Photojournalism Now: photojournalism

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July 07, 2017

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 7th July, 2017

This week Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up comes to you from Hong Kong where I'm a lecturer on a master tour for global journalism studies.

It is a fascinating time to be here given the city has just celebrated, or commiserated depending on your perspective, the 20th anniversary (1 July) of the handover from Britain to China. Meeting with the major media organisations has also delivered different perspectives on the future of journalism and the significance of this city as a hub of global media.

But this Hong Kong visit has not only been about media and politics, it has also been about seeing exhibitions. Today I share my favourite with you, the retrospective of Fan Ho's work.

Profile:
Fan Ho (1931-2016) - The Cartier-Bresson of the East

Fan Ho

Born in Shanghai in 1931, Fan Ho began his love of photography at the age of 14 after he was given a Kodak Brownie. Four years later he bought a Rolleiflex, which became his camera of choice. When he moved with his family in 1949 to Hong Kong he began documenting the city, spending long days waiting for the right light, the right scene, his imagination sparked by the daily happenings on the street.

Fan Ho experimented with lighting using the elements he found on the streets - smoke, shadow, steam, water - as special effects. He favoured shooting at dusk and his subjects were the ordinary people on the streets and in the markets.

As is often the case, Fan Ho never set out to create an historical visual document of Hong Kong, but that is exactly what his collection, shot in the 1950s and 1960s, has become. Later Fan Ho went on to work in motion pictures and is also revered as a film director, but his love for still photography remained throughout his life. He also shared his knowledge teaching at various universities around the world.

Considered the father of street photography in Hong Kong, in 1959 Fan Ho published his book of essays, "Thoughts on Street Photography" which is still in print today, but only available in Chinese.

Fan Ho saw photography's "special link to reality" as its greatest asset, yet he also acknowledged the complexities involved in capturing that decisive moment.

He spoke on ideas of objectivity and subjectivity, debates that still occupy photographers' thoughts today. Fan Ho believed objectivity "seeks to portray reality in a direct, straightforward manner," while subjectivity "aimed at portraying another type of truth and had to be seen more as a reflection of one's soul and spirit in nature".

(C) All works Fan Ho

To find out more about Fan Ho's work and to buy his books visit the website here.

Next week I'll be back blogging in the freeze of Melbourne's winter, but for now I'm enjoying the 80+% humidity, the massive daily thunderstorms and pelting rain and the heat of the East. Have a great weekend.

June 30, 2017

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 30 June, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up a triple treat with Josef Koudelka in Berlin, Georgian photographer Daro Sulakauri's photo essay Black Gold and Siberian photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva's Amani. Plus some interesting weekend reading.

Exhibitions: Berlin
Josef Koudelka - Invasion/Exiles/Wall

“When I left Czechoslovakia, I was discovering the world around me. What I needed most was to travel so that I could take photographs.” Josef Koudelka

France, 1967 © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos

This exhibition features three significant stages of work by Magnum photographer Josef Koudelka, his first dedicated exhibition in Germany for nearly 30 years. With around 120 photographs and projections this exhibition ranges from the Soviet occupation of Koudelka's homeland in 1968 to his time in exile. The exhibition is curated by Xavier Barral in cooperation with Sonia Voss and organised in partnership with the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam.

Czechoslovakia, 1968 © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos

C/O Berlin Foundation, Amerika Haus, HardenbergstraBe 22-24, 10623 Berlin

Photo Essay:
Daro Sulakauri - Black Gold

Georgian photographer Daro Sulakauri’s photo essay on the mining town of Chiatura in Georgia is absolutely captivating. Sulakauri’s empathy with the miners and their families is palpable and her compositions take you right to the heart of this mining community.

Once a bustling manganese ore mining town, since the collapse of the Soviet Union these miners, who toil for 12 hours a day, earn less than USD $300 a month. It is a brutal job in a harsh region where there are few creature comforts.

You can read the full story on National Geographic's PROOF.

Photo Essay:

Evgenia Arbugaeva - Amani

(C) Evgenia Arbugaeva

This photo essay, by one of my favourite photographers Evgenia Arbugaeva, is in complete contrast to the previous subject matter of this Siberian artist whose Weather Man and Tiksi series I’ve written about. But her visual signature is unmistakable and immediately I'm transported to another world. There's something so rich and hauntingly beautiful about her images that captivates me.

In 2014 Arbugaeva turned her lens on Tanzania and the Amani Hill Research Station to “bring back the atmosphere of this dark, magical place,” as she told National Geographic’s Jeremy Berlin. This station is located in the remote Usambara Mountains where Arbugaeva worked with anthropologist Wenzel Geissler, to capture this “hidden world”. It’s a wonderful visual story told beautifully by Arbugaeva. Berlin’s story is equally engaging. You can read it and see more images here.

Photobooks - Australian photobook specialists and noted academics Doug Spowart and Vicky Cooper recently showcased a range of books from Australia and New Zealand at the Vienna Photo Book Festival with great success. Check out their blog posts at WotWeDid.

How Some Photographers Make a Living - World Press Photo

Lens Culture Interview with Justyna Mielnikiewicz

Alison Stieven-Taylor's review of Judith Crispin's The Lumen Seed on L'Oeil de la Photographie

Getting Others Right - the New York Times

June 23, 2017

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 23rd June, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - World Refugee Day 2017 (20th June) and some images that provide a sobering reminder of just how many people are in need.

Australians welcome refugees, but our federal government doesn't
(C) Greg Wood, Sydney (AFP/Getty)

Special feature:
World Refugee Day 2017

Play therapy - helping refugee children overcome trauma

The world is facing the largest refugee crisis on record. Millions are displaced. Governments are slow to act and in terms of the humane treatment of refugees, Australia is one of the worst offenders.

According to the UNHCR in 2016 there were 22.5 million refugees. Of those refugees only 189,300 were resettled last year. More than half of the refugees are under the age of 18 years and many are born in refugee camps - a whole generation knows no other existence.

Africa still remains the continent where the largest number of refugees are “hosted” followed by the Middle East. Asia and the Pacific have the lowest number. 55% of refugees worldwide come from three countries - South Sudan, Afghanistan and Syria.

Doing research for today’s blog I came across numerous media articles about the plight of refugees. What I found incongruous was the advertising that appeared on many of these online sites - banner ads across pictures of refugees that were advertising ways to improve your investment fund; pictures of celebrities and half clad women; holidays in exotic locations; consumer goods on sale. The effect these ads have is to normalise the refugee crisis. It just becomes part of the visual noise and when there’s so much other information available it takes away from the import of these media articles and photographs in raising awareness.

While the plight of the Syrian refugees is currently headline news, and rightly so, there are many others that the West rarely hears about such as the more than 66,000 Sri Lankan refugees living across 109 camps in Tamil Nadu State in India. Some of these people have been living in miserable conditions in the camps for nearly 20 years with no prospect of change for the better. A scenario repeated across the world.

The size of the problem is overwhelming, but we cannot lose hope. The great work being done by so many is recognised, yet there is so much more to do and governments around the world need to take a global view and come together. We've heard it all before, but we need to keep saying it. Change is possible. We need to hold onto that belief. As the Dalai Lama says, change can begin with a single act. Sharing these photographs and raising awareness is a small contribution that may spark a conversation that may influence people to act.

This is where some of the world's 22.5 million refugees live:

Dadaab Refugee Camp Kenya - the world's largest (C) UN

Tamil Nadu State in India

Nyarugusu, Tanzania (below) - more than 290,000 people live in the refugee camp in Tanzania’s northwestern Kigoma District, the majority of whom come from neighbouring Burundi. Overcrowded, unsanitary and dangerous, camps like this struggle to provide even the most rudimentary shelter and care. Often perpetrators live in the camp along with their victims. The psychological trauma is beyond comprehension. This refugee camp is one of the oldest, established in 1959.

Tanzania (C) Erin Byrnes/AFP

Yida South Sudan (below) where 70,000 Sudanese refugees live

Yida camp, South Sudan from the air.

Yida camp on the ground.

The majority of Malian refugees living in Mbera camp in Mauritania (above and below) arrived in 2012 after violent clashes in north Mali and refugees numbers continue to rise. Photos: MSF

Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan (below) houses around 80,000 Syrians more than half of which are children. The camp is so large it is now considered Jordan’s fourth biggest "city".

Syria, ten, and Hassan, four, walked for almost 12 hours to cross the border from Syria to Jordan.

They now live in Za’atari refugee camp with their mother.

Za’atari refugee camp/Oxfam

Jabalia (below) is the largest of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Today nearly 110,000 refugees occupy an area of only 1.4 square kilometres. There is one health centre, high unemployment, electricity supply issues, high population density and 20 schools running double shifts to accommodate the large number of children.