Tracey and Chris

I've known Tracey since 1994 when we worked in the same office. We had lots of fun in and outside of work and we have remained friends ever since. Our lives have changed a great deal in the past 14 years, and we were living on two different continents for over 10 years, but we have managed to stay in touch and she an important person in my life.

Tracey met Chris in High School and back in 1996 they started dating again, its all a bit of a fairy tale and I wanted to take their portrait for one of my photo assignments. I am very happy they agreed, which I think shows how proud and good they really are together.

Thanks guys for letting me take your photo and for being excellent hosts as always.

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Dan Jones - Human Rights Activist and Author

I have been lucky enough to have been working alonside Dan Jones, veteran Human Rights activist and author. Dan has been with Amnesty International since its beginning and he has been host for the City and Tower Hamlets Local Amnesty International group in London since 1980 (see http://www.towerhamletsandcityamnesty.blogspot.com/).

I joined Dan's Amnesty Group earlier this year and have been overwhelmed by the generosity and passion that all its members bring to the group. Regular fixtures include annual fund raisers at The George (on commercial road, London), an annual Summer Festival near Spitalfields and special events coordinated to highlight specific Amnesty campaigns.

Dan kindly agreed to sit for a portrait for another one of my assignments and we spent about 40 mins setting up, shooting and talking about his involvement in Amnesty and Human Rights activism.

As is proving to be tradition, my preferred final image was different to Dan's preference. I wanted to show Dan as a strong character so I chose the more traditionl portrait and I hope the final image achieves this (above). Dan's preference was for one that showed his softer side and a more contemporary camera angle(below).

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Self Portrait

Self portraits have always fascinated me. However, as I am not as photogenic as I would like (woe is me) I've steered away from my own self portrait in the past.

Recently though, I had to produce a self portrait for my coursework so I finally had to turn the camera on myself for a change. I originally planned a bit of a protest by using high key lighting and as much in the image as possible to distract attention away from me... time limited, I settled on water meaning I had to find a way to take pictures while I stood in the shower.

I covered my camera in a plastic bag, with a hole cut out for the lens, and sealed the bag around the lens with an elastic band. Placed two flash units either side of me and dialed up the flash until I got the lighting I was looking for - enough to blast the background and provide some depth to the image. Then it was a matter of setting the camera on timer and standing under the shower, taking as many pics as I could until the lens steamed up. I eventually ended up standing in a cold shower as the steam was getting out of hand.

Post processing was a little brightness and contrast adjustment and adding a blue filter to my eye to give the image a bit more pop... my eyes are probably the only part of the physical me with any real merit... but then I'm more than a little colour blind, so they probably look better than they actually work.

The experience was all a bit narcissistic and made me feel more than unconfortable at first, but I'm quite pleased with the outcome, and eventually had some fun with it, so I will definitely be doing more self portraits in the future.

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Falun Gong Meditation Protest

Back to an earlier theme, China. With the Beijing Olympics less than 3 months away, Amnesty International groups worldwide are using the event to publicise China’s Human Rights record.

I am co-ordinating one such event for a local Amnesty group based in Tower Hamlets in London’s East End (Event at the St.John’s Church yard Stratford, in the Olympic Borough of Newham, on the afternoon of 28th June 2008… so come along and enjoy the entertainment and a bouncy castle for the kids!).

So I took the opportunity to cover a story on the Falun Gong Meditation protest group outside the Chinese High Commission on Portland Place in London’s West End.

The meditation protest stated on June 5th 2002 by a group of Falun Gong observers. I met up with Yudon Gong, who was in meditation when I arrived, and after getting the requisite photos I spent some time talking with her about her family’s experience which led her to claiming asylum in the UK in 2001.

Yudon, a financial officer for a charitable organisation and Falun Gong observer from childhood, came to the UK from Beijing, China in 1999 to study for her Masters in International Business. While Yudon was in the UK studying, her husband had given accommodation to a Falun Gong observer from outside Beijing [Mrs Wu] who was putting together a formal appeal to the Chinese government’s clamp down on Falun Gong.

The police came to their flat in the middle of the night and took Mrs Wu away, she has not been seen or heard of since. Her husband immediately fled to Shen Zhen with their son. Following the arrest of Mrs Wu, her husband’s travel visas and flights for visiting Yudon in the UK were immediately cancelled by the government and Yudon was unable to return to china and claimed asylum in the UK in 2001. Shortly afterwards, a family friend visited the UK and brought Yudon’s son with her, mother and son were reunited after three years apart.

Her husband’s journey took him to Hong Kong and an eventual flight to the UK in 2003 when the whole family was united again for the first time in 5 years.

Last year Yudon’s son, now sixteen years old, passed eleven GCSEs. Yudon attributes her son’s focus and good temperament [attributing his not being naughty or ill tempered] on the Falun Gong meditation, which he learn from his mum at age five. Yudon learnt it from her mother, who learnt it from her mother before her.

Yudon worries that many more Chinese are unable to gain exit visas and claim asylum in the UK and other countries and she continues the protest outside the Chinese High Commission to maintain visibility for the plight of fellow observers and campaign for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong observers inside China.

Look out for a photo story I am planning with Yudon in the next couple of months, you can find out more about Falun Gong at http://www.clearharmony.net/ and more information on Human Rights in China and Amnesty International’s ‘Human Rights for China’ Campaign at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/china/.

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A New Normality?

March saw the five year anniversary of the coalition invasion of Iraq and in October this year it will be seven years on from the invasion of Afghanistan. British and American troops are still entrenched in a campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan and fighting Insurgents in Iraq, where the debate is on whether Iraq is slipping into a civil war, fuelled by funding from Syria and Iran. Is the new world order, that America’s President Bush and the UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced to the world, here to stay? Or is there an end in sight?

As the news from Afghanistan and Iraq have arguably become more a flow of statistics, with most citizens having become accustomed to the weekly statistics, is this the new normality? With the economic boom years which began in the 90s seemingly coming to an end and governments struggling to balance the military budgets [with some estimates bringing the US cost alone to $3 Trillion], Are we beginning to accept that war in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in fact, elsewhere) is a fact of life? What happened to the new millennium optimism for peace and prosperity?

On 6th May 2008, Brian Haw was arrested again after the latest police action to enforce the Serious Organized Crime and Police act on his Parliament Square protest camp. Has even Brian Haw’s protest become part of the furniture? Do we see an Anti-War protestor? A maverick? A crusaider? Or as some would suggest, has the public come to see him as an eccentric, possibly with mental health issues and merely a pawn of a few wealthy individuals who calm their conscience by funding a righteous and well publicized cause? Has the public forgotten about him altogether? How many members of the public remember his name or how long he has been camped out in Parliament Square? [he established himself in Parliament Square on 2nd June 2001, on a platform against war and foreign policy including the sanctions on Iraq, before the 2001 attack on the world trade centre, before the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq].

After the anti-war demos of the pre-Afghan and pre-Iraqi invasions, is there still an anti-war movement in the UK vocal and energised enough to keep us all talking the talk and walking the walk? Has war become a fact of life? Is this the new normality?

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Assignment 01

Spring is here and its time to shake off the winter blues and get busy. One such project is a Photojournalism course I am doing at the London College of Communication (University of the Arts London).

Assignment 01 is for the LCC newspaper and an article about the Elephant & Castle market. The LCC news story is about the multi-billion pound regeneration programme taking place locally that will transform the area. There is some doubt about the future of the Elephant & Castle Market, with no defined plan to relocate or rehouse the market.

The man in the picture is Jamal Uddin who runs a handbag and leather stall. He has had a stall in the market for the past 7 years, 6 years of which the future of the market has been in doubt. Although Jamal is unsure what this will mean for his livelyhood, he says 'business is down...' especially for the past three months. Jamal has not been given any indication or timeline for the shopping centre redevelopment adjacent to which the market is currently located. He remains philosophical and thinks 'the redevelopment is well overdue' pointing out how run-down and dirty the current location is. He is optomistic that a new location or facility will be forthcoming as he points out 'where else can people get bargains like this?'.

For now the market is still a busy centre, if not as busy and prosperous as it once was. Only time and the will of the redevelopment programme will determine the fate of the market as the area undergoes its dramatic transformation.

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