Monthly Archive for December, 2009

[slidepress gallery=’besodarchia_stigma’]

Hover over the image for navigation and full screen controls

Beso Darchia

Stigma

play this essay

The dire economic situation in Georgia has left the population of the country without any protection that would be provided by Government. Socially unprotected groups of society were among the ones most affected, their survival left to the mercy of foreign donors and the kindness of random people.

We live by the side of people who suffer from mental illnesses. Due to the lack of understanding of such illnesses, large parts of society have developed a sense of alienation towards the people who suffer from those illnesses. The social stigma remorselessly relieves mental patients of all their constitutional rights.  Abandoned by the friends and family, the “lucky” ones among them spend all their time at the deteriorating post-Soviet mental institutions; the rest may often not even have a roof over their heads.

There’s no official statistic regarding the number of people suffering from mental illness in Georgia. According to unofficial studies conducted by different research groups, there are about 400 thousand people suffering from different kinds and degrees of psychiatric disorder, about 10% of those in need of immediate medical care.

In Soviet Georgia (population: 5 million), the official number of people in psychiatric institutions was around 74 thousand. A study, conducted in year 2000, recorded 98 thousand of them. Current statistics shows that around 13 thousand people seek medical care in psychiatric institutions every month. Despite this statistic, latest polls in Georgia show that a visit to the psychiatrist is still perceived as a negative and derogatory act: 90% of the respondents would never recommend their friend or relative to visit a psychiatrist. Due to the lack of awareness among the parents, 99% percent of children with a mental illness never receive any medical care.

People with psychiatric disorders are a part of our society. Society should accept and accommodate them.

My goal and hope is to raise awareness about mental disorders in society. I hope to show that mental patients are regular human beings, who deserve to be treated with respect and care; that the society should not make them feel inferior, just because they suffer from an illness….

Bio

My name is Besik Darchia. I was born on 24th of September 1982, in Georgia, Tbilisi. I’m postgrad dentist, but have never been working by profession. By chance, three years ago photography became the main interest in my life: I accidentally found one of the photo sites and focused on portraits and photos on social life. I was inspired, that was stimulus to follow through and reflect the life surrounding me through photography.

[slidepress gallery=’jonathonbowman_monkeybusiness’]

Hover over the image for navigation and full screen controls

Jonathon Bowman

Monkey Business

play this essay

I began taking photos at the monkey houses at the zoo, fascinated by the inner lives of our genetic relatives. I soon realized that what I found compelling in the photos I had been taking was the space that exists between the viewer and the subject. The plexi-glass that separates our lives from theirs is also a surface that records, in scratches and smudges, a history of the lives lived on the inside while reflecting back the glare of our own gaze.

These are records of the space between.

Bio

My interest in photography began while working in South Korea. I was looking, I think, to find a voice with which to express the cultural disconnect I was feeling.

Since returning to my home in Ontario, I have been seeking to make sense of what was once familiar.

These photos are a product of those experiences.

[kml_flashembed fversion=”9.0.0″ movie=”https://www.burnmagazine.org/ss_essays/charliemahoney-atroubledparadise/soundslider.swf?size=2&format=xml” targetclass=”flashmovie” bgcolor=”#262626″ publishmethod=”dynamic” width=”800″ height=”551″ allowFullScreen=”True” allowScriptAccess=”Always”]

[/kml_flashembed]

Charlie Mahoney

A Troubled Paradise

Climate change is a difficult subject to treat visually, because much of the expected damage is still yet to come. We just haven’t seen many direct victims of climate change…at least not yet. As a result, I wanted to find a story that had a human element to it. After extensive research, I decided to go to the Maldives because, if scientists are correct, it will likely be the scene of one of first humanitarian disasters due to climate change. The story also ties in to an interesting social-political situation. I hope you find it interesting.

—

Beneath the outsiders’ vision of the Maldives lurks a troubled paradise- one shaped by 30 years of a brutal dictatorship. No one knows this better than Mohamed Nasheed, the nation’s new democratically elected President, who unseated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the Maldives’ ruler since 1978, in a landmark election in October 2008. Nasheed was imprisoned thirteen times by Gayoom and was named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1991.

Nasheed is determined to secure liberal democracy in the Maldives, but the country is facing pressing challenges at home. Despite significant tourism revenue – the Maldives has South Asia’s highest GDP per capita – almost half of the Maldives’ population earns less than $2 a day. And Maldivian youth are in the middle of a heroin epidemic that may be one of the worst in the world. The legacy of Gayoom’s rule lingers, and the process of unraveling it will take time as entire political institutions, like a free press, an independent judiciary, and a multiparty legislature will need to be built from the ground up, emerging from the long shadows of three decades of tyranny.

As if all that was not enough, the archipelago nation faces a larger challenge. It could find itself submerged by a swelling sea. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of scientists, forecasts that sea levels will rise an estimated 2 ft. (60 cm) this century, enough to inundate most of the country, many of whose 1,190 isles sit just 3 ft. (1 m) above the ocean. For a nation of so small a size, the new government’s task is monumental.

—

Photos from this story were published as part of an assignment in Time Magazine (Asia Edition) and in Intelligent Life and Corriere della Sera Magazine.

Bio

Charlie is a photojournalist and multimedia journalist currently based in Barcelona, Spain. His clients and publications include Time Magazine, The Guardian, BBC News, GEO, National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Magazine, The Times, The Independent on Sunday, The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC), the Council on Foreign Relations, Corriere della Sera Magazine, Intelligent Life, CS Monitor Weekly, 100 Eyes, The Telegraph, Financial Times, Global Post, Die Tageszeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau and De Standaard.

His most recent awards and nominations include the 2009 Environmental Photographer of the Year Award, the 2009 International Photography Awards, the Life category of the 2008 Travel Photographer of the Year, the 2008 PX3 Prix de la Photographie for photojournalism, the 2008 SOS Racism Photography contest and the new talent category of the 2007 Travel Photographer of the Year. He is represented by Bilderberg, Corbis and Cosmos.

He especially likes to work on stories of human interest and strongly believes that photojournalism can promote change by giving a voice to people who are all too often powerless to tell their own stories.

He has a Masters in Photojournalism from the University Autónoma of Barcelona and a B.A. in International Relations and Biology from Bowdoin College. Prior to his career in photojournalism, he worked in investment banking and equity management.

Related links

Charlie Mahoney

[slidepress gallery=’lilaschaffler_mycollections’]

Hover over the image for navigation and full screen controls

ESSAY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT

Lila Schaffler

My Collections

play this essay

Remember the story of that old photograph? It was taken at some show in the run-down Bowery years ago. There’s this boy sitting in the middle of some trashed mosh pit right below the stage. No one’s left but him and he’s sitting there in this chair, his mouth open and screaming.

You can almost hear it if you stare hard enough. Everyone else was gone, but here’s this boy with blood on his face from a pulled piercing, keg cups surround his tired shoes, cigarette butts line the floors, and he’s just there in the thick of it – alone and screaming to some invisible moon, some greater madness.

It’s just a picture really, but it tears your heart out all the same.

It’s what it’s like I suppose; pogo-dancing insanity, some band destroying the already torn cloth speakers with curses and riffs, ripped piercings, blood, drool, the yellow fuzz from keg cups splashing in eyes and crying… and just for that moment, everyone is in the same place long enough to feel the shit and glory of some fantastically well-orchestrated abuse.

In the end there’s just that one person left over for it all to come back to, the one person left who just eats it all, hating it, loving it, slipping away and coming back all over again, sitting there in that empty room and screaming.

How do you top that?  It’s not the photographer I admire, it’s the boy.

About the essay:

It seems have been taking my camera on walks since the age of twelve.  I have collected more images than I could even begin to put a number on.  I wanted to show some of my collections in a way that made sense to how and what I see.  There was nothing easy about the edit, and still I can’t be certain that I chose the right ones…But I suppose that’s part of the beauty of it all, when you really stop an look.  Some of the images have been exhibited, some published, but I’ve never quite had the opportunity to show them as I’ve wanted to, as an essay…A collection of sorts. My collections.

Bio

When I was ten my grandmother gave me an old Canon, I still have it till this day… And regardless of all its replacements over the years, I haven’t stopped shooting since.  I’m originally from New York, NY, where I learned, studied, practiced, and trained through University professors on top of many professionals. Presently, I’m located in Seattle, Washington where I run my own studio and business. However, I remain quite bi-coastal and often travel with my camera in hand. I have exhibited In New York City, Seattle, Portland, with several coming up, both nationally and internationally, as well as many publications.

Related links

Lila Schaffler