Human Rights Human Wrongs

Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May 1963. Photograph: Charles Moore

Human Rights Human Wrongs currently showing at the Photographers’ Gallery is a hard-hitting, and ultimately very sobering look at the story of human rights in the second half of the twentieth century – a catalogue of wars, demonstrations, uprisings, famine, political struggle and violence. Taking the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a starting point, and in particular Article 6 which states ‘Everybody has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law’, it is curated by Mark Sealy, director of Autograph ABP, using photographs from the archive of the Black Star agency, an organisation founded in 1935 by three German Jews who fled Nazi persecution. Key events from the American Civil Rights movement are depicted alongside African independence struggles, the Vietnam War, uprisings in Central America, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, student riots worldwide, the Biafran famine, together with a number of portraits of Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Most of the photographers are not household names, but the images they portray are familiar from newsreels and newspapers of the time, and there are a few famous photographs - a gun-toting Patty Hearst, a Biafran child with outstretched hand, civil rights campaigners such as Martin Luther King. The photographs themselves are all black and white, working press prints complete with marks and creases.  The curator has opted not to display the work in strict chronological or geographical order but instead juxtaposes images from struggles in different parts of the world - a picture of the Chicago riots sits next to one of a conflict in Mozambique, student demonstrations in Paris are shown alongside similar protests in Mexico and Berkeley, California. The effect serves to emphasise the common experiences and shared grievances worldwide.  Dotted throughout the exhibition are a number of small series – police dogs being set on the Birmingham marchers, a Vietnam War chaplain ministering to American soldiers – showing the viewer that the decisive moment and the iconic image are only a small part of the whole.

One of the stated aims of the curator is to make people consider the role of the photojournalist and Western media organisations and the fact that most of these events are mediated through the eyes of an outsider within ‘a very particular tradition of Eurocentric concerns’. Does the representation of repeated images of conflict and suffering dehumanise or objectify the people depicted? Does the audience become desensitised over time? What is the cultural meaning assigned to these photographs? These are important questions which the exhibition raises and upon which the viewer is encouraged to reflect.  The densely packed exhibition on two floors is full of shocking, graphic images of suffering and grief, racism and oppression, the casualties and aftermath of war, social unrest and instances of brutality and at times is rather an overwhelming experience.  But the fact that events such as those depicted in the photographs are still happening all over the world is a compelling reason to visit this important exhibition.

Czechoslovakia Invasion, Prague, on 21 August 1968. Photograph: Hilmar Pabel

  Martin Luther King in Birmingham, Alabama, December 1965. Photograph: Bob Fitch

 The Republic of Biafra, c 1968. Photograph: Carlo Bavagnoli

Young man steals the sword of King Baudouin I, during procession with newly appointed President Kasavubu, Leopoldville, Republic of the Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), 30 June 1960. Photograph: Robert Lebeck

All Photographs from The Black Star Collection/Ryerson Image 

Human Rights Human Wrongs at The Photographers’ Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies St, London W1F 7LW Until 6 April 2015 Free

This review is published in the Spring edition of fLIP, the magazine of London Independent Photography

Catching Up

It's been over 18 months since I posted anything on this blog. Much as I recoil from the general idea of a New Year being a new start, this year I feel differently somehow and am beginning to feel the stirrings of desire to get photographing again. The reasons for my recent disengagement with photography have been various. I've had other things on my mind - the deaths of both my best friend and my mother, together with my attempt and failure to sell up, move house and make a fresh start elsewhere, have all distracted me from pursuing much serious photography recently. Also the sheer volume of images we get exposed to - on the web, via social media, in exhibitions, books and magazines - has contributed to a kind of disenchantment and fatigue. But time to pull myself together - I will just have to make an effort to filter out the dross, concentrate on what really interests me and stay focused!

It hasn't been a total waste of a year though - I have managed to create one book which I'm happy with - An Accumulation of Days - a collection of photographs taken in and around the home over the course of a few years. The images range from almost abstract shadows and reflections to more intimate portrayals of small everyday moments as the seasons change and the days pass. A preview of the book can be seen here

Some of the work from this book also featured in an exhibition I took part in last November at Espacio Gallery in London's Shoreditch as part of Photomonth. The show The Bleached Bones of a Story was organised by London Independent Photography Central Group and featured work from 11 photographers detailing life's little events and ordinary things. It was a thoughtfully-curated show where disparate work seemed to connect very well. A great success.

Earlier in the year The Swanscombe Project was shown at Goldsmith's, University of London. This was the culmination of a year's work by sixteen photographers documenting life on the marsh. My work for the project can be seen in earlier posts on this blog. As plans to develop the marsh gain momentum, the project will get another outing in February this year at the Blake Gallery in Gravesend. Details to follow.

Over the past year I have also been helping out on the editorial team of fLIP - the thrice-yearly photography magazine produced by London Independent Photography. The magazine, free to members and on sale at selected bookshops and galleries, is an interesting mix of members' work and features, interviews, exhibition listings and reviews and is completely free of advertising. Each issue is centred around a theme - currently Conflict. Excellent value for money and a good read!

Finally I have spent some time revamping and updating my website. I think the result is a more professional, streamlined look with my work divided into relevant themes which are easily searchable. A well-designed website should be a showcase for your work. Despite the importance of social media and blogging, it's usually the first port of call when promoting yourself so it's important to get it right and make it stand out from all the millions of others out there! You can see the result here.

So - expect more photographs, ideas for project development, updates, some of my favourite book recommendations, exhibition news and anything else that takes my fancy.

Six of the best.....Hipstamatics

December is the time for end-of-year 'best of' lists. The theme of next week's LIP Central Group* meeting is My Photographic Year so in preparation I have started trawling through my back catalogue to see what I can come up with. When I initially started thinking about the past year's work, I didn't think I had achieved very much. Compared with previous years, my output seems to have been quite low - I didn't seem able to summon up a lot of enthusiasm much of the time and felt I was just going through the motions. However, it's quality that counts, not quantity, so over the next week or two, I am going to post a series of 6 of the best of different categories. It's a useful exercise allowing me to appraise the year's work plus it's very good for the soul to have to edit things down to such a degree!

I am starting with 6 of the best Hipstamatic shots.  Out of the hundreds I have taken, these were selected for no other reason than they please me......

* London Independent Photography has a number of 'satellite' groups which meet on a regular basis.  I attend the Central London Group which meets monthly.  Details here

Chance Would be a Fine Thing

A photograph from my series 'Par Hazard' has been chosen as the signature image to promote the exhibition Chance Would be a Fine Thing, a group show opening tomorrow where 13 photographers respond to the theme of chance. I am showing 10 images from the series which records a succession of walks I made based on the London A-Z. Organised by the Central Group of London Independent Photography, the exhibition takes place at the Mile End Art Pavilion in East London from 13th-18th November and is part of London’s Photomonth. More details can be found here.

It promises to be an interesting exhibition as the participating photographers have produced quite diverse and individual interpretations of the different connotations of chance, involving aspects of luck, risk, fortune, probability, opportunity or prospect.

Despite the current trend for staged or constructed imagery, one of photography's joys has always been its susceptibility to chance. As photographers we choose the subject matter, select the aperture and shutterspeed, carefully frame the composition; but the moment the shutter is released, an element of chance is involved: an expression or gesture changes, the sun appears, a figure crosses our field of vision.  The serendipitous moment then becomes ‘a fine thing’ indeed.

'Chance would be a fine thing' can also be interpreted as desire against the odds. Although there may be no chance, this has never stopped people dreaming.There may be fat chance, but the photographer still strives to capture his or her vision. One of the most exciting challenges for photographers is to try to evoke the tension and ambiguity in these contradictions. This is the first group show of LIP's Central London branch in celebration of its second anniversary.