Off Air

The Darkened Den

Check out my good friend James Whitlow Delano's award winning photo essay, The Darkened Den, at PDFX12. There you can download a pdf of the story to read at your leisure, over your tea and biscuits.

And the Blue Plaque goes to....

Photographer Bert Hardy....read all about it here.

Scary Stans, Part 4

In 2001, as I've mentioned, I traveled on assignment in the troika of 'Scary Stans' ( as one Glaswegian friend called them) of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan was a brief trip, only a few days, but better than nothing.

We didn't venture far in the country, it wasn't deemed safe by our client's host office, but we spent time in Khojand and in Dushanbe. It was a sunny place, green, dusty, hot, and dishrevelled at the edges after years of troubles.

I think we were in Khojand first. We walked, we counted the Lenin statues of which I never tired of shooting, a boy did cartwheels beneath one. We drank cool drinks beneath an airplane which had been turned into a cafe, beside a river. We visited old forts in the countryside, we looked for remnants of mud walls which were around when Alexander the Great traversed the land. We photographed women in the fields in the setting sun.

At Khojand airport we asked a waitress to take a group portrait of the three of us, and she obliged, shooting a perfectly composed image. We sat in the VIP room of the airport, not that there were any other rooms, we drank bottled fizzy drinks. We waited for the plane. And we waited. Then it was cancelled, and we were put up over night in a hostel by the airport, the three of us in one room. Not a problem, we were good pals. Mr. Pink struggled with his tall height and the shortness of his bed, I struggled with the lumpiness of the mattress, and Mr. Orange struggled with his bowels. I can still see it now, in the middle of the hot night, all of us awake, the bare bulb above glaring, the sink, the smashed mosquitos on the walls, the rough white bed linen, Mr. Pink tired, and Mr. Orange in his boxer shorts and brogue shoes trying to fill a bucket of water to take along the corridor to flush the toilet with, ever mannerly. Mr. Pink and I laugh about that night to this day, Mr. Orange just curses.

For work it was quick and brief, the only time I remember getting frustrated with the shoots and with Mr. Orange, our nominal 'chief'. He was the bag-man, he came from Client HQ in NY, he brought the money, he took back the receipts. We visited a theatre to shoot, and to a women lawyer NGO organisation, a drive out to a lake. Not so much.

Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink , and I, ate at the only eatery in town in Dushanbe, if I remember correctly it seemed like some old cultural palace, turned Soviet style buffet restaurant cafe. We'd eat on the second floor, the room open to the air and elements, rough tables with rough white table clothes. And as is typical of being on the road, there's always a surreal twist- the best thing on the menu was pancakes with fresh cream. We seemed to be the only foreigners who ate there, and on day one we'd tipped our waitress handsomely, a few insignificant Tsum, to us it felt and looked like Monopoly money, but to her it seemed to appear as if we'd sold our Mayfair and Bond Street hotels and given her the proceeds. The next meal in the same restaurant saw two waitress arguing over who was to serve us, our breakfast waitress argued that we were her customers, whilst another waitress argued that we were at her table. But on all the travel with Mr Orange and Mr Pink we had a motto, to "share the wealth". There were three of us, all on expenses, so if, for instance, we were buying water in market we'd buy it from three stalls, or buy the local trinket from three trinket sellers. We tried to be fair.

At Dushanbe airport, as we arrived in our taxi or office car, we were met by a young boy, hovering on the pavement, waiting for us to step out. As we hit the heat of the pavement, he approached and was shoo-ed away by Mr. Orange, but the kid only wanted to earn a wage at the tender age of 8 or 9 or so. We were about to depart the country and still had a bundle of Monopoly money in our pockets. The Kid wanted to work and we gave him a bag,a bag twice the size of him,but he managed, he struggled, and hoisted it on one shoulder. Honest work never killed no-one, or so they say, he looked like he could be the first. As we walked and he shuffled, towards the airport terminal he asked us, in perfect English, "International or Domestic ?". At that point he earned himself a bonus, we were impressed, he was trying hard. As we arrived at the terminal and he quickly showed us the way, we paid him, a pile of blue Tsum notes, written in Tadjik on one side, in English on the other. He looked at the money and looked up at us, usually at this point there's a curse and the person asks for more, but not on this occasion. The Kid looked up, an incredulous look on his face, a fist of notes in his hands, a months wages earned in a 200metre shuffle and one question.

The plane out of Tadjikistan was small, Soviet era style, round windows, chairs backs which only stayed up if you sat on the chair. Air hostess with improbably tall blonde hairdo's and scary make-up. The view as we flew over the mountains was incredible, the Fan mountains below, snowy white against the blue sky, exotic, timeless, immovable, fought over. As I write this I sit on a bullet train heading north from Tokyo in Japan, but I can easily see and picture the interior of that plane journey, the view, the smell and noise, I can hear the drone of the propellors.

It's funny the small bits of trips that stay with you.

Scary Stans, Part 3

©JSH2001.

Bukhara. What a great place, I feel fortunate to have been there.

Bukhara in Uzbekistan (images here), an ancient city on the old Silk Road trading route. I was there in 2001, on an assignment for an American client. And to be honest Bukhara wasn't actually a part of the itinerary that myself and my two traveling companions had, but we liked to work hard and play hard, and we used to try and figure in a day on the trips to do what we wanted to do, not always work related. But in a way the days were research of sorts, and I still shot pics, so it was kind of work. When you love your job every day is a holiday and every holiday is work.

So we were in Uzbekistan, then went to Kazakhstan for two or three days, then flew back to Uzbekistan, and when we landed we had arranged for a hired driver to meet us, and drive us the eight hours to Bukhara. A hell of a drive, a bad driver, scared of roads he didn't know, tired, couldn't keep his eyes open ( I can still see the image now of his eyelids slowly closing, watched by me from the back seat, his eyes visible in the rear view mirror in front of me). I remember roadside cafes as we tried to keep him awake with coffees, and the dangers brought home to us as we passed an accident with a guy laying dead in the road. Aye yai yai.

But then we arrived in Bukhara and bid our driver farewell, and good luck. The city did not disappoint. Only one of the three of us, Mr. Orange, had been there before, Mr. Pink and I hadn't. We wandered the streets for the day, wandering in a city which felt like a living museum. History all around, without the labels and audio guides. We saw only two other tourists, sitting in the shade of a tea house, sipping green tea, their guide book beside them. They didn't speak to us, we didn't speak to them, why spoil the magic of the day.

We sat under trees in tea houses near the Labi-Hauz pool, sitting at low tables with red table cloths, with old teapots and cups, blue designs against old chipped white, nearby old men with old long beards, watching us, watching them.

We went to visit 'The Ark'- an old fortress part of town. In front of the gate to The Ark we paid to ascend in a rickety elevator a rickety old water tower, to give us an aerial view of the city, a view to shoot from up high. At the top of the tower was a white plastic table. My good friend Jason Eskenazi had been up that tower before me, a year or so previously, and I knew his image well. For fun Mr. Orange and I recreated it, to send to Jason. (Years later I saw a colour image by Bruno Barby obviously shot from the same water tower).

We wandered near the Kalan Mosque (pictured above), and climbed the minaret. Descending the minaret our legs and knees weakened, the climb and descent hard. Nearby a precocious young girl in a yellow dress accosted us and offered us, in perfect English, souvenirs, or dinner at her Grandmother's house. We chatted, we joked, and as we left we pondered the future fate of the girl.

We shopped for carpets, dark red and thick. I bought two, to accompany the one I got in Samarkand for 25 dollars- a small woven two foot square carpet with an image of Lenin, flecks of gold thread giving his eyes the fiery Political spark to bring them to life.

I bought a small paper-mache round box, with an image of the Kalan Mosque and Minaret on it. To this day I have it in Glasgow, on a bookshelf along with other trinkets from travels, every time I see it I'm back there, back in the sun, in the silence, with my friends. It was only one day, and then onwards. I forget how we departed the city, or to where.

No one gets lonely in TokyoLand

Sem Presser Lecture by Martin Parr

PRESS RELEASE

Amsterdam, 21 April 2008

Live streaming 2008 Sem Presser Lecture by Martin Parr

This Saturday 26 April the Sem Presser Lecture can be followed live
through our website for the first time. The lecture is an initiative
of the World Press Photo Foundation and the Sem Presser Archief and
is part of the Awards Days for the 6th consecutive year.

This year's lecture will be delivered by Magnum photographer Martin
Parr. In his presentation called "Photobiography", Parr will examine
his long photographic career, explain his motivation as a
photographer and how this has changed over the last 35 years. He will
clarify why he feels it is important to document our world in a new
and different way.

The live streaming provides an opportunity to follow the lecture from
all over the world.

Details:
Date - Saturday 26 April
Time - 15.00 hours (CET)
Website - www.worldpressphoto.org
Duration - 1,5 hours (estimate)