we produce beautifully crafted multimedia » journalism

Ed Ou and his vantage point

Ciara — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:00:02 +0000

Ed Ou is a sickeningly young, talented and humble Canadian photojournalist who has spent much of the past five years covering stories in Somalia and, this year, the Arab Spring. He speaks with a lot of maturity about his journalism in this Canon interview – well worth a quick listen.

A photo’s worth 1,000 words? WPP discussion

Ciara — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:38:16 +0000

Remember Bibi Aisha, the Afghan woman whose Jodie Bieber portrait was put on the front of Time Magazine along with a controversial jingoistic strapline?

Well, the whys and wherefores about how other people’s words are used to contextualise photographers’ images will be considered at a World Press Photo discussion later this month.

Anyway, here is the blurb:

Tickets are free of charge but there are only about 150 places so you need to book at this link

What groundbreaking images of ‘Africa’ can we expect this year from Visa Festival of Shanty Towns?

duckrabbit — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:29:18 +0000

If the video running off the front page of the Visa website is anything to go by they are:

MADNESS and DESPAIR?

VIOLENCE and FEAR?

EXODUS or maybe just WALKING FOR THE BUS?

and BLACK AND WHITE STICK BENDING

I can’t wait and I’m really pleased to see that festival Director J F Leroy has taken on board the the complaints of middle class white people that it’s unfair that poor black people are given so much space at the festival. There are plenty of poor white people who live in shanty towns and they also need to be given a chance to have their lives turned around (and their voices heard) by being featured at Visa .

This photo also running off the front page is a good start:

POOR WHITE COUPLE BEING RAINED ON

(editors note, its possible not all these pictures were taken in Africa. The Visa website doesn’t seem to give captions to them)

Male rape – Guardian photofilm

Ciara — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:59:33 +0000

When I watch a photofilm in which the audio features the photographer talking about their images, I often switch off quite quickly. But when I heard Will Storr talk about his project on male survivors of rape in Congo and Uganda, I didn’t – in fact I was stopped in my tracks. I think the reason is that his delivery is so conversational – and therefore accessible – plus of course the angle of the story is somewhat different from what we are used to. The production of the photofilm could be better but the story and its delivery are very powerful. I’ve covered male rape stories myself in the past – it’s far more common even in the UK than you might think.

The battle of Byker – Amber Collective/BBC Radio 4

Ciara — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:15:16 +0000

There’s been a lot of coverage over recent months about the shock decision of the Arts Council not to continue revenue funding Newcastle’s renowned Side Gallery, run by Amber Collective, from March next year. An appeal process is underway but the folks who run the collective are looking for other sources of funding.
One of the many long-term social documentary projects carried out by Amber members is that of co-founder Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, which recently saw her return to the Newcastle estate of Byker with her camera 40 years after first living in and photographing the neighbourhood. The experience is the focus of a Radio 4 documentary, The Battle of Byker, which aired this morning and will be available for another week.

Pitch perfect storytelling

duckrabbit — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:45:27 +0000

Lots of craft going on here, in more ways than one.

Kauri multimedia are based in Spain. There is a sweetness and light to their work. Wonderful.

Etienne Bellanger always wanted to be a luthier. At a young age he spent time in a luthier workshop, where he became instantly fascinated and hooked, and ended up submerging deeper into this world.

He studied to be a luthier at the prestigious National School of Lutherie of Mirecourt and settled in Zaragoza in 2009 with the aim of developing his professional career. Lutherie of bowed instruments is almost non-existent in Spain, and Etienne, who provides a breath of fresh air in a city with practically no tradition in this art, welcomes us into his workshop to share his thoughts on music and his craft.

Sublime photography but …

duckrabbit — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 09:48:29 +0000

I love the people at Daylight Magazine. There are few group emails that I don’t treat as spam but every month the Daylight email (letting me know what’s going on in the magazine) gets a well earned click from me.

BUT …

I think we have to try and get away from photographers reading scripts about their photography (please see update at the end of the post).

I need to be engaged with conversation, with passion, yes also with intelligence, but not so contrived that it has to be read.

Great photos. The delivery should match.

So how do you do it?

Just sit the photographer down and talk to them for twenty minutes about their work. Then edit it down to three minutes. Really, it’s that simple.

But it’s not always possible to get yourself in the same room as the photographer. In that case send them a digi recorder and do the interview over the phone. This is something I did a number of times when I was working on radio documentaries at the BBC, when I couldn’t get someone into a studio.

Here’s duckrabbit’s David White not reading, but talking about his project to photograph Brunel’s work using a replica camera from Brunel’s era. Sounds so much better then reading from a script and it’s an easy way for a photographer to squeeze a short photofilm out of an old body of work:

UPDATE: We recieved a comment that points out only the first section of this photofilm was read from a script. I have to be honest and say that I never got past that first section. Thanks for your comment Hugo. Just goes to show too how important that first minute is.

Hugo Figueiredo
June 6, 2011 at 19:17 · Reply · Edit

I didn’t find the audio pointless at all. The opening statement does sound bland but it then moves into an interview (1.30 in) with Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography which I found engaging, passionate, conversational, insightful and it shed new light on a fascinating project.

If it was just a photographer reading a script for 6 minutes (which your blogpost suggests it is) then sure, it would be pretty dull stuff, but I can’t see why you’d think the interview is pointless …

Become a real photographer; shoot porn and tramps with the new Fuji x100

duckrabbit — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:42:14 +0000

It’s funny to watch how photojournalism and advertising are merging. Pushed by the likes of World Press and Visa Festival of Shanty Towns, photojournalism is more and more judged as an aesthetic pursuit, bringing it closer and closer to (high end) advertising.

The holy grail of advertising on the other hand is authenticity, which used to be the strength of photojournalism, until the people at World Press started giving out awards to staged stories.

Whores and tramps have always been Magnum favorites, but did their photographers ever make them look so good as in this little bit of advertising trash?

Maybe Banksy was on to something …

Ever thought about killing the person who leaves dirty cups in the sink?

duckrabbit — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:28:25 +0000

For me there is always a story under the story in the best photofilms. James Hooker gets this.

Earlier this year I was invited to spend a couple of days with the undergraduates on the photojournalism course at London College of Communication (alongside duckrabbit’s teaching on the Masters course there). I’m not sure if they knew quite how lucky they were to be taught by Roger Hutchings but they were an impressive bunch.

Whilst we are talking about Roger, have you seen his work? Roger is not one of those photographers turned teacher just to make up the bills. He really, really cares about giving the students a decent education. It showed. I found them one of the most intellectually switched on groups I have taught.

One of the talented on students on the course is James Hooker, and not just for having the ability to cycle home after drinking duckrabbit under the table.

I was chuffed to receive a copy of his first photofilm. Chuffed because it showed someone in the class was actually listening!

Thanks James. You made duckrabbit’s day.

(if you want to train with duckrabbit get in touch. All our workshops are currently SOLD OUT but I am thinking of putting on an extra workshop in July around the Birmingham Jazz Festival)

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘Showing Congolese as only traumatized victims (or killers) may be highly offensive … but mostly it’s untrue.’

duckrabbit — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:06:32 +0000

Yesterday I put up a post that in part explored how highly staged and stylized photography has come to define how we perceive women survivors of rape in The Congo. I’ve been pretty amazed that no-one wants to defend what has become the pre-eminent way of working on projects as a documentary photographer/photojournalist? Shouldn’t we just admit what photography, stripped of text, or audio, can and can’t do?

Take a look into the eyes of the Congolese woman at the bottom of the page. She has experienced more trauma then I could ever even begin to get my head round. Look at her. She is beautiful. Such dignity. What can the photographer add that isn’t already captured in such simplicity?

I think this comment from Agata Pietron about her feelings on working in Eastern DR Congo are really worth reading:

I remember how shocked I was when I went to Kivu for the first time … How much different the place was from what I expected (from what I saw earlier in magazines, books, etc).

Showing Congolese as only traumatized victims (or killers) may be highly offensive, but mostly it’s untrue. As duckrabbit writes, it is how ‘we’ want to see ‘them’, how ‘we’ imagine they feel.

I spent some time with women and youth there (and many of them experienced really traumatic events). I must say I was amazed how psychologically strong they were, and how they celebrated every minute. When the situation stabilized, there was not regular killings every day. Congolese women are not as fragile, traumatized and vulnerable as we see them. I was told by one woman, shortly after her husband was buried, that the life goes on.

Also, I’m not sure if its only B&W versus Color. And also, I realize that when it comes to DRC, and Kivu especially, it’s a tough place to work. The possibilities for working/photographing/reporting are very limited. You cannot go wherever you want, whenever you want. Many stay close to Monuc/Monusco and NGOs, which shape your vision a lot.
[Sorry for not eloquent way of writing.]

A group of heavily pregnant women have a good laugh at duckrabbit's expense! (C) Yasuyoshi Chiba

One of the heavily pregnant Congolese women MSF houses in Masisi. (C) Yasuyoshi Chiba