You have shown us a beautiful, captivating set of images which I have enjoyed immensely. I’m left confused by some of the comments here. Sure, maybe the beauty could detract from the desperation of the subjects. Perhaps there is a different edit… But I’m guessing that you have been as exacting with the content of your images as you have been with technique that you demonstrate. For me you have hinted at enough – I don’t need to see any more pictures of grinding poverty – we all understand that now. What I want to see are images that invite me into relationship with your subject – that invite me to care. These images do that. Thank you.

first of all Jim points never influenced me, it just make me kindly laughing.
I had enough respect for photographers to not be such a stupid guy!

Probably all the positiv and ecstasy reactions pushed me to say my own thinking, in few words, because I deeply think that we are not on flickr. As far as I respect Burn, this more and more when I see the real work done and by David and also the contributors.

About my critics, I think I saied shortly what I think. Not about the project itself, it seems to be a good spot to document, not about the text, never the text because at this “online” level it have no interest, images never have to illustrate a text to my eyes, or it mean that images are not good. I just read when it’s published, and even this sometime I never read. One photos is supposed to be able to have 1000 words…so it’s enough… I like words but in other books.

I will check your website, but the link you sent (from imants) doesn’t work anymore! I am curious and also, as a photographer, I now perfectly that an editing can change everything.

But what I will think after your website is another thing, here on Burn I think what I told.

I had been doing this kind of reportage for 10 years. When I started photojournalism I would had love your work. But the photojournalists who was really surprising me 10 years ago, today, after years of personnal experiences had made some words disapeared of my own language and forgot some photographers names.

So I re-reads your photographs and it really confirmed to me my words of yesterday, even that I would be more critical today because some editing mystake show that it’s not clear what it aim to say and be at the end.
You know how to compose one image but something miss in this general editing and this even you had some greats images, technics and colors made some punchy photographs and honnestly I am really bored about punchy picts…those picts I loved when I was younger. Ok sometime but only and always this form make it superficial to my eyes… Keep the spot and go far…

I don’t know why but something miss and another disturb me.

- miss; to see some moments while they don’t ask you to be taken, control badly and naively their images or even when they don’t know you are here shooting. I always feel your presence and it bring me really far from real life, it is superficial.

-disturb; I am bored of all children photographs in general. Children jumping, with balls, playing, etc… and also of images that just say what they show…and honnestly I just see people playing guitar, having nice tribal graffiti, some lonely dogs, dead animals… Nothing else.

Kerry Payne – Central Queensland? I’m from Mt Isa myself!

Kathleen – sorry and a little confused , will try to do better!

Byron Fry – Shame that I can’t see any of your work my freind , I am in these communities at the invitation of the people who live there , they want to affect change ,they want a better life for their children and are heartily sick and appaled by the conditions that some have to live in.
I have to disagree with your views on the effectiveness of the work being published in the media or BIG Newspapers , the fact is that the Homelands are places are very out of the way in some of the most isolated corners of a very big country and if the story is not out there and in peoples faces as a means to affect change then all we will be left with is a constructed,easily digestable lie about what life is like in the lands.
Good luck with your canoe trip!

I am working on a project of this First Nations community here in Canada, which is a dazzling, beautiful place that has these same problems with healthcare and housing and a variety of other social problems. I got there after a big magazine article talking about Canada’s “National Disgrace of First Nations Housing” published photographs of inside these homes. When I stepped into the community and started telling people I wanted to take pictures they were instantly guarded, and it wasn’t until I said I wanted to photograph elders and children and traditional practices that they relaxed. Having photographs published of there messy and damaged house was beyond embarrassing.

I could have talked my way into their homes, and come back with pictures of black mold crawling around there sofa or on the window-sill next to a newborn’s crib, but that is just perpetuating what has been happening. Sure it inspires sympathy from a handful of people, but sympathy never really changes much, even if its published in a big daily paper. What I think will change things for the better is if I make pictures that raise these people up. That make there lives fascinating, not pathetic.

I want to look past the health issues (including a current outbreak of H1N1) and falling down houses and see that these people live on what feels like the edge of the world. Exposed to the Pacific Ocean they have been here for thousands of years, and their “reserve” is actually an old village site on and island jammed between the mountains and the sea. Instead of photographing pain I want to photograph celebration. I will be joining a young man while he and his family paddle their great canoes hundreds of KMs north to the village of his bride-to-be. Braving the seas european sailors dubbed “the graveyard of the pacific”. Or be there as they celebrate festivals. Or photograph them not as humans suffering, but humans that still have their souls burning.

…and here i pause…take a deep breath…think..look at the essay again, still not finding what i’m looking for but accepting that Burn is an online magazine and the essay works extremely well in this venue.

…but for me, being so g-d demanding and insistent, disappointed that such talent, such passion failed to deliver a work that stimulates me intellectually, confounds me creatively, provokes me emotionally, excites me to do-make-achieve-be something more than i so frustratingly am. Yes, you see? i told you, i’m too g-d demanding.

Your essay, Glen, for all its lush light, shadows submerged into opaque darkness revealing not a hint or shred of subtle mystery there, for all its exotic (to me) subject matter, for its uber-professional editing (just call me e-n-v-i-o-u-s) that sews the essay up into something like French couture (read: impeccable)…still, you fail to scratch my surface itch to know more. Apples and oranges, i know but Sean’s recent essay on North Korea managed to do all that i ask and he was forced to shoot under terrible circumstances. That he did not have unlimited access to his subject matter, was forced to work around obstacles that would have stopped me in my tracks, could not rely on the right time of day to shoot (lighting? yeah, whatever!), probably didn’t speak Korean, didn’t have a sense of the place in his DNA and yet pulled off such a provocative essay with no slick tricks up his post-processing sleeves, shooting practically blind and yet because he was thrilled, mesmerized, fascinated by his subject matter (and also capable of communicating that), so was i thrilled with every single frame. Unfair to compare, i realize…and i am sorry, but i would not be honest with you or myself if i mumbled a few flattering phrases that said, yes, you have achieved a very slick, attractive bit of eye-candy that most would want to see, read, know and enjoy. Because those phrases would have been true but would also have lied by covering up my disappointment. As so many times on Burn, i KNOW the photographer has the ability and talent to go deeper and doesn’t. Maybe you did, maybe the edit edited out all but the strongest, leaving subtlety on the cutting room floor. I don’t know. Maybe that’s why this works for everyone else, because they ARE left hungry and wanting. But my idea of being left successfully hungry and wanting comes after having already been titillated at the deepest levels i am capable of responding to a body of work.

I apologize for asking for so much from you. You have every right to be very proud of your work and being published on Burn. I salute you. And i look forward to your next essay when you go deeper, rely less on visual polish perhaps and more on conveying something quite a bit more perplexing, controversial, and personal, something that comes from your deepest reaches. And if none of that happens i am sure you will still be successful in your efforts and your career.

All my best
Kathleen

Not sure if people are more up to speed with the subject than I and get it more but I am finding a need to find out more to understand. That in itself may be a good thing. It does raise the curiosity factor. I usually hope not to read text with the sets submitted on burn but in this case I needed to in order to form a better opinion on the piece’s purpose. Is photography visual verbosity ? (rhetorical) Eitherways I think the photography stands without words but whether it has a global understanding without the text i’d ponder – perhaps that is not necessary for your work. You know this best.

I think you have done a wonderful job here and look forward to seeing more of your work.

Best wishes for the future and hey, big congratulations on burn publication. *take bow, etc….* ;)

well done glenn.. new website is looking great.. and thoroughly enjoyed this edit of your work.
i think the dedication you have for this long term project shines through in the form of more unique moments..
escaping cliche, i love the tender way you are working here.. it appears as though you are hanging out.. blending in.. enjoying.. and not projecting impressions upon your subjects/friends..

good luck.. hope COMMISSIONS roll in from this showing.
d