Joseph Koudelka gives a winsome Martin Parr a pat on the back after the Paris portraits session

John Gladdy emerges from his Paris hotel executive suite, only to be met by the dreaded Burn paparazzi

 

Like most photographers, I have a bunch of ideas about half cooked….Only some very few of my many on going projects actually get finished…I write about finishing often on Burn because it is the one single element most holding most photographers back..They just do not finish..I have often described a one in ten “finish rate”, which sounds low, but might actually be high….In any case the above two pictures, along with hundreds of others will fit into my now 4th book in progress tentatively titled:   PHOTOGRAPHERS (I have known)..

You will have to use your imagination on the typography and layout, but you can probably imagine the scrapbook look that would contain all the pictures I have made of my colleagues over the last 40+ years. No not just now as in Paris with the Magnum crowd and a piece of the Burn crowd, but all the way back to my college days, newspaper days, NatGeo days and 15 yrs worth of Magnum days and from seminars and photo fests world wide and all of my students and on and on and on…

Yup, I have pictures of probably everyone reading this text right now…Right? Or pretty damned close to it. Everybody shoots these “extended family ” pictures , but I might just have been doing it longer and over a wider demographic of our photographic community than most…

This is not so unusual , for photographers seems to love taking pictures of each other. I saw it at Look3 and I see it at the Magnum meetings like the one we just had now in Paris.  Photographers will often say “don’t take my picture, I belong on the other side of the camera”,  then give a silly grin into the camera just like everyone else getting their picture made. C’mon let’s face it, we all like being in a “memory picture” …Not a good picture. Not an intentional picture. Just a snapshot for the memory book. Well, this memory book might just be a real book. So unselfconscious and so not “trying” that it might just have an authenticity to it that would give it some lasting value. A little piece of history. And of course I will sell a copy to all the photographers who are in the book! Hot sales figures right there. :)

Of course, the cynical response could be, and will be, “who cares about a bunch of pictures of photographers?”…. a fair question of course…Well, I would sure buy a copy if someone else did it..Assuming it was done in a really interesting way…Just a bit of text, a few identifying captions, and well ..done…

Above are just two of the many I took around the Magnum annual gathering of the tribe. The first is of an unusual moment when Martin Parr arrived at the HCB Foundation cocktail party after photographing dozens of Parisians who had been lined up around the block to have a Parr Portrait as part of a Paris office fundraiser. Who could be more different than Parr? Koudelka, that’s who…Yet this is classic..Two photographers who see the world so so differently, and who might disagree on some issues, yet blend in a family way in the long run of our cooperative..This is the extended family of photography that I have always seen since my youngest days. Here played out on the same time stage with a late night Burn crowd reunion in the room of John Gladdy who decided to show us work at 3:30am after a diet of champagne, red wine, and tequila…All of this is part of my photo mix. What I have seen since starting to shoot this sort of thing during my grad school days.

That old famous line “if you remember the 60’s you were not there” is pretty much true. Same for a lot of these gatherings. I sure would not remember 90% of the stuff I see in my contact sheets. So good thing I made a few snaps to trigger the memories. Good ones, great ones,  to be sure..

Next time you see me, smile..You just might end up in the book…

337 thoughts on “ahh, Paris in spring…”

  1. 4th book? Ehmm.. hopefully you just lost track of numbers and it’s the 5th.. ’cause I want the others before this! :)

  2. EVA..

    laughing..well, yes, i want the others before this too…RIO next…all i can think about actually..Family Drive not far behind, but way more complicated..i can do RIO now, or before end of year, and out with a book in spring…just need to shoot a few more weeks this fall (their spring)..PHOTOGRAPHERS will be very light of course…a fun thing, not a dah body of work thing….

  3. David…

    Yes.. RIO.. but also OBX.. I fell in love with that in Amsterdam..was very curious, could kinda figure out your Rio, but could not with OBX.. love it..

  4. Hey, I remember the 60’s. I was a kid, but I remember them. I remember when Woodstock happened the skies opened and it poured like it was never going to end, and I remember my mother blaming the rain on the moonrocks Apollo 11 had just brought back; apparently, NASA had disturbed the cosmic order of things and the monsoon that weekend was the result. Of course, you could just as easily argue that The Who and Sha Na Na had disturbed the cosmic order of things that weekend too, but they are not as interesting as moon rocks, although Moon Rocks in the movie.

  5. DAH,

    Had a very strange dream last night with you in it – probably best to not go into it in public! I will say that in it I left a bunch of Leica lenses and a flash on your kitchen counter during a raging bbq party. I hope they’re still there – I want them back!

    Best,

    CP

  6. PAUL
    Thanks for the link to the Paris photos….good stuff!

    Fun seeing the one that is obviously the shot you were taking while DAH took the photo in this thread…

    A second perfect weather day in a row, here….hard to stay inside and work.

    good light, all.
    a.

  7. a civilian-mass audience

    PARTYYYYYYYYYYYY

    here you are my BURNIANS…damnit…Paris…yeap,what not to love…

    AUDREY,HERVE…VIVA !!!

  8. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man makes photographs.

    Paul, thanks for the images! Have shared them on FB, hope that’s okay, just a link share. Would like to add them to my Flickr if that’s okay, with requisite crediting of you and linking to your blog and all. Get at me on that.

  9. a civilian-mass audience

    the above photos …priceless…

    history in my screen…right before my beautiful colorblind eyes…

    rock and roll…yeap,roll like a true BURNIAN…

    PARTYYYYYYYY!!!

  10. a civilian-mass audience

    “diet of champagne, red wine, and tequila…”

    where was I…whereeeeeeeeeeee?:))))))))))))))

  11. PRESTON..

    where in the world did you find THAT? 45 bucks for a picture of me with hair…hmmm, well yes , i will buy one, but who else would? who is selling these? who has permission? who took that picture and where did they get it? all rhetorical questions of course, but ???????

  12. a civilian-mass audience

    …but????:))))…no but’s here…
    this picture is priceless…hair and nose…all checked!…oime:)))

  13. Sidney Atkins

    DAH,

    Save your $45. You have far more character without the hair!

    PAUL,

    Many thanks for the Parisian photo gallery!
    Is that lovely lady with the old Olympus OM-4 by any chance Eva??

    AKAKY and DAH,

    Well, yes, there are a lot of people who actually were there who CLAIM they don’t remember the 60s… not only is it fashionable to do so, it’s supposed to absolve one of responsibility for the follies of youth, etc. and the embarassment of all those really mindless slogans and old song lyrics that once seemed so profound. I am one of those people who would just as soon forget a lot from those days… I always felt a great sympathetic parallel between veterans of the 60s and the veterans of the Napoleonic Wars in France after the Bourbon Restoration as depicted in so many of Balzac’s novels… we have to be a bit careful about calling attention to ourselves, the best stories are ones we can never tell except to each other.. and mainstream society would like to pretend it was all an aberration or a generational glitch. A hundred years from now, who knows? Just as an aside, you mention the Sha Na Na… I actually played a small role in the origins of that group, and two close college friends of mine were members of what became its commercially successful incarnation on TV, etc. But already I reveal too much of my past…

    For my money, the 70s were actually a far more interesting time personally. So much of what happened in the 60s was in the mass… mass movements, the Vietnam war, social upheavals, assasinations, the media circus, pop culture, the Cultural Revolution in the PRC, the worldwide youth rebellions of ’68, the first moon landing… just to be alive was to be invited to the party, to be part of the history. But in the 70s, things got wierder, more particularistic, more personal, more secretive… people pursued their own visions which led to very esoteric and private places deep in the woodwork, whose very magical and mind-blowing nature could not be shared on a mass level. I came of age in the 60s, but I became who I would be and am in the 70s..

    Maybe it was only a generational illusion… and maybe older people felt that way about the 50s, and the youngsters here feel that way about the 80s or the 90s…?? Interesting question to think about.

    Cheers,

  14. Sidney…

    Thanks. Oh I now wish I’d taken more photos, but I was just having such a good time, happy just being present.
    The lovely lady with the old Olympus OM-4 is is Sara, AKA as Framer’s Intent.

  15. Paul,

    Thank you very much for sharing your photos from the Magnum meet-up. I really enjoyed them!

  16. Funny thing about David’s photo I could of sworn I was using the wrist/hand strap on my camera. Always trying to be very careful about dropping cameras… just goes to show what a great time we were all having I relaxed on that little obsession!

  17. a civilian-mass audience

    YES,YES…we do have the most beautiful ladies…

    i am gonna toast tonight…to OUR BURNIAN LADIES…!!!
    damnit…I am a proud civilian…!

  18. OM2!!! It is an OM2! I don’t just hide my face with any old thing, you know. Tsk, tsk, tsk….

    And I have a satchel full of b&w film waiting to be developed. But it might have to wait until after my next London trip in a couple of days – just checked my bank (im)balance and I don’t think I can afford it until I return.

  19. PRESTON..

    man, i do not know how you find this stuff…i am vaguely now realizing that this is the company that i had to force to stop selling this stuff..i cannot remember how they got some of these stock images , mot of which i cannot even remember taking..no doubt i did on one assignment or another, but never selected…i do love love love those fish pics though!! :) i did manage to shut down the American version of this, but i see the Chinese selling many..and do you think i will benefit from these sales? of course not, and just another case of pure theft…and no way to stop it…

  20. Hi, David. If you google yourself and then hit images you will see the one of you with hair — that will lead you to the two sites illegally selling your images. Weird that they are peddling your landscapes and not your more recognizable work. Or maybe that’s the game.

  21. Sidney Atkins

    大卫 艾伦 哈维
    Da-wei Ai-lun Ha-wei (with tones: Da4-wei4 Ai4-lun2 Ha1-wei2)
    Big Defence… Mugwort Ethics… Exclaim Support!

    Preston… thanks for the link!

  22. PRESTON…

    that is the game..they know you do not care enough to really pursue it…besides, landscapes and fish heads and flying birds probably sell more in the textbook stock trade than the iconic images anyway..this is stock photography pure and simple…i googled my name once several years ago, and i got so freaked out that i decided never to do it again…and i have not, and i will not…

  23. You know that still small voice? Mine has long and oft said I should be working on a lifetime of photographs of other photographers, as well as painters and writers. I keep thinking it will happen organically, but maybe I should pursue it actively. Remember ‘The Irascibles’ – or the company kept in Paris by Hemingway like Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Ezra Pound, Picasso, Miro…I feel as if I should be photographing tomorrow’s equivalents today. I guess it is possible to make a reasonable guess at who those people might be, but maybe I should I just start photographing all of you :)

  24. ERICA…

    yes, i have wondered that too…and i have followed a few artists seriously, like Andrew Wyeth and family…but the work i mention here is just serendipitous and not “well shot”…lazy ..just take a picture…yet, there are some gems in there…but i worry if i now start “trying” it will change the look, the style…interestingly some of the pics of photographers are also pictures for other projects..for example i have a couple of good PHOTOGRAPHERS(i have known) pictures in the RIO work upcoming…many saw them at Look3…but you are the penultimate gatherer of stuff…so help me keep track of my life will you please? thanks…

    cheers, david

  25. “Of course, the cynical response could be, and will be, “who cares about a bunch of pictures of photographers?”…”. ……people associated and in the know, for others well the meaning is not there.
    Other than that I am not big on extended or family shots,I have sisters and friends who love taking those shots.I used to take cameras when I went out socially but they either stayed in the car or a bag that carried around and put in a corner. Now I don’t bother
    ………..I haven’t even picked up a camera to shoot for a few months even though I teach photography, then my role is to mentor and teach not to shoot photos

    …………………………………………….but each to their own needs.

  26. IMANTS

    of course…you and i take different paths…cool….as you say , each to their own needs…i have no idea why i snapped so many “diary” photos…kinda weird i guess, but i have always just played with the camera when i was just supposed to be “off”…i am never off…think i just like life a bit more intense when i am freezing it or viewing it, or literally living it through a damned view finder..sounds even a bit daft to me….

    i have no idea what a shrink would think of that..escapism? voyeurism? fetish tendencies? who knows? for sure i am a bit odd to say the least, but i do not care…nor do you…that’s enough to have in common right there mate….

    anyway, today lining up some stuff for spring in Sydney…Burn show, my show,workshop, talk, the whole bit…you would certainly be a part of any educational gig i did if you would be so kind…and part of the Burn exhibit as well if you so choose and i hope you do…

    no done deals…no promises..but things moving that way….

    cheers, david

  27. Speaking of “pictures”… I’d be interested to know the number of images people here keep as a first edit while shooting a long term project. Do you edit really hard immediately? Edit a bit loosely and let the images sit a while? Thanks :-)

  28. David I am happy to help out in any form….. I will skype soon been busy doing house selling etc
    yup, literally living it through a damned view finder…sounds daft to me as well but then I am not a shrink….

    …………maybe Ross is really a shrink mainly because he asks questions like “I’d be interested to know the number of images people here keep as a first edit while shooting a long term project.” all these stats he chases from us…………. grin

  29. Imants; I probably phrased that all wrong. No strict stats; just an idea whether people edit hard or loosely when shooting something long term. :-)

  30. To answer your question ……..organised chaos and “I just know” this image is a keeper that’s why I am tossing it out works well for me then I have no first edit

  31. I’d be interested to know the number of images people here keep as a first edit while shooting a long term project.

    42.

    Ooops, sorry, that’s the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Nothing to do with photo editing. Move along…

  32. Is there any way to just hang out in New York with some of you and show you my book edit? I have been eyeing some book project workshops and they run at around $1750 for 6 days. . . I would rather put up images on a magnetic wall, share some beer and get feedback.

    Thanks.

    Davin

  33. DAH

    ‘I sure would not remember 90% of the stuff I see in my contact sheets. So good thing I made a few snaps to trigger the memories.’

    well that’s just it isn’t it? memory triggers… catching some essence of an experience to remember it by…
    i know for me it is.

    my camera is my memory recorder. i don’t mean like every snap of anything & everything, but those times when the instinct perks up, the radar of the soul or whatever you might call it, tunes in and starts flashing and you gotta catch it… the poetry of life… turn it into a picture…

    i mean, when we try to remember a special situation/moment/encounter, how much of it, over time, do we actually retain?? as the days turn to months, hours shrink to just a few moments in the mind, snapshots in the memory… HOWEVER if i can catch it’s essence, or something of it in a photo, it’s like the photo becomes a trigger for a whole bunch or memories (otherwise lost in the subconscious), the circumstance that surrounded that moment all come flooding back… i suppose that’s part of the addiction…

  34. On my latest project, I’ve been keeping more images than I would if it wasn’t long term – some are notes to myself about things I’m looking for and I expect to replace them with better frames later on. But it is alaso early days for me, and I am new to photography still, so don’t take my words as gospel advice – I’m learning as I go. And I’m wondering how I’ll manage the organisation of files as this project grows, too.

    I much prefer to use work prints, but even do that is questionable here. Between thee quantity of images and the fact that I’m spending every penny I have to go and make the work, matters like ordering work prints to make work easier take a back seat. Hell, even stuff like wanting a wider lens for some of the images is out of the question at this stage. Affording it means not being there. The 50mm feels tight, especially in some of the indoor spaces, but going wider means no images at all, so I deal with it and do the best I can with what I’ve got.

    I’ll probably get more critical as I start to focus more on what is important and see past the extraneous. But right now, it is a new world for me and I’m just trying ti understand it. I feel editing too tightly at this stage would go against that.

    Don’t know if this even makes sense as an explanation. I’m just trying to do what feels right.

  35. David.. all…

    So taking today’s twitter about making ‘photography too hard vs. too easy’.. and adding this bit from under Gilden’s essay, written by DAH:

    “another way of looking at it , is that it is not want you did not do , or did not get, but what you did do and did get…you have proven that it is best to forget what did not work..”

    How do you do that.. easy vs. hard and knowing of all the missed shots, which are burned in your brain but you didn’t get? Just move on?.. I mean, I can foul YOU, but I cannot fool ME.. I know they were there, but I just was (mostly) too slow to get it.. or does that happen only to me?

  36. I wish I had that lens or that camera…I wish I was in so and so place…and life goes by and your photography never photographed anything of your life, there was always an excuse or distraction to stop you from living/documenting your life, those and that round you…
    That Twitter post should be tattooed on every newcomer to photography and painted on all cameras.

  37. Imants.. could do.. still remains the fact that I know.. and counting what I got wouldn’t make me lazy?.. and therefore make me go backward instead of forward.. whatever forward is of course.. and IF I understood you correctly, which I’m not always sure of..

  38. Counting is a lazy form of living, most people count forwards so regression is not a problem ……….. but clicking a shutter should never be an obsession just a experience like counting kookaburras.

  39. Eva,

    DAH also said (somewhere) that the shots are where you are, nowhere else. Following on from that logic, the frames only exist if you make them. Otherwise, they are just moments. All that matters is now. I loved being in Paris and trying to speak poor French last week, partly because it was one of the few times I could only speak in the present tense, only speak in or of the now.

    Great pictures are made when everything comes together perfectly at the same time. If you don’t press the shutter at the right time, it isn’t a great picture at all – not everything came together. That’s all it is. Just another almost-picture, but never a picture without your shutter firing.

    Don’t stress on it, just get back in the moment and know that you’ll end up in another moment where everything does come together. That’s inevitable if you’re open to it.

    Mind you, I say all this as someone who has been making pictures with a camera for less than a year. You may want to ignore everything that I say. I have no accolades to add weight to my name. And I don’t even use my name to post here. That thing is so light right now, it could straight float away if I did. I can’t even say that I’d miss it.

  40. Eva – is there anywhere I can see some of your work? I just realised I’ve never seen any of it (I don’t think) and, since we met up, I’d really like to see your images. Thanks.

  41. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/dominique_strausskahn/index.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

    Geez…..
    It was all a set up!!!!???!!!
    No rape, no nothing..all bullshit ,
    just enough to lose his reputation and the French elections…
    (for some , the only IMF guy that was “relatively” Greek “friendly”…

    “Politics, lies and whores”
    They tried to “get him” Clinton style, but it wasn’t possible coz Europeans are way more liberal and advanced comparing with the super religious bible belt American puplic, therefore a FAKE RAPE ALLEGATION was necessary ..
    “cheating” with a whore was NOT enough..
    So his enemies chose to pull the “RAPE card”…
    They new that sooner or later the LIES would be uncovered but they didn’t worry about much coz in politics it’s all about TIMING and once he lost reputation, lost elections and that’s all they need..
    Yea yea he is innocent but but they managed to shut him down for good!
    Elections lost… Hmmmmm!!!

  42. “An economist and politician, Mr. Strauss-Kahn used the European debt crisis to seize, somewhat audaciously, a new and prominent role for the I.M.F. Trying to shed its old image as a hidebound policy task master, the fund sought to refashion itself as the investment bank of multilateral institutions — doing whatever it takes to get the deal done.

    Mr. Strauss-Kahn was a leading member of France’s Socialist Party when he was chosen by the newly elected Mr. Sarkozy, a conservative, to be the head of the fund, a job that has traditionally been given to a European.”

    It all make sense now.. He wanted to reform
    IMF and bring new changes but status quo SAID NO

  43. Panos… careful, I got sh*t on here for doubting the timing of it all a while back, not ditching the consipiracy theory right away.. ;)

  44. Imants.. no Kookaburras over here that I know of.. so it actually could become an obsession trying to cound them..

    vilksatkalsmird, seems some kind of lil birds..

    Framers.. none of it online at the moment.. you write “Just another almost-picture, but never a picture without your shutter firing”.. yes, exactly, and firing the shutter is only my own responsibility, while the other elements coming together are not mine, none of my merit..

  45. Vilk, a kookaburra is a South American donkey suffering from a mental disease brought on by red-tailed flies laying their eggs in the donkey’s nasal passages. The larvae dig their way into the donkey’s brain and cause all sorts of damage, among which is the sort of birdcallish sound that gives the donkeys suffering from this malady their name.

  46. Eva – true, it is your responsibility, but I meant don’t beat yourself up over it. Just let it go and get back in the now. Otherwise you’ll just miss other moments while you’re thinking about the one that got away. Life’s way too short for having regrets unless they are really very serious. How many pictures are so serious and important that the world couldn’t exist without them? I’d say none at all, and that’s the beauty of photography and all art – it isn’t necessary, but we love it and do it anyway. That’s pure.

    Anyway, I’m rambling.

  47. “Yup, I have pictures of probably everyone reading this text right now…Right?”

    AKAKY: Does he have your picture?

    AKAKY IRL: No. He might have a picture of your eye, though.

    AKAKY: Why would he have a picture of my eye?

    AKAKY IRL: Beats the hell out of me, guy. You and those Burn people make absolutely no sense to me. As for the eye thing, maybe he doesn’t want to look at the rest of your mug. I know I don’t.

    AKAKY: Thanks loads.

    AKAKY IRL: Don’t mention it.

  48. Eva…smiling…!
    im lost too..i dont know what to believe anymore…it doesnt really matter that much…
    again ALL do not forget to watch the docu “INSIDE JOB” describing how the global financial meltdown was orchestrated (if not orchestrated at least how it “evolved” and who started it..etc)

  49. i heard this once in jamaica,
    ‘dem be politricks mon………’
    and ever since then,
    i have always said,
    poliTRICKS……
    :)

    thanks for the photos Paul… really enjoyed them and the mood…….. **

  50. Framers.. not worried, not beating myself up, just wondering, and only wondering when I have no camera in my hands.. when I take pics I don’t think, that’s the beauty of it, just being and no thinking.

    I don’t care about the world or others either that could see or not my pics, that’s another of the beautiful things for me, just taking pics for myself.. BUT I still want them to be as good as possible, MY possible, not anyone elses.. so pushing even knowing I might never get there.. :)

  51. Yea, well, I those who automatically assumed an alleged rape victim was lying deserved shit. Same as those who assumed that a prominent politician wasn’t being set up deserved shit. Same as those who jump to conclusions based on little or no evidence generally deserve shit.

    This case in particular is shit all around.

  52. EVA

    that is i am afraid perhaps a cultural thing you should lose…worrying about “missed shots”..hmmm, that could make you crazy….what is a missed shot anyway? whatever they are, do not worry for one nanosecond about them….there is no such thing….only think about what you are doing, not what you are not doing…what is happening is what is happening..there is nothing else…otherwise while i am typing this sentence i am “missing shots”…the shots will be there when i get there…now, yes you do have to get out of bed, so i am exaggerating a wee bit….but please please remember the picture is there when you are in the mood to make it…only worry about getting in the mood…THAT is the key…the only key….being somewhere as in “place” is way way secondary to being in the right frame of mind…the only place to BE

    this is actually something you already know from life in general..but many forget about it with their photography…

    cheers, david

  53. According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

    That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

  54. DAH….its the documentary that “stole” the Oscar from Restrepo…
    i was upset when Tim “missed” the Oscar award but but but…after i saw this docu (INSIDE JOB),
    I LOST my mind (in a very good way)..All those missing links i couldnt see…My gut was TELLING IT LIKE IT IS but. but…i couldnt prove it!…
    plz do NOT miss this docu….
    You’ll get serious evidence about “who, when, why”…how they destroyed (Iceland first) and the Southern Europe (as we speak)…In the meantime people get destroyed, homeless, stolen dignity, tear gassed…its like a holocaust nightmare once again…
    In the meantime some people (mostly in this continent i have to admit) still think its all “shit”, conspiracy theories, something we shouldnt investigate or talk about..
    (i know this mentality so well…as long as my home is paid, my gas guzzler has new custom wheels…i dont give a damn about my neighbor that now lives in a tent with his 3 kids after his house been foreclosed..ha ha..i WIN he LOST right?)
    why he lost????? oh, he was either LAZY or GAY or who knows , maybe greek too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

  55. (EVA, thank you for this blog / link)

    “Strauss Khan is the new favourite for the race for the Élysée Palace. The accusations against him, as reported by the New York Times, seem to be completely without foundation. If there was a relationship with the chambermaid at the Sofitel Hotel in New York, it seems to have been completely consensual. And what’s more, it has been verified that the lady in question has told loads of lies about her past life, as has been found in the investigations. The woman, after making the accusations against Strauss Khan, had a discussion on the telephone with a former prisoner, from whom she received 100,000 dollars in the last few years. They talked about the opportunity to denounce the former president of the IMF.

  56. The forthcoming freeing of DSK also comes, strangely enough, two days after the approval by the Greek parliament of the draconian measures to avoid the default that will strangle the next two generations, but that saves the French banks that are in possession of a mountain of Greek State bonds. The day of his arrest, that happened with the maximum of publicity in the world, almost as though he were a newbie Josef Mengele DSK was due to deal with the crisis in Greece in a meeting with Angela Merkel. Athens considered the former head of the IMF as a precious ally to get out of the crisis.

    Athens considered the former head of the IMF as a precious ally to get out of the crisis.

    Athens considered the former head of the IMF as a precious ally to get out of the crisis.

    Athens considered the former head of the IMF as a precious ally to get out of the crisis.

    http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2011/07/strauss_khan_and_the_knights_m.html

    EVA , AGAIN , BIG THANK YOU….
    (TOO MANY many many “coincidences” to just ignore them)

  57. On 29 May, Putin raised serious doubts about Strauss Khan’s guilt, concealing an international plot. Putin, speaking with all his experience at the top of the KGB said: “It’s difficult for me to evaluate the various underlying political reasons and I don’t want to directly enter the affair, but I cannot believe that everything is as it seems and as it has been presented.

    It doesn’t convince me.”

    It doesn’t convince me.”

    It doesn’t convince me.”

  58. The collapse of the charges against Strauss Khan has come two days after the appointment of Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF with the whole
    fanfare from Sarkozy who has succeeded in his aim of placing his favourite Minister of the Economy in the post left vacant by his erstwhile nemesis.

    his erstwhile nemesis.

    his erstwhile nemesis.

    his erstwhile nemesis.

  59. For Hell’s sake, David – don’t finish this book before you meet me. I want a shot at being in there, too! I doubt anything will top the picture of John and Paul. It’s good to see these people whose thoughts and names I read all the time take on visual shape.

  60. David…

    Cultural thing? Now that’s something to think about.. missed shots, I see them in my contact sheets.. it’s not that I go mad about it, just wonder how much is lazyness on my part and how much inability.. and if it is inability wondering if I’ll eventually get there.. or if this is something that will always be there.. or if it’s just in my mind..

    Living the now, yes, and be aware of it, yes, normally I don’t have problems with that.. soaking it up and getting filled with it.. and Paul has a point: take the trash out..

    Thank you, Paul, and Framers too.. for the insight and the time you all take..

  61. That should read: thanks both, David and Paul, and Framers too.. and IMANTS as well..

  62. Well I’m not too mad on self help books and films laughing and I’ve read an seen most if them, but the ‘Peaceful Warrior’ film is especially good and full of good ideas. I can’t recomend the book it really gets a little absurd half way through, supposedly was one of the first self help books of it’s kind from the late 60’s and apparently it’s a true story with a little extra fiction.

  63. a civilian-mass audience

    BURNIANS…wherever you are in the Universe…
    take action…
    do something…I don’t know what it might work in your country
    BUT do something,anything…better than nothing…
    you don’t want to end up like my country…
    looking for heroes…

    cause when one country is looking for heroes…then, this country is already fucked up…
    take ACTION…Action-reaction…

    I am out fighting…you all keep BURNING…I follow you:)))

    P.S ADMIN,ALL…excuse my language…I am in a survival mode…

  64. a civilian-mass audience

    PANOS…tell it like it is…
    the chemicals,teargas…most of them expired…
    damnit …and all these years…I worried about pesticides

    BUT I have good news…my chickens are rocking…eggs,many eggs…I am blessed:)))

    VIVA…I LOVE YOU ALLL…keep shooting

    P.S…MR.HARVEY…I smile all the time…just in case:))))))))))))))

  65. marcin luczkowski

    WTF?
    110 comments?
    This post is 2 days old? And I didn’t see it? Something wrong is with my head…. or my eyes.

  66. DAVID/ALL: :)))

    first of all, sorry for the silence….it’s been an intense 2 weeks…no time to write….anyway, i just wrote 3 long posts, so i don’t have much energy here…so just a quick hug

    first, David:

    :))))))…love the nose bandaid….:)))…and the book idea sounds cool…BUT ONLY IF you publish You Left Me first…if that book doesn’t get published, i’m going to ride your ass forever,…and i know you don’t like when i do that! ;)))))…..John vink has made a great series of shooting photogrpahers (unknown) shooting people…great stuff…my friend anya chibisova (you might have met her at one of your parties at kibbutz) has done a cool series on artists too…i’ll find you the link later….so, anyway…so so happy you had fun in paris…i’m jealous :))))…looks even more fun than in toronto ;))))

    john g: :)))…you look so so so gentle and loving dude…i’m never going to fall for one of your angry posts again ;))))))…can’t wait to drink with you…

    sarah :)))))))…love your smile, love the pics….love the burn ;))))

    paul :)))))))))))))))))…pics just made me hungry and thirsty…so so happyyou made it….see, i told you david is the real deal and cool as shit: just a great guy…but do not take lessons from in on following women subtly ;)))….the glass door thing….

    preston! :))))))))))))))…fuck, that is a beautiful picture of david…i mean, was that the cover of Tiger Beat magazine?….

    DAVID :))))…listen, a friend in china, famous chinese photographer, once told me you haven’t made it until a website tries to rip off your images….so YOU’VE MADE IT AMIGO!….now, who the fuck would buy those pics from the killing grounds of cambodia….damn…..

    anyway, what i have loved love best about burn is actually meeting people here in person…in nyc, in toronto, in montreal, in the south…i consider some of the burn people real and deep friends….(david, marc, lance, panos, anton, velibor, erica, mike b, james dilano, katherine hesse, etc etc)….that’s it….what is special is that i love meetin burn people…just last week, i invited jeff h (a great great guy) to dom nahr’s private projection (one of the best guys on the planet)…that’s it…

    life…lving…sharing….

    still waiting to meet/drink 7-up with my dad akaky

    running
    love
    bob

  67. Thanks for the replies to my question. I was just interested in what works for different people. The farm story I’m shooting will go for 12-months; shooting about 3 days per week. At the moment I’m editing pretty loosely (about 150 images over 3-months shooting) I have my favourites; but think I’ll “sit on them” a bit just to see how everything evolves.

    This is the first story where I’ve been able to do so much day to day shooting (on one story; at one location) over a long period of time; rather than snippets here and there over time.

    Again; thanks! :-)

  68. OK, I get that the rape case against Strauss Khan looks very weak. But some of the reports in the media make it sound like he’s a saint, now they’re talking about him as the presidential candidate. Wait, isn’t he married? There is no doubt that he had sex with the maid, he himself said so, stating it was consensual. So even if he didn’t rape her, he’s not exactly a role model. Or am I missing something??

  69. PANOS – Putin is an interesting character and hard to define or reduce. That’s all I’ll say there…as ex-politico, I have lines I cannot cross, but let it be said that Putin is much more complex than western journos usually allow…

    EVA/DAH/ALL
    Just got in. Past 4am. Went to penultimate night of a bar in town before it closes. Long history there. Famous actors, the theatre bar. I know the owner of 40 yrs very well, Paddy. We plan a Petersen-style exhib of my random photos there for when he opens the next place – small cheap 5×7 prints and whoever recognises themselves can keep the print kinda thing. Nothing major, no big edit, just a little fun. Just giving back to my fam. My friends are my fam and I love them dearly. That’s all it is. Takes a lot for me to call someone a friend. But, when I do, I mean that I love them as such. Anyway, I have over 800 frames from tonight. I travel tomorrow AM. And I desperately need seep. Do I edit them now or sleep it off and do them later? After I go to London for a week? Stay tuned… ;-P

  70. BOB BLACK – “sarah” ?!? was that to me? I am Sara. If so, we cool, smiles back. If someone else, ignore this, we still cool. :-D

    DAH – that book on photographers. If you don;t include me, it will either be a massive mistake or extremely fitting. It is up to you to decide which. Same goes for everyone else. OOHHH, I’m in tautologous mode or mood tonight…hahaha, that’s also fitting.

    FRAMERS – go edit them fucking photos already!! Or at least sleep!!! You need one, or either, or both. My dear…*cigarette loosely dangling from uberlong fingers and gesturing gently while this is being uttered*

    Train. 9am. Must. Not Forget. 4 hours from now. Damn.

  71. a civilian-mass audience

    FRAMERS…800 frames…wow,you need to rest this finger…:)))
    I can have my rooster…give u a wake up call;)

    book on photographers?:)…damnit…am I out again?:)))))))))))))

    Smile my BURNIANS,smile…partyyyyyyyyyy

  72. CIVI
    I love you, as a friend you have my love. Yes, 800 odd frames. 800-odd and 800, odd frames. ;-P I took word from my boy Richard Kalvar who said he shot 1000 a day in Italy. Big props to my occasional guides on this solitary path. (I think it worked out okay…let me know)

  73. Framers…

    My humble opinion is you should not show your work everytime you come back from a shoot. This is meant to be an essay if you show all everytime people will lose interest. I understand your enthusiasm but show it privately for advice but not so publicly and till it’s finished.

  74. watched Inside Job last night… it should be watched back-to-back with The Corporation… a bottle of Jack or similar is recommended… also, lock away any razor blades and the like beforehand…

  75. Paul, it wasn’t so much an essay as a diary piece, same as your Paris pictures. The Everyman is a pretty crucial spot in the history of Liverpool cultural life, and it closes later today. I won’t be there, I’ll be travelling back to London for my Russia project, but I was there last night. No waiting around on this, it’s now or never.

  76. Framers…

    I thought it was work from your Russian project, that’s why wrote my comment. I agree with Imants N12.

  77. Meh, I am inept and hit submit at the wrong time.

    But, yup, I’m not showing everything I shoot every time I shoot, this was just a farewell to a great place and deserved to be shared while still fresh and before it closes forever later tonight. Like a mixtape thing, not an album thing, you dig? Anyway, not really sure I get the criticism of timing – I’d probably pick the same images if I went through it again a year from now. The processing could be slicker, but that misses the point of the place entirely. It’s raw, improvised theatre, not airbrushed billboards of movie stars. If you don’t like the pictures, don’t like them and say so, that’s easy to do. But criticising the timing for putting them in a few low-key public spaces is a bit like saying to a writer that their poems would be so much stronger if only they took the time to type them out. I’m not really into slow turnarounds and sitting on images if those images are just the fun images, the images you do to remember being there. This one needed to get to the wire fast.

    Trust, my current project, my Russians thing, that isn’t public anywhere. Just sitting with a few people who I know can give useful feedback to me. The Russian project is a different beast though; that’s more of a novel while this is more a poem written on a napkin for the sake of Audenesque homage in honour of a place known and loved.

    Imants – yeah, I like the hands, too. Shooting in those weird lights was fun and hard, timing it was such an effort, so I’m pleased with it given the circumstances though I’d be looking to shoot it much better tonight were I there. The thing was supposed to feel a bit raw and improvised and freestyled overall, a bit loose. Not so sure about my self-portrait, but positive I should have been in it somehow and that was the only one I took. Silly of me, really. Hope it at least made you smile and made you think of some good times and the good places they happened in – that’s all it was for.

  78. Ross…

    about editing long term projects.. so far this year I’m adding 3, perhaps 4 pics to the lot of around 50 pics I have.. feels like I’m moving in circles, I guess that happens when you’re way into the project, at first everything is new, then the digging starts..

    To have 12 months and being able to shoot every week sounds like heaven though.. must find myself something like that too, not event related.. :)

  79. By the way, although not (as far as I know) in the BG of any shots I made last night, the owner of this bar Paddy bought and displayed the work of local photographers to support them back in the 80s and 90s, including Tom Wood and Peter Hagerty (founder of Open Eye Gallery), when they were broke and it made a big difference. They hang in the bar to this day (but not tomorrow!). He really supports photographers, and has always been good support for me and my work. Same thing with some painters and sketch artists. They had a DJ and live music from the local scene all week long (most of it I missed for being in London working my project). And the theatre is famous for bringing out guys like Pete Postlethwaite and David Morrissey. Morrissey worked the bar here for 2 years and came through the youth theatre. The bar bought the theatre out and kept it running when it nearly went bankrupt.

    All of Liverpool creative life over the last 40 years has some kind of link with this place. It’s that kind of special. Getting precious about my reputation and not putting these out there would be a pretty douche move, imo. And I try to be a strong person, and I suspect my photography will flow from that so, sometimes, I just have to follow my heart and do something without thinking through the minutiae of exactly how this might affect my reputation with some random picture editor who reads this site or my twitter stream.

    These images were just a tiny little thank you note for doing all of that for Liverpool creative life over 40 years. It was my way of writing in the memory books they had up around the place this week. And I wouldn’t judge a novelist by what they put in a guestbook.

  80. About the Strauss-Kahn thing, from everything I’ve read, it appears that no new evidence has appeared to exonerate him, only that his accuser may have been less than truthful about her illegal drug-related history and that it may have occurred to her after the (alleged) incident to sue the rich guy that (allegedly) raped her. Unfortunately, for a violent rapist to be successfully prosecuted, particularly a very wealthy one, his victim must have led the life of a saint, never have had even a parking ticket, never having had sex outside of a marriage, and never having enjoyed it even in one.

    I have no idea what the truth is in this case but there are many truths that have or may be revealed, all of them very ugly. Probably the most important one is that in pretty much any scenario it will prove to be a major setback for rape victims who already have enough trouble getting justice.

    If the woman lied about the whole thing, then a prominent example like that would harm the believability of others, at least in the minds of too many.

    If he is guilty and gets away with it because the woman has a less than virginal background, that will further empower other such violent rapists.

    If it’s the result of espionage by the French, or any other government, then it’s a horrendous crime, not just in the big picture monetary policy or Greek crisis aspect which would be more than horrendous enough, but also for the way it would further erode the possibility of justice for victims of violent rape.

    No matter the outcome, it’s yet another monumental failure of journalists. From the public conviction without a trial and being sentenced to the nickname “Le Perv” to the fluff pieces on the saintliness of the alleged victim, which were either monumentally incompetent on the part of the journalists or a fantastic success for some scam artists or intelligence agency, our top journalists have once again failed us. Unfortunately, all too many of us are just eager tools for achieving other people’s agendas.

  81. MW…
    being a rape victim is definitely NOT a “good thing”…
    but,,but,,but ..u gotta realize that being unfairly ACCUSED as a rapist is also a NOT “good thing” either…imho

  82. remember even back in ancient athens , that was the same accusation that “killed”/executed SOCRATES…
    child molestation / youth corruption accusations…
    there two ways usually to destroy a political figure or PUBLIC figure…either with IRS/taxes or MORAL (rape/sodomy etc) accusations…
    that “moral card” has been pulled numerous times in history..

  83. My kids and I have just finished enjoying a lovely afternoon destroying 82 rolls of 120 BW film which was full of blah, blah, blah. A marvelous feeling, it’s taken a big weight of my shoulders and now looking forward to perhaps create this year something with a little more meaning or authentic :)!

  84. Yes Panos, of course you’re right. I mentioned that aspect but concentrated more on the victim aspect since it’s pretty certain that far more rapists get away with it than are wrongfully prosecuted, but your point remains valid. And I can relate personally as well. One summer when I was in college, a guy that looked like me and drove a car like mine was attacking women about 20 miles from where I lived. Fortunately, I was working at a place with a lot of security and it was easy to prove my whereabouts when the attacks occurred. But had that not been the case, it might have meant big trouble. I saw the police sketch and the description of the car and even I would have thought it was me.

    But my point remains that the DSK case is a disaster pretty much however it turns out. I simply can’t imagine a good outcome from anyone’s point of view, except perhaps some banksters and their political toadies.

  85. mw,

    (DSK) what is most new and unsettling is that as facts came out finally (one can hope), her reaction to her rape, or “rape”, was that after the encounter, she went to tidy up a room, then went back to DSK’s room to fix it as well (with a torn shoulder ligament?!?), this contradicting her first statement that she hid prostrated in a corner of the 28th floor.

    The problem is not to discuss the powerness of powerful, crookedness of powerless (one must be fair), and vice versa, or that women have a hard times getting justice after a rape, that’s quite OK, the problem is to do it only because the medias tell us when to talk about it, as it sells ads and copies. So, it has more to do with people being Pavlov’s sheeps glued to a screen showing images, and poked around to regurgitate the same “copy and paste” opinions as the last time the subject came around, than tackling a societal ill.. IMO.

  86. the problem is to do it only because the medias tell us when to talk about it, as it sells ads and copies. So, it has more to do with people being Pavlov’s sheeps glued to a screen showing images, and poked around to regurgitate the same “copy and paste” opinions as the last time the subject came around, than tackling a societal ill..

    yep.

  87. Didn’t want to further sully Bill Frakes great feature but I’m really surprised at the reaction by a few that the well established great photographers don’t belong on Burn, as if having emerging work posted alongside iconic is some kind of a bad thing. Weird, the logic completely escapes me. I mean, if your work was hanging in a group show in a gallery, would you walk up to an Erwitt and smash it on the floor, tell him he didn’t belong because he was too well know (good) and then throw a drink in the host’s face? Very strange. I just want to see great work from as many corners as possible, I want to be inspired, I could care less of what “station” the creator belongs. In the same way, I look at work lying honest in an open palm, not with a knife drawn ready to slice apart all the motives, full of self-righteous judgement, to unleash the sum of all my frustrations at not being the person I wanted to be upon the hapless soul who simply opened his palm like a child sharing his prize marbles, or perhaps a hamster, and who said, look.

  88. Some make photography too hard.Some make too easy

    Speaking of too easy… I think I’ve previously mentioned my fascination with dappled light? Today was a great day for it. I hurt my knee about a month ago and have mostly been homebound since. It’s been horrible. I feel like I’ve gained ten pounds and have been going stir crazy. Today was the first day I’ve been able to get out and walk a couple miles without pain. So I get outside and it’s a bright summer day, harsh sun coming in low, glare everywhere, one of my favorite light situations, so I get it in my head to do a dappled light exercise, it’s been a long time, and I’ve got a trip coming up to continue work on my Rurality project, and I’ve arranged a little side assignment with an interesting magazine I like, and if I’m going to spend my time practicing something, I should be practicing strobe work since that’s what I’m gonna need in Rurality, but that’s hard and dappled light is easy so what the hell,I say, go for it, a dappled light exercise is not really serious work anymore since I pretty much know what I’m doing, but I enjoy it, so why not?

    Anyway, if you like nature photos, or pictures of Brooklyn, you may enjoy this… Or maybe not?

  89. Well written Tom!
    Even if the ratio of emerging versus established photographers was round 5 to 1 favouring those emerging, Burn would still be totally unique in giving chances to those who are beginning.
    When one is beginning, what greater privilege can there be than being featured in the same magazine as some of the greatest…

  90. EVA,

    yeah, Google+ is a new social network. So, whoever wants to connect with me, here I am –
    https://plus.google.com/101376771695635608240

    if you are not yet there and I had your gmail address, I could send out invites, however it seems they are having capacity issues at the moment, you may face a delay in receiving and entering…

    However, at the moment I would prefer Facebook.

    For invites my gmail address is thomas dot bregulla at gmail dot com

  91. First, iPad matters: Just got one. I went searching for a good book of photographs to view on the iPad and couldn’t find one. Anyone know where I can?

    Of course, the iPad is also a camera, so today I made my blog post completely from iPad pics, if anyone wants to check it out:

    http://wasillaalaskaby300.squarespace.com/journal/2011/7/3/ipadding-it-with-jobe-kalib-margie-chicago-jim-and-pistol.html

    Second – thanks for the link, Jim. Enjoyed it, although I think I would have enjoyed it more with the music.

    Thomas – I almost joined you there and don’t take offense that I didn’t. I feel trapped by Facebook, which wastes altogether too much time but yet I feel I must keep a presence and it does connect me with people who I otherwise would be completely out of touch with and it helps me get photo ids and quotes to use in spreads.

    I just can’t add another time devouring social network to it.

  92. Frostfrog, first one I got for my Ipad was Capitolio from the App Store. Great photos, and a video interview with Christopher Anderson.

  93. Thomas… That’s one of the best things about all his comics, the roll-over text. Adds another dimension. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve spent more than one evening, bottle of wine nearby, just clicking “random” over and over. Very funny stuff. :^}

  94. What is “about 3 minutes” anyway? Will 1 minutes 30 seconds do? Or must I wait for at least 1 minutes 47 seconds to be “about 3 minutes”?!? I am sitting here late. After a long day. A day in which I fed the fish. I am house sitting for a friend, which is not only convenient but also affords me the luxury of undertaking my work as starving artist while enjoying the luxury of pretending to be vaguely upper middle class and Guardian reading. By house sitting, I mean that they have entrusted me not to fuck things up. Normally, this is hard. Particularly, this is very hard when throw in confusing factors such living things. Like plants. Or fish. The plants I have so far tended to well. The basil even got a necessary pruning earlier.

    But I turned up to feed the fish and I wondered – had they been fed today? Should I just wait until tomorrow and then start feeding them? I figured it poor etiquette to house sit and kill the fish, but death by starvation and death by overfeeding are two diametrically opposed events, you understand. Which way was I to go? I fed them half. That seemed best.

    That was yesterday. Today I returned “home” to wonder why said fish were swimming rather lazily. I could not comprehend their malaise. And then it dawned on me. Maybe they needed food. And then it dawned on me. I had not turned the pump back on.

    Apparently, I must turn the pump off before feeding them, and then back on “about 3 minutes” afterwards. Suffice it to say that, having navigated the tricky waters (no pun) of half-feeding the fish on my first day, not knowing if they had been fed that day or not, I then took so much pride in my high dive logic that I overlooked the basic things. Like turning the pump back on.

    Now the fish need food. For today. But if I do that, I can’t turn the pump back on for another 3 minutes. And then I might forget. This is always plausible, and especially so considering it happened yesterday. But I have no idea what could happen if I turn the pump back on too early after feeding. I was expressely told not to. Maybe the fishes will explode. Or being singing Douglas Adams tribute songs. I have no idea. I have never owned fish (other than for breakfast). So I feed said fishes. And now I wait. For the 3 minutes of not-forgetting-to-turn-the-pump-back-on-and-thus-being-a-fish-murderer. The fact that the fishes are tiny does not assuage my existential attempted fish murdering guilt any. The boy who signed the note leaving me these instructions is also tiny. And if his fishes die, he will cry (no rhyme intended, although reason both heavily intended and justified). This is one of many reasons why I should never be allowed to have children. Or be allowed to house sit ever where plants or small fishes are involved. Especially not when housesitting involves both plants and small fishes, and also small children depending on my plant and fish feeding abilities.

    They did seem to, um, perk up a little when food was dispensed. The fishes, that is. Not the small child. Or the plants. I hope they haven’t died yet. Has it been 3 minutes already?

  95. “but i worry if i now start “trying” it will change the look, the style…” I think whatever compendium of photogs you give us, however you give it – will be a special valuable insight that only you could have given. So pls do…

    “but you are the penultimate gatherer of stuff…so help me keep track of my life will you please? thanks…” Not of regular stuff really, except photobooks and, uh, German composition stick legged nativity animals from the 1940s and before :) but of virtual stuff and ideas and endeavors for sure…With your wide reach and ever-new birthing of all amazing, DAH, I think you’d make anyone dizzy. As I keep saying, you are most welcome to put me on some little task; you know in all seriousness I am here if the need arises.

  96. a civilian-mass audience

    TO ALL MY PEOPLE in the United States…
    The Fourth of July
    The Glorious Fourth
    The Fourth…Viva!!!

    Independence Day…wow,this is my day too…
    THIS IS the Independence Day…
    “…from this time forward forever more…”

    thank you…I am the happiest civilian in the Universe…

  97. BILL…Frostfrog..

    My husband got one (iPad), which I fill with all kind of stuff..

    Look for “Via PanAm” by Kadir van Louhizen, he’s into his journey from Chile to Alaska.. maybe you can even hook up when he’s there? You can follow him along the way, he’s updating the app every so often with photographs, text and/or video..

  98. Eva … thank you. I will look him up – both on the iPad, and, if the timing and his route proves feasible, in Alaska as well.

    Civi – Thank you for that. I will take a picture tomorrow, just for you. I will put it on my blog the next and say, this is for a civilian-mass audience.

    Framers Intent – I sit here surrounded by fish and I someone is mixed up. To my right sits a 90 gallon tank, my left a 55 and behind me a 29, all populated by tropical fish, tiny ones in the small tank bigger ones in the others, some that I have had for ten years. I never turn the pumps off. Occassionally, I have had a pump die for who knows how long before I discovered it, but the the fish didn’t die.

    When I was a kid, my mother would not let me have fish, as badly as I wanted them. I think that is why I have so many today. But, when I was in the first or second grade, the kid who lived across the street, the son of a preacher who worked as a chaplain in the state mental institution, went on vacation and left his two goldfish in my charge.

    As I was changing the water in the bathroom sink, one slipped out and went down the drain. Fortunately, the jewelry catcher caught the fish and stopped it from disappearing. Unfortunately, I used a fork to pull the fish out and despite the gentle skill with which I applied that fork, it skewered the poor fish and it died.

    We could have put him on the grill, but he was kind of small for that.

    My friend was very disappointed, but we remained friends for as long as we lived in the same town, which wasn’t much longer.

  99. BILL/FROSTFROG,

    regarding iPad Apps – there is the World Press Photo Awards App, which is a pure iPad App,
    and the 3/11 Project (pictures from Japan), Magnum/Reporters san Frontieres, and M.I.L.K (Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship, which run on the iPhone, too.
    I have no iPad, so I don’t know how they render on the iPad.
    Furthermore is the LIFE app and Agence Vu, which also show photos.

    Regarding Google Plus – never mind, actually I would not join, too – but I also need to know about it for professional reasons, we always take a look into social media to understand its use in customer services.

    MICHAEL,
    that is a good idea, I will take some time and read through the other comics. :)

  100. a civilian-mass audience

    FROSTY…this is THE story…you are next to AKAKY,BOBBY,MIKER…next to all my academians

    “When I was a kid, my mother would not let me have fish, as badly as I wanted them. I think that is why I have so many today. But, when I was in the first or second grade, the kid who lived across the street, the son of a preacher who worked as a chaplain in the state mental institution, went on vacation and left his two goldfish in my charge.

    As I was changing the water in the bathroom sink, one slipped out and went down the drain. Fortunately, the jewelry catcher caught the fish and stopped it from disappearing. Unfortunately, I used a fork to pull the fish out and despite the gentle skill with which I applied that fork, it skewered the poor fish and it died.

    We could have put him on the grill, but he was kind of small for that…”

    photo only for me…?…oime…ANTON’S book from EVA,photo from FROSTY…thousands of messages for
    support from ALL OF YOU…I am in tears,nice tears…

    one I have to say…no,no two I have to say:
    civilian’s house is always open with ouzo and chickens
    thank you and I LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL…!!!

    humbly
    your civi

    P.S…I would have grilled it:)

  101. NYT today

    “There was shock in France after the arrest of Mr. Strauss-Kahn in May and intense criticism of the manner in which he was displayed in handcuffs, pulled unshaven into a televised court session and stuffed into a Rikers Island cell under suicide watch. There was confusion and criticism over the glee with which the New York tabloids in particular highlighted every humiliation and turned to clichés about the French — “Chez Perv” and “Frog Legs It” — in the coverage. And there was a sense that it was not just Mr. Strauss-Kahn who was being so jauntily humiliated, but France itself.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world/europe/04france.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22

  102. FROSTFROG

    just opened pack with your cd…sorry this has taken forever, but have had no time…within next two days or so, i should be able to have a look….thanks for your patience….Happy 4th

  103. Panos, America a dangerous country? For what it’s worth I have no burning desire to visit the U.S.A. – or rather no desire to jump through the Department of Homeland Security hoops just to get past the border. This may be irrational on my part and based, perhaps, on hearsay, but my biometric data is my own and I’d like to keep it that way.

    Tour de France? I love it! For me the participants are the supreme athletes: to race the way they do in a single day and then to get up next morning and do it again, and again… The mountain stages are the best for me and each year I make a mental note to go and photograph a stage in the mountains next year. And then I forget.

    Mike.

  104. “Now this feeling is reinforced — that the United States is not a fully civilized country with a police that behaves like that, that wants to humiliate,” he continued. “There is a sense that it’s a dangerous country.”

    Well, duh.

    Continuing in that vein, here’s my annual Fourth of July essay. I always try to capture the spirit of the holiday, but don’t think I was entirely successful this year. But hopefully it might give non-Americans some sense of what the festivities are all about. And I got such an early start, maybe I’ll do another one later today.

  105. Can’t recall if this has been posted here but, recalling the criticism sometimes leveled at the
    artist’s statements accompanying essays here, though it was appropriate.

  106. “There is a sense in Europe that you can’t be fully civilized with the death penalty,” he said. “Now this feeling is reinforced — that the United States is not a fully civilized country with a police that behaves like that, that wants to humiliate,” he continued. “There is a sense that it’s a dangerous country.”

    Hmmm… tell that to a woman I know who was gang raped by Italian policemen. I’m certainly not proud of our police (we have a big police brutality problem here in Seattle so much so that the dept of Justice is investigating) but I don’t think many other countries, including France, can really call themselves innocents.

  107. Jim & ALL do NOT go away…
    (im linking a Texas link (GAY PRIDE in Texas and my theories of what LIFE is all about…)
    give couple minutes to link with picasa)
    ;)

  108. Happy July Fourth!

    It was shaping up to be great weekend: went kayaking and fishing with my daughter on Saturday. Yesterday, went to my wife’s parents to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary, drank some beer, and set off fireworks (Michael K., my daughter did supervise :-) Got home last night about 10:45pm, to find that someone had thrown a brick through a window in my backdoor and let themselves in. Apparently, my home security system (one basset hound and one Yorkie) scared them away pretty quickly because NOTHING was taken. Final score: Canines-1, Burglars-0. The worst thing was that my daughter was afraid to stay in her own house, and spent the night with her grandparents. Could have been much worse; now, to actually record serial numbers of all electronics and guitars – like I’ve been meaning to do for years.

    Speaking of police, I have nothing but good things to say about Officer Baugh from Somerset’s finest. Response time of about 2 minutes after my call, went with me all through the house and outside grounds to assure that nothing was taken, and made sure that there was nothing else that he could do (except catch the bad guys) before he left.

  109. Justin…wow…geez…good end at least…yes there are some good cops too,

    … and also some good bank employees too..
    congrats to Citibank and its employees for having such a strong presence in the Gay Pride Parade in Texas two nights ago!

  110. Justin…
    Sorry to hear the bad news. Anyway thank god for dogs always so loyal. Good to hear that a basset hound and a little yorkie are good enough to keep scum away. I hope my guitars and cameras are just as safe with a chihuahua and a pitbull; pitbulls are well known bodyguards but not very good ‘house guards’.

  111. @ PANOS: Nice parade, nice pictures. Don’t understand why life is to drive a Lexus???!?!??!

    @ JOHN: Wow, that was the real Tour de France!
    Since money went straight up to the brain of sponsor and cyclists, nowadays I’ll call it: Le Tour des drogués de France”…

    @ANTON: Like the picture with all those books in the car. Mines is there?
    Can’t write a comment, ’cause you didn’t accept me as a FB “friend” :-(. (laughing)

    P.

  112. Thanks, Panos & Paul.

    Panos – Loved the slideshow! I enjoyed the “life is…” intro photos much more that the parade photos themselves :-)

    Paul – Our neighbors have a sweet pitbull, who is very friendly. Sometimes, he tries to get a little TOO friendly – if you catch my drift :-)

  113. Nice series,Panos.

    #6 is THE one for me,followed,in order, by #1, #3, and, for the day, #30.

    Didn’t notice too many cowboys though :) You sure you were in Texas

  114. Patricio:
    Don’t understand why life is to drive a Lexus???!?!??!
    ————-
    a joke…of course;)

    Michael K,,..awesome..i always wanted to do that “made in china” photo..damn it..too late now!:)

  115. Paul – Excellent point. I talked her this morning, and she sounded much better. Of course, daytime at the grandparents is much better than nighttime at your home that has been broken into.

    Going today to the hardware store to get a long-overdue motion detector light for the house exterior and an additional lock for the back door (placed in a location not easily accessible through a broken window). Then, I guess it’s quotes on a home security system this week. I do feel some guilt that I have not made things safer for my family. Admittedly, living in small town with a low amount of crime has led to me being a bit complacent…

  116. a civilian-mass audience

    geez…rocking links…

    let me tell you “what life is…”
    check this out…

  117. a civilian-mass audience

    hiii…I got you,don’t I?:)))))))

    no links from me…I am the real link

    rock on my BURNIANS…rock on…

    4th …What not to fourth !!!

    raki and mythos beer on me…can you hear me IMF…
    the PARTYYYYYYY is on me
    VIVAAAAAAAAA !!!

    P.S…please,don’t drink, don’t shoot and don’t check BURN …while you are driving…
    PARTYYYYYYYYYY

  118. yeah Thomas gracias!… i can stuck in the dark side for days but i cant resist the any opportunity for a positive message …
    why really a straight individual could give a dime for a Gay Pride Parade????
    hmmm…its about EQUAL RIGHTS…acceptance etc…evolution..basic things that the World hasnt yet achieved etc..
    anyway we are the “yet” generation!

  119. CIVI…

    driving up North.. get the chicken the swimwests and sunglasses out, lightning like crazy and pouring cats and dogs!

  120. a civilian-mass audience

    PANOS…can you tell TOOMER to come over…I will be in the square
    NEVER GIVE UP…oime

    EVA,VIVA…raining??? …raining???
    be safe
    I am running back to my chickens…’
    I trust you…oime…

    POMARA…BBQ on you…oime

    BURNIANS…without YOU and your vision,your blah,blah and your spirit…
    ok,got to go
    I am missing many,many beloved friends…KATIE,DAVIDB,MYGRACIE,SPACECOWBOY,REIMAR,HAIK,LASSAL..
    ok…
    I LOVE ALL OF YOU…each on of you = SPECIAL
    MR.HARVEY …aha, blah,blah:)

  121. a civilian-mass audience

    I had beans today…hmmm…I feel like 4th…
    my belly full of fireworks
    IMANTS..can’t stay silent
    damnit…I am ready to EXPLODE…
    I will be back…

    BURN CREW…thank you

  122. I’m doing the late-night-polite I’m just going to be very quiet rather than the thing mouthy opinionated git routine.

    Latter is possibly kind of sort of more appropriate. But I am far too tired,a nd feel if I must say something egregious, I should at least then stand around long enough to become belligerent or at least bellicose. Any less, and I’m ust throwing words like knives…

  123. typos. I blame those entirely on the iPhone. I swear. Nothing to do with Tanqueray. See, it isn’t even like like I can spell the word. iPhone and mild dyslexia, that’s all it is….

    typos.
    typical.
    typosical.
    yeah, that.

  124. typothetical dilemman – when I buzz you asking you to meet me in a London bar for drinks. and I do it in dingbats font.if helvetica, it means I am vaguely sober still.

  125. a civilian-mass audience

    FRAMERS…you too dyslexic? mild:)…welcome home my LADY…
    to the land of the free
    to the land of the “WE”
    BURNLAND

    where we share them all…and we BURN them ALL…!!!

    P.S…easy with the liver;)

  126. Anton…
    In the past month or so I’ve added Capitolio, one of Anders Petersens books, Alex Webb’s latest, DAH’s Living Colour and your Yakuza to my photography book collection and I can’t honestly choose which is my favourite. I find myself looking through Yakuza just as much as Capitolio or any of the previously mentioned. I think that is no mean feat on your behalf for a first book as an emerging photographer! So as far as I’m concerned Yakuza is up with the greats. Your book is the perfect example where the physical beauty is always above anything on a screen.
    Oh and BTW Yakuza is head and shoulders above those already mentioned when it comes printing, design and the whole experience as an object book wise.
    So congratulations ! :)

  127. PAUL,

    Thanks… completely honored by you saying this… I mean this project is my very first step (after “Sugar”), and I’ve tried to combine all my experience from different places together, to bring this to be a decent book… and at the same time I feel like I’ve so much to learn on all fronts, especially photography, it’s like I’ve only just begun… wait a minute… i actually have only just begun! So much more to do… so exciting

    ps great meeting in paris!

    cheers, a

  128. Anton…
    Yes Paris was great! I can honestly say without any exageration I’ve either ”Seen the light” or I’m a different person photography wise. There is no magic wand at Magnum offices or in DAH’s backpack or in John Gladdy’s raincoat but something clicked in my mind, sipping lovely champaigne whilst listening to John Gladdy’s wise words. All I know is all my truth, my voice was right in front of my nose and of course I couldn’t see it. Eva can testify I’ve been searching and racking my brains looking for something interesting to begin an essay, at least since I started commenting on Burn. I’m now happily juggling away shooting, thinking and working on 3 ideas very happily. Just taking day by day not putting myself under too much pressure and listening to my voice.

  129. PANOS:
    Thanks a lot for the link about the documentary “Inside Job” and the other one: Debtocracy.
    I’ve seen both in a row yesterday night.
    Cant’ believe that the same polititians/economists that made the crisis are hired months later by Obama administration… got some flashback to the George Orwell book “Animal Farm”, because that’s the real truth(unfortunately) and to another book “The Prince” from Machiavello.
    The fact is that the last book was written in… 1519, and in 2011, same things happens!!
    Too long to discuss here and, not the aim of burn either.

    Patricio
    PS: At the beginning of “Debtocracy” from 06:43min till 07.50 min someone speaks and his name is David Harvey. Smiling alone in front of the movie.

  130. Paul, “Just taking day by day not putting myself under too much pressure and listening to my voice.” good to hear – nice site too.

    Mike.

  131. Mike R…
    Thanks! Did you manage how to figure out how to make Lightroom all white? I think I read somewhere it can all be customised.

  132. Paul, Lightroom allows the user to change the background colour that outlines the selected photograph (in Preferences (background)) but this just changes the small area around the photo – leaving the two data panels dark grey. I personally prefer almost-white as it seems to separate the photograph from its surroundings, just like a white mount does for a print. In Aperture I can use Preferences to select the viewer and browser brightness – I have set both to “75”. This stops any white edges in a photograph from blending into the surround but still gives a bright, airy feel to the viewing experience.

    I’m going to follow Anton’s advice and try RPP.

    Cheers,

    Mike.

  133. RPP is strange – seems potentially really very good, but it doesn’t seem to let me view the changes I’m making until after I hit “apply” which is making it a nightmare to work with. And I haven’t even got as far as making it a Lightroom plug in yet…

    But it seems like it could be fantastic once I figure these things out.

  134. RE: RPP, two pieces of advice: 1. forget the sliders, use the keyboard. 2. Pay the suggested fee so you can set defaults and copy/paste settings. No three pieces of advice… 3. damn, I forgot three.

  135. Sara Raw Photo Plug In in PS is my favorite way to do things! It does let u PREVIEW all changes if I clicked on the preview little square… Unless I’m misunderstanding your question completely :)
    Big hug

    Patricio yes.. Yes .. There is another “David Harvey” in the docu “DEBTOCRACY”.. Thanks for watching ..
    I hope more folks could watch it especially here in the States before we so easily judge or send another child/soldier to afghanistan

  136. Framers, yes, RPP is totally different to the usual photo management/development applications; I’d never heard of it until Anton mentioned it here. No sliders, no real-time update of the photo, no clue of how to proceed. Pretty daunting – but it is non-destructive so no worries there. The downloadable info looks like it has been made in iWeb and RPP is a free download or “make a donation”: totally opposite the usual “pay for a license”.

    Of course, being different does not make it bad: indeed the people involved seem to be very knowledgable. I would like to see a video tutorial that demonstrates a step by step workflow using the product. If they had just charged me £200 for a license I’d probably feel much better about using it (laughing).

  137. Okay, 3. I guess, what’s good about it. Very good for getting detail in blacks without blowing out highlights. That’s why I started using it. Have one project for which I care deeply about the details in black. Quit it several times due to what seemed like steep learning curve and slow, pain-in-the-ass workflow but now think nothing of it. Depends on what you’re after though. For me it’s all about control, the closer to total, the better.

  138. Mike R, Sara…hmmm you guys obviously are NOT referring to Photoshop Raw Plug In right?
    coz there is a “preview” button to click and see all changes…
    Either way, once you shoot DNG then u always have the “original” un harmed (again, sorry if u guys talking about another program etc..too early for tech talk for me;)
    big hug

  139. Panos…

    So that’s how you do it :)))!
    I’ve been wondering many times how you managed to keep those blacks so open with detail and still have pretty strong saturation and contrast!!
    It’s funny and very interesting how we all approach are images – I always need big fat blacks without detail, suppose that comes from using good old Velvia.

  140. a civilian-mass audience

    “Human beings will continue to deceive and overpower one another. Basically, everyone exists in the very nature of suffering, so to abuse or mistreat each other is futile. The foundation of all spiritual practice is love. That you practice this well is my only request.”
    who else… Dalai Lama

    back to our regular program…

    “I AM FREE”
    who else…civi:)))

  141. WHAT THE FRICKIN’ HELL?!!!!!!! I WAS AT THE TOP OF BURN WORLD FOR HOWEVER LONG I WAS AT THE TOP OF BURN WORLD AND NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL ME? I’M GONE FOR A WEEKEND AND STUFF HAPPENS AND NOBODY SAYS, “JEEZ, MAYBE WE OUGHT TO TELL AKAKY ABOUT THIS; HE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN SOMETHING LIKE THIS!” WHAT THE FLYING JESUS H. CHRIST IS GOING ON HERE???!!!

    AKAKY IRL: It’s because they hate you.

    AKAKY: No they don’t. You’re being silly.

    AKAKY IRL: Dude, I am never silly. Ever.

    AKAKY: True enough, I guess. You always were a regular hard ass.

    AKAKY IRL: Thank you. I try. And they do hate you. Otherwise they would have told you, right?

    AKAKY: I suppose so.

    AKAKY IRL: There’s no supposing involved, bubba. They hate you.

    AKAKY: But why would they hate me? I’ve done nothing to any of them, I think.

    AKAKY IRL: Maybe they’re relatives.

    AKAKY: Hardly likely.

    AKAKY IRL: You never know, guy, not with the crew of cretins you’re related to.

    AKAKY: Still not very likely.

    AKAKY IRL: Or maybe they’re Democrats.

    AKAKY: I hadn’t thought of that.

    AKAKY IRL: Think of it, guy. It’s a definite possibility. Democrats don’t like to be told that the only way they’re getting your flush toilet is by prying it off your dead backside. They like to ease their way into things, like the way they’re replacing regular light bulbs with those annoying dim green thingees. I think it’s time for you started your own lobbying group, dude, something like the National Rifle Association, only with toilets. Modern plumbing is a right worth defending, like thirty minute pizza delivery or free Internet porn. It’s something to look into.

    AKAKY: Internet porn? I don’t think so, pal; that’s a quick way to lose my job.

    AKAKY IRL: You really are pathetic, aren’t you? Your friends should hate you. You’re eminently hateable.

    AKAKY: Thanks. I’ll say something nice about you some day.

    AKAKY: Don’t bother, bubba. I’d probably wind up hating myself.

  142. I used to use just phtoshop..then i thought i should experiment..so i tried for a while to do everything on capture One, then i got the very first aperture for a while (slow for back then, im sure its faster nowadays), then i got Lightroom (easy-smart PS version), then i forgot about all that and 360 full circle i eventually returned back to where i started: to the classic photoshop (Raw plug in) and nothing else!

  143. I dont see why teaching an old dog new tricks!;)
    i need to shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot more..thats all i care about…i wish i could afford someone to deal with all that, workflow, storage computer balloni..i just want to shoot dang it!

  144. Panos…

    You got it at last night’s dinner!!
    Bull’s eye, brilliant stuff.
    Very dreaming, with your typical “bite” and as usual as free as ever and extremely inspired.
    My favs are 1, 3 is a killer!, 7 lovely, and 11.

  145. Paul,
    there is always a particular time of the day that the light is just perfect..All i “have” to do is go against it!..and all of a sudden im not bored anymore! thats what i like about photography!

  146. Another i recently learned , Paul,
    is that if the light is not that good where u standing, then move around a bit (and especially , try to go “against” it;)

  147. Panos…

    I know what you mean!
    Paris taught me to break every rule I knew if it was necessary to express myself. Because our truths are so subjective… why worry? If we don’t follow our truth our work won’t be credible and if we do follow our truth there’s a chance we may for a little while let our souls take a break…

  148. Paris taught me to break every rule
    ————————–
    :)))))))))))
    totally agree although remember: regarding “going against the light” is not necessarily a broken law…
    Again, and i only speak for myself ,is that all im trying to do is to not get bored!
    :)

  149. Panos…

    I’m off to dinner…
    Went on Sunday and shot some landscape stuff, finding it hard to make images without people within the frame. Used to be completely the opposite in the old days….
    I don’t know if it works or not and I don’t know if it should be in BW or colour and you and everybody else can tell me if it’s crap or not, because that is always very useful to me, no point living a lie :)
    I’m also not very comfy with this image…

    http://adesirecalledcamera.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/1192/

  150. Panos…

    by breaking rules I meant steps we usually hesitate to take because we are perhaps out of our “comfy zone”.

  151. a civilian-mass audience

    and yes,yes…BURN is the best place to be…
    and THANK YOU MR.HARVEY,just thank you
    and
    I have to say Thank you to OUR FROSTFROG…MR.BILL who is “fighting” up there in Wasilla
    http://wasillaalaskaby300.squarespace.com/

    I am honored…I feel like AKAKYIRL…I hate myself
    cause I can’t write what my soul wants to express…
    oh,well,this I have to say…
    I have an amazing BURNING family…
    I am the happiest civilian in the Universe…

    Your civi

  152. a civilian-mass audience

    EVA…are you there,yet?

    raining here…can’t protest but saved chickens.
    your address,please…your attention needed in the e-mail area..

    Grazie

  153. MIKE R – Indeed, it does look very good, even from the brief and completely failed experiment I had with it. Just not seeing the changes as I went was very daunting and also not fitting with my “I need it now!!!” attitude at the time I tried it out the other day.

    But I hoe to sit down with it and carve out some time to really getting to grips with it, as it does look extremely powerful once you understand how it works and how to make it do what you want it to do. I’m really looking forward to crawling up that learning curve a little. ;-)

    PANOS – yeah, not PS Raw plug in, but a software Anton linked to the other day. Looks godd, and it’s free/donation which is extremely cool for figuring out if there’s a hole in your workflow for it or not. Definitely a cool one.

  154. Thanks, Thomas.

    DAH – Still no hurry. This summer is crazy busy for me – sadly, though, except for daily blog stuff, I am not doing that much shooting. Instead, I am pretty much staying inside producing work done in the dark days of winter. Everything is backward of what it ought to be.

    Going on a little shoot later this week, though.

    Thanks for the words, Civi. You are right. It may not appear that way, but it is a constant fight. Constant! Anywhere, I guess. Must be the nature of life.

  155. Civi – I’m not quite sure how it happens, but every now and then I go through the process of approving comments only to discover later that somehow, they are not up and I must go back and approve them again. That happened today with your two comments, but they are up now.

    So is the picture I originally shot for you (part 3) but, according to your wish, wound up shooting for everybody, on behalf of you and me.

    http://wasillaalaskaby300.squarespace.com/journal/category/civilian-july-4-photo-search

  156. @ PETE:
    Absolutely great. Even a monkey can do that! and the monkey is taking its own selfportrait looking forward to submit here on burn… on even to apply for the Driver License.
    Wonder what Nick Nichols from the Geographic would think about that kind of images…jaja.

    Hilarious!
    Thanks fro sharing.

    Patricio

  157. ”1955. I cross the states. For a year. 500 rolls of film. I go into post offices, woolworths, 10 cent shops, bus stations. I sleep in cheap hotels. Around 7 in the morning I go to a nearby bar. I work all the time. I don’t speak much. I try not to be seen. One day in Arkansas the police stop me.
    What are you doing here?
    I have a Guggenheim Scholarship.
    Who’s Guggenheim?
    I spent three days in prison. Anguish…”

    Robert Frank 1991

  158. no time to write, but my friend Zhe-Zhe has picked up another major award! :)))))))

    for those who didn’t dig or get her series when it was chosen as a EPF finalist, here is another great award:

    she’s big news in china, had no idea she was known well here until i saw her under efp…but this has been a pretty big here for her….China Award, EPF, Arles, and now Ingge MOrath….

    big congrats Zhe-Zhe!…more later

    http://www.ingemorath.org/index.php/2011/07/2011-inge-morath-award-announced/

  159. Bob, great news. I loved “Bees.” That was the only one that really moved me. Nothing to do with the content… I was moved by the sheer artistry of the storytelling, color and compositions.

  160. Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser is from Guinea, also the home country of Amadou Diallo, the street peddler who was shot to death in the doorway of his Bronx apartment building by four New York City police officers in 1999. Guineans leave their country in large numbers, partly because of grinding poverty; 70 percent live on less than $1.25 a day , despite the fact that Guinea has almost half of the world’s bauxite (from which aluminum is made), as well as iron, gold, uranium, diamonds and offshore oil.

    The same leaders whose theft and mismanagement have kept so many Guineans poor in the decades since independence from France, in 1958, have also been ferociously violent, massacring as many as 186 unarmed demonstrators calling for democratic reforms in 2007, and at least 157 demanding the same in 2009. After the latter massacre, members of the state security forces gang-raped dozens of women to punish them for protesting and to terrorize men and women into silence.

    While the American government condemned the massacres, the bauxite kept shipping, supplying Americans with aluminum cookware and automobile parts. That’s no surprise; the biggest mining companies doing business in Guinea are based in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.

    People fleeing state-sponsored violence and extreme poverty will do anything to leave. I receive requests every few weeks to write expert-witness affidavits for West African asylum claimants. As a personal matter of conscience, I will not write in support of an applicant whose testimony I believe contains inconsistencies.

    Yet asylum claimants are often asked to perform an impossible task. They must prove they have been subject to the most crushing forms of oppression and violence — for this, bodies bearing the scars of past torture are a boon — while demonstrating their potential to become hard-working and well-adjusted citizens.

    This is where the lies and embellishments creep into some asylum seekers’ narratives. Immigrants share tips and hunches about ways to outwit the system, even as immigration judges try to discover the claimants’ latest ruses. But I can say from experience that for every undeserving claimant who receives asylum, several deserving ones are turned down. So few Africans gain access to green cards through legal channels that the United States government grants about 25,000 spots annually to Africans selected at random through the diversity visa lottery.

  161. That was John Vink?!? I’m not very good at recognising famous photo people, but I have a book with some wonderful and inspiring early Vink pictures in it.

    *waves* Hi John Vink, sorry I didn’t say to you at the time. I am just really very inept. And I prefer the pictures by you than of you. I pay more attention to the former.

  162. “That was John Vink?!? I’m not very good at recognising famous photo people”

    Don’t worry. Sat and talked to Chris Morris for about 45 minutes and never realized who he was.

  163. “That was John Vink?!? I’m not very good at recognising famous photo people”
    ——————————————–
    he he…no worries,…i had dinner with Al Gore’s (ex “almost” president) wife once and i was informed after the dinner party who she really was…:))))))))

  164. Short interview with Phillip Toledano: Make Stuff that Matters – http://bit.ly/mJhxFW

    “I wish I knew where the ideas came from. I wish I could go to a store and I could just browse the shelves for ideas. It would certainly be much less terrifying, because not knowing where they come from is frightening. I always think maybe I’ll never have anymore ideas ever again.”

  165. BRIAN FRANK – you mean Chris Morris of Brasseye fame? If so, I am insanely jealous of you! If not, then may I ask just this – is there some famous photo dude called Chris Morris who I am supposed to know?!? *runs off to check google and pretend like I’m not such a n00b (or whatever slick new term has overtaken said reference for the experientially challenged)*

    JUSTIN SMITH – Thanks! I too rather like my “Paul and random possibly Magnum dude” pic (I am not kidding – it was titled something like that…).

    PAUL – you’re famous! I recognise you on the street (and also know your name). That’s more than can be said for numerous other people… (in moments like this, I do wonder how I ever passed my Logic 101 paper back in schoo)

  166. MW :))

    yes, Zhe’s ‘bees’ was also my favorite as well…and ironically, the essay i wrote the least on…tried not to give away my profound affection for it and her….and it was tough, because i really enjoyed the EPF finalists and was thrilled for Irina’s work as win, just as i was thrilled about Laura and daria…and of course for the others…but for me, as a ‘documentary’ photographer who has tried to break boundaries for a long time, it is Zhe’s work that spoke the most to me…and work that only increases in its intensity and beauty over time…and she’s young and smart and wonderful…and quiet…so happy for her…and actually ‘shocked’ too :)))…shocked in a good way…it’s nice to see the IM award go to a person who is pushing boundaries on what is ‘social documentary’ work…and self-exploration…so happy…

    and have more good news/awards to share about Marina (big news) and me (semi-big news), but that must wait til later…much later….

    running :))

  167. Sara: John V and Paul: 2 very very handsome men!…lovely photo :)))…and yes, i was referring toyou later, i liked your Paris/burn pics…and you have a lovely smile indeed :)))

    John V: you look like you’re going for the Belgium Deep-thought pose? ;))))))))….you always that way outside of PP? :)))))))))))

  168. a civilian-mass audience

    FROSTFROG…on behalf of US…we love you!!!

    VIVEK…our chocolate BURNIAN:)

    PANOS…tour de France…hmmm…is MR.HARVEY running too?:)

    BOBBY…yes,yes,Viva ZHE-ZHE!

    CARLO…welcome!

    SAMMY…credit where credit is due!

    FRAMERS…photo of MR.VINK and PAUL?…where? hmmm…I see a glass of wine and beer…hmmm:)))))

    BURNIANS…I am missing many of you…please report to aisle ahhhhhh…

  169. a civilian-mass audience

    “When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.”

    I love the BURNIAN with the pink scarf…he is confident !

    thanks and welcome back MR.HARVEY !:)

  170. David, my favourite Magnum meeting photograph is the one where everyone covers their eyes. I had that photo at work on an intro to a talk by someone from Magnum U.K. (many years ago). Left the work, never got to empty my desk but still have the photo in The Magnum Story book.

    To everyone who has ordered Anton’s book and is still awaiting its arrival: you are in for a treat – it even smells BOOK! When you open the package you will know what I mean. Nice introduction to Anton’s book, David. Your words are obviously considered and thoughtful and present the experience just right. To anyone still considering buying the book, order it now! It really is very special; unlike any other book that I have bought: it feels more like a gift.

    Mike.

  171. DAVID :))))

    anderson and chien-chi…too fucking hilarious! :))))))))))))))))))…

    and i will forever quote Rene at BURN from now on: ‘who the hell is in charge here?!?!’ ;)))))

    and btw, rene has to always be the best dressed Magnum member….i mean pink scarf/pink pin-point shirt: rules! :))))

    running
    b

  172. BOB BLACK

    i agree that Zhe is simply a remarkable photographer..or, at least Bees an amazing essay….i was so pleased she won the Inge Morath award…it seems that many either really really like her work or just do not get it…the response from readers here was tepid at best and the EPF jury did not pay too much attention to her…yet , i am with you, she is one to watch…i am very interested to see what she will do next…

    Rene is best dressed older EUROPEAN photographer…..you know damned well Soth could not do that for example..

    cheers, david

  173. david :))

    zHE-ZHE is remarkable…all her work…and i had to be careful, because i wanted to write a novel after her epf submission, but decided to keep a simple (and i hope) beautiful comment…she’s also an interesting young woman and deeply thoughtful…we talk almost everyday and i’m so pleased…i’ve introduced her to one of my friends, the extraordinary canadian photographer Jack Burnam…anyway…i was really really pleased about IM Award…she IS one to keep watch…she’s on her way back to china…

    But SOTH does wear a baseball cap like noone else! ;))))…his sartorial dress is brilliant, mid-western americana…just as noone quite wears glasses on the top of the head as gracefully as Harvey…not even Gilden l;))

    gotta fly…:))
    bob

  174. Looking back at the comments on “Bees” I see that I didn’t express what I felt about it. I remember meaning to, but never quite got up for it. That, and got sidetracked by one of Jim’s more unfortunate comments. Pity, cause that essay exemplifies everything I revere in a photo essay. Sophisticated narrative and use of color – both in its own right and in service of the narrative – excellent composition, compelling story and an overall aura of originality.

  175. BOB…

    i have never met Zhe….please give her my regards

    you may remember in Toronto, i actually had to wear Gilden’s glasses..loaned to me in mid presentation!

    MW..

    your review now is right on

  176. DAVID :))

    i will say hi….she adores you :)))….she’s off on a road trip through america and then to china…

    MW :)))

    EXACTLY! :)))

  177. This is just question out of pure curiosity and I don’t think I have any intention of trying it out in the near future…

    After meeting Bruce Gilden in Paris and the subsequent essay here on Haiti I’ve been taking an in depth look at his work and of course I bumped into that video of him taking photos in New York… Has anyone on Burn ever tried going out on the street taking photos in such a obvious manner and survived like he does so very well?

  178. PAUL

    i would be curious as well…not a technique i would recommend for very many places or for very many photographers…i am very sure Bruce is aware that his gonzo approach to people only works under certain circumstances..Times Square and Haiti being two of them…he would last about 2 seconds with my gang in the South Bronx or in the favelas of Rio…or, i might be completely wrong and Bruce can totally chat it up if he decides…..both Bruce and Martin Parr are similar in their shall we say contact/no contact with people…but it works for them, and they have a whole philosophy built around it…

  179. I’ve done it, but it’s not me, it doesn’t come natural, I don’t enjoy it; to consistently be in the necessary frame of mind would probably result in severe liver damage, and it’s been done quite well by others, so it’s not something I practice much. But were circumstances to call for it, I can probably manage. As for surviving in the South Bronx or East New York, you’d just have to not care, sincerely not care, about your life and even that level of suicidal tendency might not be enough if you get in the wrong person’s face.

  180. PAUL – there’s a guy called twocutedogs on Flickr who does that in Japan and has built his style on it. He was at the Magnum bash.

    I’ve tried it, just to try it, and it’s doable. It just doesn’t give me the visuals I want to produce, so I quickly knocked it on the head. I love Bruce’s work, I just don’t want to produce that work myself. But, yeah, it’s feasible. I’ve shot in Liverpool like that, and also in the murder mile and Peckham down south. No problems. You’d think there would be, but you just have to read the situation well and be quick to respond to the people you’re shooting.

    BOB – glad you liked!

    CIVI – yes, it was supposed to be a picture of a glass of wine and a glass of beer, but then those two guys forced their way in to the background….

  181. a civilian-mass audience

    hmmm…and where are the LADIES?…

    Paris in Spring… jasmine,patsouli, mimosa…aromas blended…
    can someone “transfer” some ladies …in the circle of friends…?:)

    oime…I am holding an olive branch…”Peace Restored”…:)))

  182. I really don’t think I could manage going so gonzo style out on the street, you really are invading that region surrounding a person which they regard as psychologically theirs. I get enough bad looks shooting at a respectable distance and I always worry about their reaction.
    What I did notice was how in France despite all the warnings on how I should take great care shooting street images the French were far more open and friendly than the Spanish who seem to be really allergic when it comes to street photography – of course this is only my personal experience…

  183. a civilian-mass audience

    FRAMERS…as BRIAN says:

    “I’ll give you a pass…”:)))))))))))))

    Come on BURNIANS…I am missing people here,EVA,JEFF,GORDON,SIDNEY,ROSSY,IMANTS,PATRICIA,
    KATIEEEE,MYGRACIE,DAVIDB…and…and

    I will be back to check you…

  184. I would be interested in hearing Jeff Hladun’s view after attending Gilden’s workshop…
    BTW Jeff I did remember to send your regards to Gilden when I met him :))

  185. a civilian-mass audience

    and if you are looking for a scarf…check the Italians…

    yes,the Italians…right EVA…:)

    LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLl

  186. And yes… Don’t think we Americans can pull it off. I do occasionally wear a scarf in the winter for obvious reasons, but even then I’m self conscious when I pull out the camera! ;^}

  187. DAH – I added the Magnum General Meeting making of the group photo video to DEVELOP Tube on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/channels/developphoto and also you hunting for the perfect bag :) and the one Bryan made of you for NatGeo. It’s a start – will add albums/organization ‘soon’ so people can find your vids easily- like with everything, it’s a process, moving ahead bit by bit.

  188. I remember watching a Magnum doco that showed a short clip of Parr at work on the streets in the UK. In that film he came across as superbly confident; but also supremely affable and non-threatening.

    He was busy chatting, laughing and joking with his subjects; his overall manner seemed to put people at ease. It also showed me how willing people (strangers) are to be photographed, and that the expected negative responses were mostly in your own head. I learnt a lot in those 10-minutes.

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