we produce beautifully crafted multimedia » poetry

Theorem

Sara Trula — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 04:43:01 +0000

Approaching infinity
A Gödel number gave up,
Leaving history incomplete
But, at least,
Consistent.

“I have four babies, beautiful, gorgeous, why should I ever think about suicide? I had these thoughts in my mind. I was messed up.”

‘You are thirst – and thirst is all I know’ (inspired and inspiring photofilm)

duckrabbit — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:51:46 +0000

Every now and again duckrabbit has the pleasure of training someone who understands that to nail a great photofilm has as much to with sweat as it does talent. David Mansell-Moullin has worked his photofilm ‘To The Desert’, close to perfection.

Short, poetic and speaking to my heart. I hope it speaks to yours too (comments always really welcome, details about the poem and music below)

The poem “To the Desert” is by Benjamin Alire Saenz. The music is from the soundtrack “Desert Capriccio” by Yo-Yo Ma.

‘”The classes and tutorials that I have taken with Benjamin (duck) have not only been inspiring but opened my eyes to the possibilities and power of working with photo-films. His experience, insights and suggestions have proven invaluable in taking my practice to another level.”

If you would like to be trained by duckrabbit we have a few spaces left on courses running in May/June and July.

“I have four babies, beautiful, gorgeous, why should I ever think about suicide? I had these thoughts in my mind. I was messed up.”

duckrabbit — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:51:11 +0000

This is an astonishing photofilm about how one small fishing community has been affected by the BP Oil disaster. What the photofilm lacks in context about the disaster it makes up for in emotional punch and as good a set of documentary photography as you are likely to see.

I take my hat off to Director/Photographer Melanie Burford.

“Its not a job, it’s who you are. We are losing it. I don’t think we’ll ever get it back.”

Please watch this, share on Facebook and Tweet. You may not see a better photofilm this year and guess what, no shallow depth of field in sight.

Hidden History: The Irish At War, Damian Drohan

duckrabbit — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:28:34 +0000

Goddamn this is a project and a half barrel of whisky.

Immense.

Damian Drohan is one of the most committed students duckrabbit has had the pleasure to train. It gives me great honor to introduce you to his monumental project about the unknown, unrecognized Irish veterans of World War 2 (be sure to check out the full project here).

I wish I could take some credit for this work, but I can’t. Its driven by Damian’s passion to capture memory before it flares to smoke.

‘WW2Vets project is a visual/audio and photo-film project which seeks to tell the story of war memory in Ireland. These memories have been buried for many years. Although 70,000 Irish men and women fought in WW2, their service has never been recognized officially, except through token gestures, and occasional mentions. The stories here represent the direct experiences of veterans from, or living in Ireland and the experiences of those indirectly affected, such as Brian Smith, whose family war memory spans several generations, and the story of Paddy Bassett, a child during the war, his memories, preserved through the many military items he has accrued, the first being a piece of a spitfire he collected as a child.

Photography alone would be too limiting for a project such as this, there would be a danger of preserving the veterans as relics of history, monuments if you like. Instead the audio and photo-film approach helps to bring their stories to life.

A big thanks is due to duckrabbit for various types of support during the project, advice, guidance and encouragement, and various plugs and mentions have helped keep the project alive. Cheers Ben & David.’

Damian Drohan

Paddy Bassett was born in England and remembers World War II as a young child. He was evacuated on several occasions, but survived. He worked in England in the Forestry Service for a time after the war, and moved to Ireland in 1952. Paddy has retained a lifelong fascination with collecting all things military. He has a large collection of uniforms, bayonets and other items, some of which he’s had since he was a child. One of the first items he collected was a piece of a downed Spitfire Aircraft.

Brian Smith was born in Swansea in South Wales into a family with a long military history. His father served in the Great War and survived being gassed, twice. His uncle was in a Cavalry division and survived being buried alive by shellfire. Both of Brian’s brothers flew with the RAF during wartime. One brother flew in a Lancaster bomber and survived unscathed, except for hearing damage sustained due to high altitude flying. His other brother was a wireless operator-airgunner on a Beaufort torpedo bomber, he also survived unscathed. Brian describes being surrounded by the war, Swansea was a hive of wartime activity. The large harbour meant it was used in training exercises in the lead up to D-Day. Brian was too young to join the RAF during hostilities but he served as a pilot for three years in the early 1950′s. He later joined the Merchant Navy and then the Coastguard. Until recently he provided safety courses for sailors. He has now retired and lives in County Cork.

Sound Portraits:

Margaret McGrath

Margaret (Peggy) McGrath moved to England to take up nursing training at the age of 20. She trained in the Royal Waterloo Hospital and then moved to East Grinstead to Archibald McIndoeís pioneering plastic surgery ìGuinea Pigî hospital. She recalls meeting her husband-to-be on her very first dayís service. He had lost his toes through frostbite and was traumatized after returning from a Japanese P.O.W. camp. She continued to nurse her husband after the war ended as he was unable to take up work. He eventually found work in a new initiative program which was designed to get injured ex-servicemen working. She lived in England for most of her life and moved back to Ireland in the last few years.

Paddy Mooney:

Patrick (Paddy) Mooney is 89. He joined the RAF at the age of 22 in 1943. He wanted to join sooner but his mother didn’t approve. He was posted to Egypt and maintained aircraft engines, with the intention of becoming a flight engineer. However the squadron he was posted to didnít train flight crew, so he worked as ground crew for the remainder of the war. He also served in Palestine. After the war ended he returned to Ireland and ran his own bar businesses for the much of his working life.

James Redmond:

James Redmond’s father served in the Great War. James joined the RAF in 1942, and ended up serving as a rear gunner in a Bomber squadron. There was a long waiting list for Pilots and Navigators so impatience led him to accepting a position as a rear gunner. After the war he trained as a doctor and lived for many years in Zimbabwe before Robert Mugabe’s land confiscations forced him to flee.

Jack Allshire: D-Day Veteran

Jack Allshire served in the Second Battalion of the Royal Ulster Rifles. He lied about his age to gain entry to the army at 15. He landed on Sword Beach on D Day, and was part deafened in action a few days later whilst firing an anti-tank gun. He continued through France to Germany and left the army in September 1947. He spent the post-war years as both a painter-decorator and a truck driver. In common with many of the veterans featured here, his father fought in the Great War.

“Photography is an incredibly limiting medium”

duckrabbit — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:59:14 +0000

Really lovely and inspiring video about Alex Soth.

So interesting to compare this with the video of Plankton I put up earlier in the week.

Joerg Colberg to curate Visa Pour L’image

duckrabbit — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:48:03 +0000

Everybody knows (and behind his back everybody says) that one of the problems with the Visa, Festival of Shanty Towns, is that it only has one curator, and as time ticks on more and more people are turning blue trying to squeeze into the narrowness of that curator’s mind. (that may sound a bit tough,but isn’t it about time someone actually said it?)

I have just finished reading Jörg Colberg’s terrific interview with Ivor Prickett (on Conscientious Extended).

Something struck me.

J F Leroy could really give photographers something to talk about, and the public something different to look at, by inviting Colberg to curate some shows. We might even get introduced to the kind of work that will make you forget all the tedious discussion about the death photojournalism. Work like Ivor’s; a young photographer not dreaming of a warzone.

JC: This might be a stupid question, but maybe there’s something to be gained from being stupid. In this day and age, where photographs are so ubiquitous, and where many people are so cynical about photos, how does one make people care about what’s being shown in photographs? So that, just to make that connection, the photographs will have an impact?

IP: I’m not really sure how other photographers go about doing this, but for me I try to engage viewers by photographing the very ordinary every-day routines that people living in extraordinary circumstances still have to go through in order to survive. By presenting people with situations and emotions that they can relate to I hope to draw them in and allow them to put themselves in my subjects’ shoes, no matter how foreign or exotic their lives may be. So instead of trying to shock someone into caring, I am hoping to communicate people’s stories in a more subtle and engaging way.

DO READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Out Of Sight (photofilm)

duckrabbit — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:23:33 +0000

One of the great things about teaching on the Masters in Photojournalism at the London College of Communication is that I come into contact with some very talented and switched on people. Many of my students, with a lot of sweat and more than a little luck, will go on to do great things.Hannah Lucy Jones is one of them.

She’s too nuts to create boring or pretentious work.

I’ve been sharing this photofilm during many of my recent three day workshops. People love it.

Take less than two minutes to see what I mean. Really do. (it’s worth knowing that the voice of the man singing is Geoff Long, the man featured in the photofilm)

www.hannahlucyjones.com

Thanks to Geoff Long

This Morning – Raymond Carver

duckrabbit — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:58:52 +0000

This poem by duck’s favorite poet is for my friend Paul, who is coming back up for air:

This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk — determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts
began to wander. I had to will
myself to see what I was seeing
and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what
mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,
for a minute or two!) For a minute or two
it crowded out the usual musings on
what was right, and what was wrong — duty,
tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat
with my former wife. All the things
I hoped would go away this morning.
The stuff I live with every day. What
I’ve trampled on in order to stay alive.
But for a minute or two I did forget
myself and everything else. I know I did.
For when I turned back i didn’t know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.

Pet Cemetery

duckrabbit — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:26:54 +0000

By Stan Banos

Now given the Blurb treatment.

More here.

Joseph Rodriguez – Where it’s at (part 1)

duckrabbit — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:51:02 +0000

This week we’re kicking off a new series ‘ Where it’s at’. This is where the finest work we sing about on duckrabbit will go. The stuff that kicks our ass.

Where better to start then with Joseph Rodriguez?

Regular readers will know that duckrabbit couldn’t give a toss about the tedious cult of the photographer but kids could do a lot worse then carve Rodriguez’s name into their arm. Why?

Aren’t you fed up with all those knobheads that think its cool to shoot crack addicts, that think they’re the photographic answer to Jack Kerouac, Bukowski, or some other gin soaked poet heading for an early grave?

At duckrabbit we call it ‘glamorous grime’ and it seems to have an unshakable grip and unfathomable weight in the photographic community. duckrabbit finds it bewildering.

So many photographers think that they can stride into the shadows and expect to make sense of something at such a shallow level. Infact the more screwed up their subject the better.

I mean do you really think its surprising that there are drug addicts in Afghanistan, the worlds number one producer of heroin? That’s about as revealing as shooting portraits of a chocoholic in a chocolate factory.

Please get a grip.

Why the rant?

Some people throw Rodriguez in with all this nonsense because he comes from a ghetto, but he’s completely different. I mean from what I can gather most of the photographers that practice ‘glamorous grime’ come out out of the worst kind of ghetto, the white American one. That’s why the down and out stuff turns them on so much, because it makes them feel like they’re down with the people.

Morons.

Rodriguez’s roots give him an empathy and an insight into the lives of others. That’s why it was Rodriguez who shot Harlem for the National Geographic back when they were doing stories that went beyond monotone.

He only sees people, not photo opportunities.

He records lives lived and he never measures the lives of those he shoots against a a photographic award, magazine spread or advertising contract.

His eye is never on the future, it is always in conversation with the now.

Rodriguez plays no games. He’s fooling no-one. Simply put his work is essential.

This week we’ll be looking at his work on the Criminal Justice System in America and anything else we can claw from him.

I know that Pete Brook at Prison Photography will also be writing about Rodriguez, so I’ll give duckrabbit readers a heads up when his more cultured digital ink hits the screen.

Please take the time to read Joseph’s words below and watch one of three photo films produced by Benjamin Jarosch we’ll be featuring on the site.

Reentry in Los Angeles By Joseph Rodriguez

There have been many studies over the past several decades dealing with the Criminal Justice System in the United States. Most recently the Pew Center on the States released a report, One in 31 the Long Reach of American Corrections, stating

“The sentencing and release laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s put so many more people behind bars that last year the incarcerated population reached 2.3 million and, for the first time, one in 100 adults was in prison or jail.”

The report continues to say that,

“With far less notice, the number of people on probation or parole has skyrocketed to more than 5 million, up from 1.6 million just 25 years ago. Combined with those in prison and jail, a stunning 1 in every 31 adults, or 3.2 percent, is under some form of correctional control.”

What are the indirect but often overlooked impact of these statistics?

My work provides countless opportunities for discussion, dialogue, and exploration related to the lives of those people directly and indirectly impacted by the incarceration and subsequent release of prisoners – namely, the children, the spouses, and the community.

Through working with Walden House I have learned the ripple effect of incarceration is profound, but rarely discussed. The family paradigm is shifting.

What expectations does a wife have of her husband who has been away from home and society for over 10 years? Why is he unable to sit at the dinner table like he used to? Why has he forgotten how to talk to his children? How long will it take for him to find work? When, if ever, will the community embrace him as one of their own again?

How families adapt (or fail to adapt) to the absence and return of an incarcerated parent, spouse, son, or daughter goes largely unnoticed by the criminal justice system and is left to an over-burdened social services sector. With fewer resources available, the report said, “prison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets.” As a result many states are beginning to look at alternatives to the old way of dealing with incarceration, especially with its nonviolent drug offenders.

As a photojournalist I felt compelled to humanize these statistics.

At Walden House, a local drug and alcohol treatment center operating for 38 years in the state of California, I took it upon myself to photograph and interview residents, many of who have been repeat offenders. Its program has evolved into a national leader in developing strategies to help addicts recover and maintain their lives. Today it helps treat more than 3,400 men, women, and children daily.

RESPONSE

John Edwin Mason:

Rodriguez’s work is indeed amazing, DR–beautiful, emotionally powerful, intellectually challenging.

I’m part of a project that’s teaching photography to poor black and Latino teenagers. We’ve shown them Rodriguez’s website for a couple different reasons. First, we simply want them to see some great photography. Second, we want them to know that it’s done by people from their community and that it often reflects lives similar to theirs.

TOM WHITE:

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Joseph a few times and a more decent, committed, straight talking gentleman one could not hope to meet. He photographs people because he genuinely gives a shit about their situation and wants you to do so too. An inspiration, and not just to photographers.

STAN B:

Excellent presentation!

This reminds me of a very simple and very powerful photography exhibit I saw back in the late 70’s. Small snapshot, B&W portraits of “Bowery bums” telling their stories typed on index cards of how they got to skid row. Some of the most incredibly, heart wrenching stories ever told- even if only half of them were true…

As for the the US prison industrial complex, along with “the war on drugs-” an outright collusion of policies.