, which links to a number of his Magnum features, as well as to an obituary in the New York Times by Randy Kennedy. Franklyn quotes his former Magnum colleague of many years, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was also one of his great photographic inspirations, as writing what is perhaps the best epitaph for him some years ago:

“not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths”

Jones Griffiths had been suffering from cancer for some time, but had continued to organise his work and to lecture until very recently – including a talk in London a couple of months ago.

I posted only this morning about the new Magnum WARS set of four features inspired by his work and including him with four of Magnum’s best war photographers of the current generation, and a couple of weeks ago about an interview with him, and I’d previously written several times about his work, including a fairly lengthy section in a short online history of war photography.

He was a man whose photography – and life – always asked questions, didn’t accept the accepted wisdom, the status quo, but as Kennedy’s obit ends, always wanted his photography “to say to say Why?”

Tibetans protest in London

Looking at the work by some of the great Magnum war photographers makes me realise more strongly than ever that I’m not cut out to be a war photographer. Cowardice is one reason, though anyone who doesn’t have a healthy dose of this in their make-up is perhaps unlikely to survive long. But I think that perhaps I’m rather to timid a guy for the job, and, as I got a reminder on Monday, too ready to panic under pressure.

I was photographing the Tibetan protest opposite the Chinese Embassy, timed to coincide with the Chinese government ultimatum to Lhasa protesters to give themselves up or face serious reprisals (whereas one suspects that anyone who did give themselves up would simply be beaten up, tortured, imprisoned and quite likely shot.)

I’d arrived rather late, having been taking pictures at Willesden Green and suffering a slight delay on the underground, so had missed the silence at 4pm but it probably wouldn’t have made a good photograph. It was certainly a very noisy even by the time I arrived, and I spent quite a while mingling with the demonstrators shouting at the embassy across the road, photographing with both a semi-fisheye and the ultra-wide end of the 12-24mm.

Where I wanted to be – and along with other photographers really needed to be was in the empty area just in front of the line of barriers in front of the protest. But that nice empty traffic-free area was being guarded by 3 policemen with orders not to let the press in, though I did sneak a couple of images from close to both ends.

Police like to keep things simple. Nice neat lines, two sides – cops and robbers , or in this case, cops and protesters. Despite those nice “agreed guidelines”, photographers are just a nuisance. I was just wondering whether to make a complaint to the officer in charge or just go home (it was around 5pm, the light was beginning to fail, and I’d had a long day, so the latter seemed preferable as although I think we should complain on principle, in practice it never gets you anywhere) when a Tibetan guy with a flag rushed across the road in front of me and made across the road for the door of the Chinese Embassy.

Tibetan Flag at Chinese Embassy

So of course I rushed after him, and got a shot – if from a little too far away – of him waving the flag as he was stopped by the four officers on duty. ISO 800, 1/125 at f4.8 – wide open – at 60mm (90mm equiv) on the 18-200. Almost sharp too.

Behind me I were other Tibetan youths who had knocked down the barriers and followed him, and I was able to get into better position as police and stewards tried to stop them.

Tibetans rush towards the Embassy

This is wide open at 18mm (27mm equiv), and 1/125 again, and sharp enough to read both officers’ shoulder numbers, and the little motion blur probably improves it.

There were a few decent frames in the chaos that followed, but looking back though the whole shoot I seem to have made too many exposures at the wrong time, got far too much camera shake (though of course some caused by being pushed in the crowd) and taken far too little thought. In a word, panic.

Fortunately there was enough left to make a decent story, or at least I think so – you can see it in My London Diary.

Of course other photographers also panic and get things wrong, though they may have considerably better reason to do so. Robert Capa on that D-Day beach had an incredible hail of unfriendly kinetic activity inches above his head, and its hardly surprising he didn’t raise it too much. I often wonder quite how much of the distress that lifts those images out of the norms of photojournalistic syntax into their powerful expressionism was the result of a quaking photographer rather than of the melting admiration of the unfortunate darkroom technician. When ‘LIFE‘ ran them in 1944 with a caption about the ‘immense excitement‘ of the moment making ‘photographer Capa move his camera and blur‘ it quite likely told a little of the story, although ‘excitement’ was probably not the most appropriate word. Capa after all was human, and like most of the rest of us would have been shit scared.

WARS from Magnum

There are an awful lot of photo-blogs around. I don’t have many links on the ‘blogroll’ of this site, mainly because I wanted to keep it simple and only link to sites where I often find interesting features. One of those carefully selected links just has to be Magnum‘s blog, and yesterday this announced a new set of four essays on its companion site, Magnum in Motion,”WARS – A series of four essays revolving around a common topic,” also to be published on ‘Slate.’

In 2006 Magnum in Motion interviewed Philip Jones Griffiths, almost beyond argument the greatest photographer of the Vietnam War, and at the start of his piece he makes the comment “Photographers are either mud people or sand people. I’m a mud person.” This was his response to people who asked him why he hadn’t covered the desert wars of recent years. More seriously he feels that photographers need to get the kind of perspective that comes from a detailed knowledge of the country and what was happening – as he set out to do in Vietnam. In his piece he gives an insight into what he set out do in his coverage of the war there, and his pictures give a real feeling about the country and the war, including the Americans fighting there, who he sees also as victims of the war.

[In Jones Griffith’s Magnum in Motion podcast, “Point and Shoot“, he talks about guns and his experiences, and attitudes to war, and it’s also worth listening to – you’ll find it – along with 35 others of interest on their podcast page. But the images are shown much more strongly in the ‘War’ presentation.]

Jones Griffith’s flip response on sand and mug acts as the starting point for presentations by three of the leading younger photographers who have covered recent conflicts. As Christopher Anderson points out, the younger generation of war photographers got sand wars rather than mud, whether they liked it or not. Paolo Pellegrin ‘s stark black and white images from Lebanon are perhaps more often from a ruined cityscape of rubble than either sand or mud.

Thomas Dworzak in Chechyna and Iraq has seen both, but the difference is more in the situation than the geology. In Chechnya he could usually go along with the rebels whatever they were doing – if he was brave enough , and he obviously was – but in Iraq “as a Westerner, there is no more access to the insurgent’s side” and he can only work with the Americans, photographing what they do in the country. He comments on the freedom he is given to take pictures – and that those things ‘off-limits’ are largely the kind of boring ‘high security’ places and briefings he has no interest in photographing. He became a photographer to show the injustice and inhumanity of war, and his pictures continue to do so, even if he may sometimes feel that what he is doing is in some sense “a middle-class, Western, boy’s game” as he can leave the war and go home to enjoy a very different world.

Narrative and Photography

ere’s another quote from the Garry Winogrand TV programme I mentioned recently (and if you haven’t watched it yet, I’m sure you will find it of interest.)

“There isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability, any of them, they do not tell stories; they show you what something looks like… to a camera.”

Garry was of course right, but also wrong. Right from the point of view of making a photograph (almost certainly all he was interested in.) As he goes on to say “the thing has to be complete in the frame … it’s a picture problem, it’s part of what makes things interesting. A piece of time and space is well described, but not what is happening.”

But when we view all or most photographs we see them in a narrative manner. We supply a narrative context. And although that narrative may not be true to the time and space from which the photographer wrenched his moment, it does bear some relation to it. Although the photograph doesn’t determine the narrative, there has to be some kind of consonance between the image and it.

One of photography’s most famous images is of a man leaping from a plank in the Place de l’Europe in Paris, behind The Gare St Lazare in 1932. It’s ‘decisive moment‘ is because of our narrative completion with the splash of failed pride, although the picture itself is complete in a Winograndian sense in its frame (one of Henri Cartier-Bresson‘s few cropped frames.)

The set of pictures I took outside Holloway prison on Jan 16 have no claims to photographic fame, though they are perhaps a good illustration of being in the right place at the right time (and almost getting the exposure right.) Taken individually they could be anchored to a narrative in various ways, but as a sequence they tell more of a story.

Pauline Campbell’s daughter died in Styal prison in 2003. Sarah’s death led to her campaigning around the country on behalf of women who have died in prison – now more than 40 deaths since Sarah. After nearly four years of her campaigning the Home Office “finally admitted responsibility for the death of my daughter Sarah Campbell, including liability for breach of Sarah’s human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.”

In January Pauline organised a protest to mark the death the previous month in Holloway of Jamie Pearce (later she found the prison authorities had spelt her name incorrectly – she was Jaime Pearce.) As a part of this she attempted to stop vans arriving at the prison with prisoners and talk to the drivers, and police were determined to prevent this picketing.

I took 6 frames of one incident as it happened and several afterwards which were related. Because of the sunlight coming more or less directly toward the camera (giving flare in some images) I was shooting using flash, and there was a variable delay between shots as the flash recharged. (Longer than usual as my SB800 had died and I was using the SB80DX, which is slower to recycle and less smart with the D200.) One of the minor advantages of digital is that is does record timings of pictures in the EXIF data, particularly pertinent in this case as I rename images on import to Lightroom including a sequential number – and in this case these are not in the correct order.

On Indymedia I published six, and they were also used in a centre page spread in ‘The News Line’, together with another picture from the event and my ‘Indymedia’ report. ‘The Big Issue (North)’ used a single image. Here they all are, although the times are all an hour out, as my camera was set incorrectly – it actually happened at around 15.34:

Frame 1. 14.34.28 Pauline sees the van approaching and tries to run through the police line…

Frame 2. 14.34.28 … but is intercepted by the senior officer…

Frame 3. 14.34.30 … who starts to push her back, while a woman officer holds out a hand in front of her.

Frame 4. 14.24.31 Pauline falls towards my right

Frame 5. 14.34.31 … while I move round to show the hand pushing her…

Frame 6. 14.34.33 … and she has landed on the pavement.

There should have been more than six images, but I was pushed me out of the way by police between the 5th and 6th images. I took a frame of her being helped on the ground, but wasn’t allowed tot really get where I needed to be, then I saw the officer who had pushed here, apparently reacting to what he had done, taking two pictures before he noticed and turned away.

Frame 8. 14.34.42

Frame 9: 14.34.42

No one picture really tells the story, though some suggest more than others. Taken together they are fairly convincing, in particular I think Frame 3, which shows that only one officer was pushing her – and another holds out her hand to try to stop her falling, and Frame 5 where I’ve moved round pretty fast to show the hand in the middle of her back.

The best picture – the most dramatic frame – is 4, shows Pauline from the front falling towards the camera, but clearly it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Photographing the World – in London

Last night I dreamed I was presenting a show of my work to my wife and grown-up son in a curiously expanded version of my front room. These were a set of pictures that had been put in the corner and forgotten for a long time, several large prints mounted on polystyrene that was beginning to fall to pieces. But the most curious piece was a large black cloth-bound bible, which, when you opened it, it kind of folded out to give not a book, but a small prospectus of the show, four prints.

The only picture I remember well was a landscape image. From the cathedral tower visible in the distance we worked out that it was taken near Chichester. A metal fence ran across the foreground, but on closer inspection you could see that only part of it was an actual fence, and the rest was a shadow of a fence. The posts (and shadows) divided the space into a number of vertical strips, and if your eye continued up the print, across the fairly flat scrubby landscape, you could see that various features in the distance echoed this division, fitting neatly into the strips across the image. It was a subtle but powerful image, taken in such an ordinary place. Another image was more striking, I don’t remember its details, but it reminded me of Giacomelli or Fontana, some kind of more clearly graphic – and perhaps Italian – landscape. (I showed work in the same festival as Giacomelli in Poland in 2005 – five years after his death; two years later I was back speaking at the same festival and Fontana’s work was showing – but he didn’t come. I’m not a great fan of either man’s landscape work, so why should I dream of having done something like it?)

Several of the pictures had been bent or folded, or otherwise damaged, partly by attempts to push a vacuum cleaner into the (non-existent) corner where they were stored. The overall title of the show, as the ‘bible’ stated was something like ‘Photographs Around the World‘.

I woke up and gradually realised that it was all a dream, and that I hadn’t actually taken these pictures, and I felt distinctly disappointed. I did go to Chichester last year, but the scene didn’t resemble anything I remember as we walked around the area there.

Well, I’ve no idea what this dream meant (if dreams mean anything) but there was perhaps a slight connection with part of the work I’d been doing the previous day, which included preparing some images of rather untidy artists studios for use in the final issue of the magazine ‘Art and Cities‘, due out shortly. But the title of the ‘show’ rather interested me, as I have a well-deserved reputation for seldom photographing anything beyond the reach of a Travelcard.

A corner of David Hepher’s studio in Camberwell

I’ve long felt that living in London you don’t have to travel, because the world comes to you. So, as yesterday’s post here showed, on Saturday I started by photographing a demo about Tibet. I left that as it passed Trafalgar Square to catch the Rally for Dignity and Democracy in Zimbabwe organised by ACTSA as a part of their Dignity! Period campaign to provide sanitary pads for the women and girls of Zimbabwe. Mugabe’s madness has destroyed the economy and caused unbelievable levels of inflation, making such essential supplies unobtainable.

For various reasons the rally, held on International Womens Day, was very badly attended, despite high level trade union support – with the TUC General Secretary coming to speak. Probably many who might otherwise have attended were instead at Hyde Park for the start of the Million Women Rise march in London.

Brendan Barber speaking in Trafalgar Square

Later that afternoon I also called in at the regular weekly Zimbabwe Vigil, started in 2002 and continuing to protest at human rights violations in Zimbabwe. As usual there was drumming and dancing as well as handing out of leaflets.

Peter Marshall

Déjà Vu?

Saturday morning started for me opposite the Chinese Embassy, where supporters of a free Tibet were demonstrating on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising. I haven’t photographed there all of those 49 years, but it sometimes begins to feel a little like it, and this and the ensuing march through the West End certainly felt like watching a yet another repeat. All over again!

more 2008 pictures

Photographically it brought to mind two people, both in their different ways important teachers, although for me only at second-hand.

Alexey Brodovitch was art director of Harper’s Bazaar from 1938 to 1958, and among the photographers he nurtured there were Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Hiro, while his classes in New York (and New Haven) drew Diane Arbus and Tony Ray Jones and a whole generation of New York based photographers. One of the many whose work you may not know well, but has a great web site with work from 60 years of photography is George S Zimbel.

Brodivitch used to insist to photographers “Surprise me!” and told them that if they looked into the viewfinder and saw something they had seen before not to take the picture.

The other person who came to mind was Garry Winogrand (and it was Zimbel who turned Winogrand on to photography), whose work has always interested me greatly. Again I never met him, though I’ve used film of him in teaching (and a piece in The Online Photographer last summer included links to a TV video on him from 1982 and the recollections of O C Garza who studied with him at the University of Texas in the mid 70’s – both well worth looking at.)

In the video, one of several comments by Winogrand is “You don’t learn anything from repeating what you know … in effect so I keep trying to make it uncertain”

Saturday with ‘Free Tibet‘, too many things seemed familiar and I had problems with making things uncertain as I struggled with what Winogrand described as “the battle of form versus content.” But too many of my images were merely safe – and as he also said, “Most everything I do doesn’t quite make it. Hopefully you’re risking failing every time you make a frame.” Perhaps as usual I wasn’t risking enough.

You can see more of my pictures from 2008 on My London Diary, as well as some from previous years:

Free Tibet: 2000