This is monirul alam Bangladesh based photojournalist. I see your great work and congratulation on getting into BURN.

Your images is so strong and to learn the hole situation of Kashmir but I am curious about your presentation could you tell us the hole things ……………monirul

Frank

as always, thoughtful, well-argued ideas…and i must admit that i agree with much of what both of you have just written….at the moment no time to write….but will try and write something back this weekend…

cheers :)

Herve ;))))….

part of the series is on his website….and the same lament that you have about the riots drove oli crazy too….he’s been there for nearly 20 years and is a part of the nation/language/place and the same frustration you had, drove him to make his series…the problem with spot news…..i suspect, that is what some of the lamentation coming out here is about, which has it’s legitimacy…for sure….

we’ll catch up when i catch up from vacation/writing/phtoo thing do….

hugs
b

Yes, will try to stop by on the 25th — thanks. Am heading to India the next morning!

My comment was just that to show suffering people suffering isn’t terribly noteworthy. Yes, Andy has a signature style but beyond one or two of these pictures, what else is there except more faces twisted in agony? Kashmir is a complex place with a complex history, different communities with different grievances. Andy’s work is, or seems to be, about the Muslim residents of Srinagar who have been brutalized by the Indian army. I don’t think a photographer has to be the font of encyclopedic knowledge, but all these photos say is that the Indian army abused these people (and, strangely, he refers to the figures in #13 as “radical Islamic women,” which is a term the army would have used, but he doesn’t seem to be using it ironically).

So as a viewer, after looking at these photos, I am struck by the personal-nightmare quality but have no empathy for the people in them because they are not people — they are figures, tropes, metaphors, bits of information. The captions don’t humanize them. They just seem like props.

And I am not reacting to the stylization. I am in favor of personal, partisan work, and the comparisons above to Goya and Picasso are apt because they certainly represent that approach. Bob mentioned Michael Ackerman — I love “End Time City” for its similar styling of Varanasi. But Andy’s work seems less of a discovery, less an engagement with the people of Kashmir and a personal response to tragedy than a ready-made vision imposed from the outset.

In other words, I know that Kashmir is a brutal place and that the Indian army has abused its Muslim population for generations. So these photos simply confirm (or rather scream) what is already known. But when you turn the volume down, these photos really aren’t so noteworthy. Suffering people are shown to be suffering.

And I agree with Michael (MW) above: “Ideally one would lose the captions and replace them with a meditation on the insanity of religious nationalism, or horrific suffering, or something like that, above and beyond the messy political details of a particular conflict.”

Go all in for an art project and drop the pretense of documentary. Then my opinion would shift.

(And the “wider audience” issues you responded to, David — those were not my concerns.)

I do have to say, though, for as cranky as I may sound, these photos have sparked one of the more interesting discussions on BURN and I am glad you brought them to the fore.

I will look for it, Bob. Like David said, none of us are an encyclopedia. but I think what was missing in the Bangkok thingo (and often missing, a propos photo thailand, BTW), and that we have here, is someone who really dug in with the place (not just the event), and the people (not just the rioters). While Andy is admittedly only at the beginning of his journey of discovery.

Why is it a criteria for one photographer with one essay to be an encyclopedia of knowledge of any particular subject? That’s why. Especially when one is working on matters of life and death. Ignorance kills, maims, gets people beaten up walking to the grocery or shot at the big demonstration just as surely as the security forces do. And producing something ultra creative in the service of ignorance is not a justification.

I like the photography though, and what’s been captured. Ideally one would lose the captions and replace them with a meditation on the insanity of religious nationalism, or horrific suffering, or something like that, above and beyond the messy political details of a particular conflict.

What you said above has made me realize an error in the criteria
I have employed in assessing work published here: the dreaded
“wider audience” factor. When I take that out, I’m left with more
possibilities.

Thanks, I needed that… Carry on.

exactly!…..

HERVE “))

my friend Oli pin-fat’s take on the riots, for sure……..i tried to help get the essay covered by Lens, but by that point, they’d been jaundiced by the coverage and wanted to move on….some of oli’s protest project where published by foto8…

running
bob

i do hope to see you at our loft gathering on the 25th…you are invited of course…..been awhile…

now Preston, you must see way more work than do i, for this seemed pretty unique to me…not because it was work from Kashmir…plenty of that around…but the overall approach, yes terror filled nightmare to be sure, was clearly as clean an authored piece as i have seen for awhile….geez let the boy have his vision even if twisted from your point of view……there are not many with ANY vision around Preston…i am not sure why so many seem to think that appealing or informing a “wider audience” is the ONLY criteria for documentary photography…appealing to many usually connotes following a “mean line”…getting sleepy….

why is it a criteria for one photographer with one essay to be an encyclopedia of knowledge of any particular subject??…the “whole story” of Kashmir i doubt could be told by 20 brilliant photographers…why not appreciate the pure SEEING of one and then move on and see what others might also do in their own way? together they might be a whole…it would be hard for me to imagine someone seeing our lead picture right now and then not at least doing some homework on Kashmir….in other words this essay, because of its visual power, could would maybe hopefully lead a viewer to move to other books, other sites, other references to start gaining some knowledge on Kashmir today…journalistic mission fulfilled…

on top of that, who in the world is this mythical “wider audience” anyway, and tell me exactly why we are appealing to them? wider advertising audience maybe just maybe? is the role of documentary photography only for the purpose of “information gathering”? the well done passionate singular microcosm is of more value to me personally and kicks me in the gut way more than the alleged “balanced coverage” for mass presentation…again, just my taste..besides, where in the world would you ever see that fantasy balanced visually powerful coverage by one person anyway?? name one…

mostly aren’t we inundated by the equivalent of Musak in photo terms?? …i am all for punching 10 people right between the eyes with a real point of view which seems way way better to me than barely brushing 10,000 with “balance”…boring, forgotten , yawn..Kashmir where?? ….besides the 10 who really got nailed by the work, will become 11 by tomorrow…Kashmir there.

cheers, david

Just listening to Stephen King’s audio book on cd “Duma Key.” I am at the part that begins to talk of “art for art’s sake.” A comment about an artist who still painted “..in an outdated way.” Isn’t it funny how art gets classified? Why is it we as viewers must put a label on something to be able to find some kind of acceptance? Maybe so we can have art history courses.

I went back Andy and looked at those mentioned above. Maybe this is post-snap work with your software but I still love it. And still scares me. Your photos show Kashmir as you saw it; a horrifying vision of the reality of that grand misery. It spoke tons more to Kashmir’s plight than the documentary style of the previous two eastern european essays. I now pay attention when I hear of something from Kashmir. In fact, there was just another slaughtering of demonstrators within the past 24 hours or so. I can now hear their screams.

Congratulations on this showing; I hope you begin to find hope and joy and capture those as vividly.