Political Issues | >Re-PHOTO

Nick Ut – Now and Then

If you haven’t yet read it, take a look at Nick Ut: Double Negative, an interesting article in a paper I seldom read, the Daily Telegraph. Nick Ut is the guy who took the iconic Vietnam image of a nine-year-old girl running along the road towards him, screaming, naked because she had torn off her napalm covered burning clothes, strips of burnt skin hanging from her shoulders. It was a picture that changed the attitudes of many towards the war, and won Ut a Pulitzer prize.

As John Preston says, he took the shot, but then saved Kim Phuc’s life, cleaning off the napalm, wrapping her in a jacket and driving her to hospital. The two are still in contact, still friends – almost family – 35 years later.

Last year, he took another picture that made the news worldwide, catching Paris Hilton crying in a car after she had been told she would serve her jail sentence. Ut was one of a pack of several hundred photographers outside her house, and with his camera on high speed, just happened to get one ‘lucky’ shot in which her face is clear – and clearly crying.

It isn’t a good picture. It’s about an event of infinitesimal significance to anyone except the one spoilt woman in the car, but it made front pages and TV news around the world. It makes me sick that so many photographers are wasting so much time on such trivia – and that it is more or less all that pays. Ut says he doesn’t mind, was “grateful to have the work.” To me it is just a total waste of time and talent.

Heroes: Luiz Garrido

Strictly in the interests of research, I spent some minutes this morning on coming out of the shower posing naked, establishing that by crossing my thighs it was indeed possible to tuck my tackle away out of sight, leaving just a triangle of hair visible at the meeting of legs and stomach. Fortunately I was the only photographer present and I certainly wasn’t using a camera.

Brasilia – Congress buildings (C) Peter Marshall, 2007

The show Heróis (Heroes) by Luiz Garrido opened in the Black Hall of the Chamber of Deputies of the Brazilian Government at the centre of Brasilia in November with considerable controversy.

What caused the fuss was an image of the famous Brazilian transsexual actress, Rogéria, in a pose similar to my bathroom experiment (though let’s be clear, I omitted the blonde wig, lipstick, nail varnish, loose shirt, tie, trainers and white socks.)

Rogéria,
(C) Luiz Garrido

Apparently this image was not among those that had been shown when the exhibition was arranged, and the director of Public Relations at the parliament building took exception to it, arguing it was not appropriate to be shown in a space visited by so many children. The same argument was also put forward by my very courteous guide on my visit to the chamber when I asked him about it.

Brasilia – The view from the Black Hall of Congress (C) Peter Marshall, 2007

So for the opening night, the image was on show behind a screen, while negotiations went on about how it might be presented, involving the Festival Organiser and photographer and the management of the chamber. A notice that was put up, announcing (in Portuguese) that “By a decision of the Chamber of Deputies, this cubicle contains a photograph of Rogéria whose open exhibition to the public was not permitted” and this apparently so upset the chamber that they took down the whole show overnight without further discussion.

I find it hard to image how anyone could seriously think that this image would in any way offend against the Brazilian law relating to children and adolescents, which apparently protects them from displays that are inhuman, violent, terrifying, vexing or embarrassing. Young children would walk by unconcerned, while it is hard to see it causing more than a shrug with teenagers exposed to everything the Brazilian media deem fit to publish. This was certainly not – as one bloggers suggests – an erotic image.

You can read more details on the story – and the responses to it by various bloggers – on ‘Global Voices‘ which also has more pictures from the show.

Luiz Garrido‘s show was at ECCO when I was in Brasilia, and looking at the whole show as an outsider, this picture actually struck me as the least interesting of his images on display. The kind of image that gets chosen not because of the photograph but simply because of the discordant views about LGBT rights that it embodies. I’m very much against censorship, but would personally as a curator not have chosen to show this picture.

But there is no doubt that Garrido is an interesting portraitist. I visited his show at ECCO after hours, following a very satisfying rump steak at ‘Oliver’, the contemporary restaurant that is a part of the gallery complex, together with my companions for the evening, Robson and Chris, and I think we were all impressed by his portrait of President Lula, swathed in cigar smoke (and more than a hint of the revolutionary Cubans.)

Lula, (C) Luiz Garrido

Next to him was another fine portrait, of Lucio Costa (1902-98), whose master plan created Brasilia, and next to that, the architect who designed its famous buildings,
Oscar Niemeyer, 100 on Dec 15, and still working. Costa, taken in a study after my own heart, the shelves behind him separated by bricks, slumps to one side, one eye bright and alert, the other side of his face resigned, reflective.

Lucio Costa, (C) Luiz Garrido

Oscar Niemeyer, (C) Luiz Garrido

Niemeyer is placed centrally in the frame, but cropped along the line of his upper lip, taken in front of a white board with some lines and writing, dominated by the two words “mundo injusto” (unjust world.) It is a powerful image, and one that concentrates on the eyes and intellect of the sitter, his balding dome against the world, as well as reflecting the architect’s own use of geometry and curved shapes – as for example in the National Museum at Brasilia.

Brasilia – National Musuem, (C) Peter Marshall, 2007

Under the Car

In my talk in Brasilia I looked at the photography of the urban environment and some of the changing ideas in planning, and how the invention of the car had completely altered our cities. Ideas about Garden Cities at the end of the nineteenth century had been overtaken by urban sprawl.

A12 Eastern Avenue at Gants Hill, London 1995

One of Britain’s greatest writers, J G Ballard and I live on the same ‘terroir‘, the gravel-rich fertile flood plain of south-west Middlesex, now pock-marked by gravel extraction, scarred by acre after acre of water-filled pits. More water towers over us behind the grassy high wall slopes of reservoirs containing west London’s water supply. The sand and gravel has been transformed into roads and houses; the orchard and plots of my grandfather now a housing estate, some of our most fertile land now under the concrete and grass waste of Heathrow.

Round here Mr Cox discovered the sublime king of apples, but crops now are contaminated by unburnt hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Cars and lorries speed along roads grimy with greasy grey dusts, planes thunder low overhead and levels of air pollution go off-scale. Once broad and proud Roman roads long unable to cope, their 1930s arterial replacements fare little better, the ‘Great West Road’ at Brentford now a dark and dimly lit racetrack under an elevated motorway.

Under the Car (C) Peter Marshall

I’m not sure if I saw the TV film starring Ballard in 1970, called ‘Crash!’ or simply read about it. A couple of years later his ideas about the 20th century’s love affair with the car re-appeared, worked into a more dramatic format in his novel ‘Crash’, set in our shared locale (but many years later shifted to Toronto for its remaking as a feature film.)

Under the Car (C) Peter Marshall

My own series on car culture, ‘Under the Car‘, started in the 70s and continued for around ten years, although never finished.

Under the Car (C) Peter Marshall

Under the Car (C) Peter Marshall

Under the Car (C) Peter Marshall

Without Ballard my Under the Car essay would have been rather different. His more recent books, particularly Kingdom Come (2006) are a chilling view of an England only too clearly close to the present.

Brazil Trip – Part 1

I’d be the first to recognise the contradiction in my flying over 6000 miles to Brasilia to talk about environmental problems, and I’m still recovering from the same journey back home. It was a relatively short and comfortable journey to Sao Paulo, but there was the mother of all queues snaking around the terminal to get through security and passport control, almost 2 worrying hours before I made the final call for boarding minutes before the timetabled flight time – because so many of us were held up the flight actually left around 45 minutes late.

Fourteen hours after finding my seat in the crowded economy section I was glad to be back at Heathrow, despite it being over 20 degrees cooler than when I left Brasilia the previous evening as I waited for the 255 bus in the chilly breeze at Terminal 4. I’d had a great – if occasionally fraught – time in Brasilia, and really wished I could have stayed much longer, but it felt good to be home.

I didn’t feel too bad about the carbon. It wan’t a pleasure trip, although there was much I enjoyed – especially the food and the company as well as the incredible architecture and some good exhibitions – I was there to share and spread a message about the inevitability of change and the need to do something about it, to work for a sustainable future. Also in my defence the four flights I made going there and back only bring the total over my life-time so far to ten.

Two of the 24 pictures in my show at the Espaco Cultural Renato Russo in Brasilia (if you are there it continues until 20 January) are of the protests about the yet further expansion planned for Heathrow, and it was encouraging on my return to read of our government’s announcement of a rethink on all policies based on carbon. Heathrow will be one of the key tests that will tell us whether they are really serious or just paying some post-Bali lipservice to the environment.

Brazilians lead the thousand mile ‘Cut the Carbon’ march on its last mile in London

I was particularly pleased to be able to show a picture of Brazilians leading the Christian Aid ‘Cut the Carbon‘ march earlier this year in London. Karla Osorio, Foto Arte 2007’s director, had sent my files to the best lab in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, and the A3 prints for the show were truly superb – just like the display on my wide-screen Eizo ColorEdge monitor – and roughly the same size. Eizo monitors aren’t cheap, but a good monitor and accurate profiling and calibration are the essential basis for getting prints right, and Christmas for me came early as I watched the parcel of prints being unwrapped for the work to be hung.

My visit and show was paid for by the British Embassy, and I was extremely pleased by the support of the Ambassador and the others there, including Kate Reynolds, responsible for promoting environmental issues, Matthew Rowlands who arranged travel and hotel and Luiz Hargreaves who simultaneously translated my lecture into Portuguese. I was heartened by the warm reception my work and talk received.

I started the lecture by looking at the photography of cities and urban landscape photography in particular, relating some of my and other pictures to the development of ideas about city planning (and Brasilia is of course the pinnacle and end-point of modernist planning by Lúcio Costa (1902-98) and architect Oscar Niemeyer, who celebrated his 100th birthday on the Saturday before I arrived, and is still at work.)

Most of the pictures I used were of London, although next time I’m asked to talk about the subject I think a few of the pictures I took in Brasilia will also be included. This was the opening image for my talk, one of the many from my web site ‘London’s Industrial Heritage‘, taken in the 1980s :

Tower Bridge from Bermondsey Wall West, 1988

I didn’t say much about this picture in the talk, but it does help to make a point about the lack of good planning controls over the more sensitive parts of English cities. It’s still easy to find the spot from which I took this picture, obviously close to the Thames, and part of the Thames Path. Stand here now and what you will see rather than Tower Bridge are some undistinguished flats – and the same is true along much of the river where we have ponderous blocks designed to maximise use of space and developers’ profits. What we should have is not legislation that prevents development, but that – in such sites of high landscape and heritage value such as the Thames riverside – insists on high standards of work, probably through public architectural competition, as well as of course, public riverside access.

I’ll write more about my talk, which continued with my own project on Thames Gateway (there are a few pictures on line on the Urban Landscape web site) and some comments about the pictures of environmental protests and of the Manor Gardens allotments that were in the show, in a later piece, as well as more about the Foto Arte Festival. But next I’ll put some of the pictures I took in Brasilia on line.

East London Line

The East London Line is a vital transport link for many in East London, taking them across the Thames from Whitechapel to New Cross and New Cross Gate. The northern section to Shoreditch closed down a while back, and just before Christmas, the whole line is to shut for a lengthy period, opening as an extended service from Dalston Junction to Crystal Palace and West Croydon in 2010 (and adding Highbury & Islington in 2011.)

Although the extension is good news (and involves a fairly huge amount of public spending, although almost all of it is along existing routes), there is also bad news, that when it re-opens it will have been privatised, with 8 different contracts. The RMT union isn’t pleased, as the extended line will pay staff less and give them worsened conditions; it also thinks that there are safety implications of the sharing of signalling between London Underground and Network Rail.

Last Thursday they demonstrated against the privatisation outside City Hall, on the riverside next to Tower Bridge, with a coffin representing publicly owned railways, undertakers and a jazz band as well as various banners. It wasn’t a huge event – most of their members will have been at work, and there were perhaps a hundred there, but a lively parade circled City Hall several times before a short rally.

Transport for London have provided some replacement services, but nothing for the most important part of the line, going across the river between Wapping and Rotherhithe. The feeble excuse is that the can’t get the right kind of buses to go through the Rotherhithe tunnel.

Until closure the journey will take you one minute. Afterwards the alternative routes suggested by the TfL web site usually take around an hour. If you were going to and from work that could mean an extra couple of hours a day. However can they think that is satisfactory?

More pictures of course on My London Diary.

Climate Change Demo

The news from Bali this morning is grim, though there were a couple of glimmers of light, including Kevin Rudd announcing Australia’s acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol. Perhaps there is some hope for those Tasmanian Wedge-Tailed Eagles now, but progress over tackling the bigger issues remains blocked by the USA, Canada and Japan.

The Statue of Taking Liberties

I’m still wringing out my camera after the London event in the Global Climate Change March on Saturday, which also saw Critical Mass out in force, as well as over 6000 marchers. The guys from Surfers against Sewage, in wet suits and carrying their boards were probably the most appropriately dressed for the occasion, or perhaps Lucy as a mermaid with her warning about rising sea levels.

But, as was emphasized by the number of placards opposing the expansion of Heathrow, our government – like most others around the world – is still sitting foot firmly down to the floor of the juggernaut, driving hard for extinction even as they start to make noises about the impending doom.

You can see many more pictures of the march, and of critical mass on ‘My London Diary.’ I, and my equipment, got too cold and wet to really do justice to the rally that followed the march in Grosvenor Square. And of course you can read more about climate change at the Campaign against Climate Change web site.

Demonstrations such as this have a vital role – as I hope to be saying next week in Brasilia, where I will be showing similar images – in bringing environmental problems to public awareness and making it possible for politicians to think what was previously impossible.

And unless they do, it’s increasingly difficult to remain optimistic about the future.

Bilal Hussein and Press Freedom

If you are a photographer and work in Iraq, you run the risk of being imprisoned by the US military. The Committee to Protect Journalists claim that “dozens of journalists – mostly Iraqis – have been detained by US troops over the last three years.”

They get arrested for photographing or filming things that the US army would prefer not to be recorded. Those we know about were mainly working for major foreign agencies such as Reuters and Agence France-Presse, although I wonder if in fact we only know about these people because they were employed by the agencies. Are there many more we don’t know of?

Most get released without charge after a few days or weeks, but the site lists eight cases of more prolonged detention of up to a year. The details of each case ends with the statement: “Charges Substantiated: None”

Of course the best known case is that of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held for almost 20 months. I’ve previously written about him here (and elsewhere,) and linked to the campaign to free him, urging others to join in the petition to free him.

His case at last came to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq yesterday, 9 Dec 2007, but the magistrate issued an order that everything should be kept secret, so the AP report can only report the bare facts. Although Hussein and his lawyer were allowed to see some of the material presented to the court, they were not allowed to take copies to use to prepare his defence, and no actual charges were made.

Hussein and his lawyer have also not been allowed to talk privately in order to plan a defence; their meetings have been held with a US soldier and military interpreter present.

It is now up to the Iraqi magistrate to decide whether there is any case to answer – and if so, it will be dealt with by a panel of three judges. It isn’t clear how long this will take, and certainly at the moment there are grave doubts about whether if the case does come to trial Hussein and his lawyers will be given the opportunity to prepare a proper defence so that he can get a fair trial.

Here in the UK of course we do things differently, although perhaps not so differently if you read the time-line of the SOCPA antics by police and courts as published on Indymedia. It is news and I think important news that has hardly been covered by the mainstream press.

One thing that gives photographers (and videographers) covering events such as these on our streets a little – if limited – protection is the UK Press Card. It isn’t perfect, but it does at least sometimes mean that photographers will get treated as reporters rather than as protesters. This Saturday, photographing a picket at Tesco Metro in Lower Regent Street, I would quite likely have been arrested for refusing to go into a pen when told to do so by a police officer if I hadn’t been able to show my card.

Picket against Tesco support for bio-fuels, London, Dec 8, 2007

Strangely enough, most of the times when I’ve really needed a press card have been at small events – like that picket – where the mainstream press aren’t interested and none of the photographers working for them cover.

I photograph them – as do others – because we think it important in terms of freedom of the individual, freedom of expression and a genuinely free press that such things should be recorded and published – even if only non-commercial media – such as Indymedia – are prepared to do so. Most of us also make some money out of such pictures through their use in small publications and as stock. Not a great deal, but with luck enough to make ends meet, at least along with the occasional more lucrative jobs.

Some news photographers are scheming to severely limit the issue of press cards, basically to guys like them working more or less full-time for the big newspapers. It is a change the police would welcome as making their job considerably easier, but which would severely curtail the wider freedom of the press.

Peter Marshall

Cruel Fur

Like many people, I thought fur was a thing of the past, remembering those old ladies who came to admire me in pram and pushchair, moth-bitten foxes around their necks, pungent with lavender and mothballs and worse. Later came the campaigns against fashion furs that meant that only the most thick-skinned of dumb animals would be seen alive in another’s coat because of the extreme cruelty across the whole industry.

It was this well-documented cruelty that led to the closure and banning of fur farms in the UK, but in other countries they remain alive and even more sick. I’m not a veggie but I am opposed to cruelty against animals (and wish that all farm production reached the standards of the best.)

So it disgusts me to hear that the big names in fashion and fashion shops are promoting the use of real fur trimming on their garments, and that these are on sale in shops in this country – and that it is perfectly legal to sell these cruelly-produced products. It’s a particularly stupid and callous trade, particularly stupid because in almost all ways the artificial alternatives look and perform better than animal skins. Anyone buying them is paying to wear a badge of cruelty.

Around 250 people joined a march on Saturday past some of the shops selling these tainted goods in Knightsbridge. The march paused briefly outside several shops before halting outside Harrods, apparently the only department store in the UK that still deals in furs, and where there is a regular picket every Saturday. After a brief address and many shouts of “Shame on Harrods”, there was a minute of silence before the march moved on, and I left them.

Outside Harrods in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge.

Surely it’s time the Government made time to ban this trade. It is one piece of legislation which would gain approval from the great majority of the British public and the kind of measure which would provide a sadly needed increase in their support.

Peter Marshall

Positive Lives

December 1 is World AIDS Day, with thousands of events taking place around the world to encourage leadership at all levels in the fight to get ahead of AIDS.

One of the major photographic projects about HIV/AIDS is Positive Lives, which includes the work of around 30 photographers with stories from around much of the world. One of those stories was by Stuart Freedman, and you can see more work from it on the Panos Pictures site (as well as some other fine essays by him.) Facing the Virus (click on the image there to see two pages of images) shows people in Rwanda working as a part of a programme with the government’s health authority and Concern, an Irish-registered worldwide charity facing up to the problems of living with HIV/AIDS.

Freedman’s work, which won him the prize for photojournalism at the 15th annual Amnesty International Media Awards in 2006, is one of many fine features on the Panos site by some of the best photojournalists currently working. You can also find work by this year’s winner, Andrew Testa, on the site, although his work, on Acid Attacks in Bangladesh, appeared in Foto 8, a magazine that has featured a great deal of fine photography and is currently relaunching.

Paris Strike – Manif, Walks, Party

My diary of pictures from Paris is now on line, on ‘My London Diary‘ and includes pictures from several walks around Paris – thanks to the transport strike there I walked everywhere.

I also got to photograph a ‘manif‘ by the transport workers – where I met a and photographed an angel, as well as some of the union leaders and others there.

There are also some pictures taken at an excellent party; the party was good, so I’ve no idea who took some of the pictures, though I do appear in them. I think we all had a good time.

To protect the guilty I deliberately haven’t included any names in the captions, though you might recognise some of us. The same is true of the photographers I’ve shown at Paris Photo.

Most of the pictures from Paris were taken on the Leica M8, a camera about which I still have mixed feelings. Working with it is almost like using a film Leica, but the shutter noise can be obtrusive. And there are still problems if you haven’t got the latest Leica lenses with 6 bit coding.

This would matter less if Leica actually made suitable lenses for use with this 1.3x camera, preferably by bringing out some relatively cheap 24mm, 21mm and wider optics (They have produced a 28mm f2.8, but I’d like wider.)

Voigtlander have the lenses (and I own several) but they don’t have the Leica coding. You can add this manually, but this doesn’t work with my 21mm as it has the incorrect lens adapter. The coding allows the camera to compensate for the lens vignetting – which when using the IR cut filter needed for decent colour gives your pictures cyan corners.

Mostly I worked with a Leica 35mm f1.4 (which Leica says won’t work with the camera) fitted with an IR cut filter and some appropriate black marks for 6 bit coding made with a genuine ‘Sharpie’ pen. This is fine, but basically a standard lens (1.3 x 35 = 45.5)

With the Voigtlander 21mm f4, every picture has to be run through software to remove the colour vignetting. It’s an extra chore and using PTCorrect as a Photoshop plugin doesn’t always do the job quite perfectly. I’m hoping I can do it better with CornerFix once I get to grips with it.

Leica could add a menu item as a firmware upgrade that allowed users to get suitable built-in support for non-coded lenses. It would make many users a lot happier with the camera.