Photography/Exhibition: Tim Hetherington Retrospective

I am SO happy I was able to catch this Tim Hetherington retrospective/exhibition before it closes this Saturday - and if you haven't seen it yet you must go to the Yossi Milo Gallery to see it, especially seeing that it is the first major exhibition of his work in the US (which really surprises me).














The front room is devoted to a collection of Tim's photos taken in Liberia while he was covering the civil war there. The second room contains a set of photos taken of US soldiers based in Afghanistan (taken from the series named Infidel) . The gallery is also running two short films made by Tim himself, Diary and Sleeping Soldiers. Diary is composed of a collage of footage taken by Tim over his 10 years of reporting, and, in his own words is "a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It's a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media". You can watch it online HERE - such haunting film. The juxtaposition of driving down a road in Africa and driving down a road in England is really well done - same type of journey, completely different perspective and views. In one, people walk down the street, lost in their own thoughts, moving along to their next destination. In the other people are walking to survive.


Tim died in Libya last year while covering the civil war there. He was located in Misrata with a group of rebel soldiers, as well as a few other foreign journalists and photographers. Fellow photographer Chris Hondros also died in the Gaddafi-supporter mortar attack on the group. Tim's work has always provoked many emotions and thoughts in me, I think mainly because he really focused on the individual amidst a world in conflict and war. His images provide an insight into how life goes on when the world is literally falling apart around you, for example, the fisherman rowing past the half-sunken warship, or the women carrying their babies in one arm and ammunition in the other.

His Infidel series is based on time Tim spent with a group of American troops stationed in the very dangerous eastern Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. The series portrays the men on a day-to-day basis, and shows an intimate view of life between the wait and the battle: soldiers sleeping, playing, waiting, on patrol and joking. The one that haunts me the most is the one taken of a soldier standing against a wall, the background a little blurry, with a look of complete horror and exhaustion on his face. If I'm, not mistaken Tim won the World Press Photo of the Year award for this one.
Also, if you haven't seen Restrepo, the documentary on American soldiers posted in Afghanistan that Tim made with Sebastian Junger (nominated for an Oscar in 2011), then you must watch it.



I have so much admiration for people who willingly place themselves at the front line of danger in order to report it back to the rest of the world in the form of images and words. Without these people we would never get to see both the beauty and the atrocities that man can commit. In my opinion there is photography and then there is amazing photography - Tim was definitely one of those amazing photographers, every image telling a story or three. I wish he were still around to provide us with more amazing images.





Additional information:
TimHetherington.com
Yossi Milo Gallery (245 Tenth Ave, NYC - between 24th & 25th streets)
Diary
Chris Hondros
NYT Parting Glance coverage


All images: Tim Hetherington/Panos Pictures

Yuri Kozyrev

One of my dreams (that I know will never become reality) is/was to be a conflict photographer. To be one of those people who are in the middle of a conflict or war and take those photos that are then shown all over the world. Those images that show not only how messed up and horrific mankind actually is, but also how human and fragile we are as individuals.
Nowadays everyone is a photographer, anyone can take a picture with their phone from the middle of a conflict zone and post it on the internet, and the image will find it's way around the world in a matter of seconds. Nothing wrong with this of course, I find the ability to be aware of anything that is going on in the world at any time really important. I like to rely on a large array of resources of media to keep in touch with the outside world. But I have so much respect for those photographers and journalists who risk their lives everyday to bring us words and images that break our hearts and inform us at the same time. I've previously talked about a few of the other photographers that I admire, but I recently came across some of the talented Yuri Kozyrev's work and literally wept with emotion.

Yuri Kozyrev was both in the USSR in 1963, and after graduating from the Moscow State University School of Journalism became well-known for his photographic coverage of conflicts in the Soviet Union (specifically the wars in Chechnya). He has also reported from Afghanistan, and Iraq, where he spent a long time living with the locals, learning about the country and the cultures that surrounded him. He works as a Time contract photographer, and I discovered his work when he won the Visa d'or News Award for his coverage of the Arab Spring in Time Magazine this year. Look at this video which contains the portfolio of these photographs HERE. Your eyes will well up with tears, it really is impossible not to feel all types of emotion when looking at these images. They are simply so full of feeling and meaning.

To me that will always be where the real photographers are, those who can present an images that tells a story with a history and a future, packed with feeling and emotion. See the NOOR link below for more of Yuri's work.

References:
Wikipedia page on Yuri Kozyrev
NOOR Photographer homepage
Time Magazine

João Silva speech in the NY Times - great read!

A few weeks ago I posted about the book The Bang-Bang Club - Snapshots From a Hidden War. I was profoundly marked by the experiences of the four South African photographers who covered the violence that broke out in the townships between the end of Apartheid in 1990 and the general elections in 1994. Only two of the four are still alive today, and one of them, João Silva, lost both legs below the knees after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan last year. He was documenting the war with the US Army for the NY Times when this happened.

I have been following both João and Greg Marinovich's careers for a while now and am amazed by both of them. Their talent, courage and gratitude... I kind of idolise both of them slightly, so I will hold back on the gushing, and just let you read for yourself.

Please read an edited version of João's speech at the Bronx Documentary Center on August 2nd, published in the NY Times: João Silva: This Is What I Do, This Is All I Know

If you don't have tears in your eyes after reading that I don't know what to tell you... Please repost, reread, tell your friends. Without people like João and Greg, and the countless others who have been injured or died in this line of work, we would never have the images of conflict and war that we do today.

More reading on these amazing guys here:
Greg Marinovich's Blog
Support Joao Silva Site
Link

The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots From A Hidden War


This one caught my eye a few weeks ago while I was browsing through the aisles of the bookshop. Just like foreign war correspondents amaze me, war photographers do too. There is such a huge element of danger in taking THAT shot that will be published around the world, and then the inevitable questions of "but what did he/she do after the shot was taken?". I'm not going to go into the psychological questioning and trying to understand as I personally don't think you can answer those questions, but the Bang-Bang Club gives you some insight into the thought process and passion of photographers who follow and capture violence and war.

Written by Greg Marinovich and João Silva (manly from Greg Marinovich's eyes) about the period between the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the general elections of 1994 in South Africa. During these four years there was a tremendous amount of violence and death in the different townships, and Greg, João, with Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter, documented this, obtaining the name "Bang-Bang Club" through an article in the South African press published about them at the time.
The book describes the scenes, the violence, the people, the incomprehension of WHY people were continously killing each other, the emotions, the untimely deaths of both Ken Oosterbroek (killed by cross-fire that seriously injured Greg too) and Kevin Carter (who took his own life), and finally the joy of being a free and equal human again, through the eyes of a black family in one of the townships on the day of the elections.

I can't say that I am very knowledgeable about South African history, apart from the main parts: Boer War, Apartheid, extreme racism, Nelson Mandela, and finally the end of Apartheid. This book started giving me some insight into life in South Africa during and right after Apartheid, and I've started researching into more depth to learn more. I would really like to understand what instigated all of the violence during those four years, why it was continuously called "black on black violence", when a lot of it was most entirely triggered and enabled by law enforcement and different factions of the people still in power...

As a sidenote - Greg and João also describe some of their jobs outside of South Africa (Yougoslavia, Sudan...), a lot of backlash that came from the public about Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Price winning photograph of a starving Sudanese child, collapsed on the ground while being watched by a vulture in the background.

Anyway - I really could go on and on about this book. It's NOT an easy read in the slightest, and most of the photographs that are included are horrific (in the sense of the scenes that were captured), but it is a must read in my opinion.

I don't think I will ever understand how humans can be so utterly inhuman to each other.

More info here: The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from A Hidden War