http://vimeo.com/28517038

Great, very nice to see the book handed over to the family!

i love the use of the landscape/cityscape photographs within the narrative as they act both as visual cues and chronological device…the first image is magnificent (i’d love that one too in my portfolio, and see it as a very large print), but the abstract images serve the viewer as a way to ‘move’ through time and location, as Stefan introduces the idea of their nomadic wanderings through these images…as it appears that each new landscape image moves the family to another location and also to a different time (chronologically) of growth….the children are growing up….it also serves as a subtle way of seeing how time has affeted their faces and their lives….the one girl who appears to be the center of this story grows up, matures, wizens,….but also becomes sadder, more ‘judgmental’ to us, the viewer: look what i have survived she seems to be suggesting, and you?…..

the use of the color pictures also makes perfect sense as they seem, again, to serve as chronological device…to take the viewer away from the ‘past’, away from a certain classical nostalgia and into the present…i may be wrong, but the color pictures appear to be the ones most ‘present’, most recent….so in a way, we get the sensation of a not only a family album, but also of a linear understadning of this familiy’s life…..they’re necessary as they become a framing device…b/w the past, color the present…the real juxtaposed with the remembered….no where is that better illustrated to me than the first color (the dawn, after the long b/w dream-memory) and the chicken head picture….

my only lament is that the fierceness and the power of the b/w images are so strong that, in a way, the color pictures seem ‘less’…less visually compelling, less startling, less breathtaking…maybe this is part of the distinction….the remembered for the present…who knows…or maybe it is simply the power of the b/w’s abstract qualities….their visual appearance….the proximity to dreams….i do prefer the b/w here, not because of their ‘classicism’ (who cares about that), but because their ability to evoke, suggest is just more personal…then again, there is that brilliant chicken picture…both funny (in the way the strange brutal humor of life is apart of all our lives, and especially that of children) and sad…innocence in the face of death….

anyway, congratulations stefan….i too had seen some of these images prior and i want to congratulate you for a thoughtful, humane and beautiful series…and book…

and picture 26 is a remarkably large photograh…just iconic…reminding me both of Koudelka’s picture of the funeral and teru k’s work from afghanistan/pakistan…..

beautiful, thoughtful, humane…

cheers
bob

I love what you have done here, and agree with pretty much all of the comments so far.

The first time through viewing, I knew I needed to let it sink in, think, view again, think some more.

I still need more time to digest, but my thoughts so far are very much in line with what has already been stated. Amazing, beautiful, heart wrenching, insipirational, not too many images at all. I am very impressed and humbled.
.

Just to get the tech stuff out of the way, yes, I agree, the colour images would be better converted to black and white. The colour adds nothing and only looks like an afterthought. and yes, a little too “gritty” overall. A bit of overkill.

Still, the content rises above all.

Wonderful stuff.

I would not imagine that yet another story of urban poverty could move me, but Stefan photos are truly beautiful and communicative. Real and romantic. Dynamic but thoughtful. No doubt there’s a great deal of compassion and maturity.
CONGRATS!!!

So I think that says something for the power of your essay, right there. And I am glad, too,

Very strong and powerful essay. One thing that I like about it is that so many contemporary essays venture into a hard place (or even a soft place) and then make a point to show only misery and despair. You show real, genuine, hardship, yet show us people laughing, loving and being tender towards each and towards kittens.

A + star, right there.

I would have liked to have seen some more word information.

Also, I supposed that I should note that I looked at this full-screen on Apple Cinema monitor and at that size many of your images become very, very, coarse – beyond your intent, I think – but still they come across and so it was okay.

And the chicken head is a fun image!