Cuban Medics in Haiti

On 26 December 2010, the Independent published 'Cuban medics in Haiti put the world to shame' by Nina Lakhani. It is because of such articles - infos that most media do not offer - that I still read (online) newspapers. Here's an excerpt:

They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America's doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America's arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame.

A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro's international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition.

Observers of the Haiti earthquake could be forgiven for thinking international aid agencies were alone in tackling the devastation that killed 250,000 people and left nearly 1.5 million homeless. In fact, Cuban healthcare workers have been in Haiti since 1998, so when the earthquake struck the 350-strong team jumped into action. And amid the fanfare and publicity surrounding the arrival of help from the US and the UK, hundreds more Cuban doctors, nurses and therapists arrived with barely a mention. Most countries were gone within two months, again leaving the Cubans and Médecins Sans Frontières as the principal healthcare providers for the impoverished Caribbean island.

For the full text go here

In India (3)

Copyright @ Hans Durrer

The pics above were taken in the City Palace in Jaipur.

What do you work? a guy in my Jaipur hotel asks. I'm an addiction therapist, I say. A counsellor? Yes. Oh, I'm a drug addict, he says and adds: NA. I know what NA is all about, I'm a twelve-step therapist, I smile. I went to therapy to a treatment nearby, he continues. I still go there from time to time. To remind me that I do not want to spend time there again. Would you mind showing me the center? I inquire. Not at all, he says. And so I get to see my first Indian treatment center and have a talk with the people there, all of them former addicts and volunteers. I learn that only a small minority come into treatment out of free will, that most are brought here by their families. And what is the success rate? 20 percent, I'm told. If that is true - and I have no reason to not believe them - that is not only impressive but higher than the rate of treatment centers that insist their clients must be undergoing treatment voluntarily.

In India (2)

Copyright @ Hans Durrer

When I take pictures of people, I usually ask their permission and afterwards show them the pic. The girl to the left, after seeing her first pic, posed again and again and was very concerned that the little boy received a favourable recording.

Copyright @ Hans Durrer

Ban Ki-Moon Korean says the Indian security officer at the baggage control in Terminal 3 of Delhi Airport to an Asian couple. Japan, they reply. No, the Indian says, Ban Ki-Moon Korean. Japan, the couple insists. I jump in and second the Indian. Japan, the couple is adamant. Finally it dawns on me: They are Japanese not Korean.

In my hotel, they let me use the hotel computer to check my mails. And so I sit behind the reception and write while the receptionist peers over my shoulder and openly reads what I'm penning, a hotel guest even ventures behind the reception to check on my writing.

In India

Taking a photograph at the Taj Mahal
Copyright @ Hans Durrer

Are you full tonight? I ask the receptionist of my hotel in Jaipur. Yes, he says. How many rooms do you have? 22 of which 17 are occupied by orthopaedists who attend a conference nearby. The next morning at breakfast, two of the orthopaedists (they had already inquired at the reception where the only non-Indian in the hotel was from) approach me and want to know where in Switzerland I am from for they would soon attend a conference in Zurich.

Sanjay deals in garments. He will soon be going to Mexico on business. Do you speak Spanish? I inquire. That is not a problem, they speak English, he says. His English isn't too good but that is not a problem either because the garmet business is mainly about the quality of the garment (and this can be felt) and figures.

His brother asks whether I've been to Italy. Florence is very nice, Naples not at all, he says and adds: Italians also speak English and are very much like Indians. I automatically think of chaos ...

Guard inside the City Palace in Jaipur
Copyright @ Hans Durrer

India is a feast for the eye - a photographer's paradise.

You ask somebody for directions and in seconds you will find yourself surrounded by ten to twenty onlookers.

No rules, comments my driver on the traffic. Do cars in other countries go all in one direction? he wants to know. Generally speaking yes, they usually do not come from from left or right or towards you.

I walk into a beauty parlour. Do you also do nails? I ask. The hairdresser (I assume he is a hairdresser because he had been sleeping in a hairdresser's chair) nods. Manicure and pedicure? He continues to nod, I however have that clear feeling that he will nod to whatever I will suggest.

Indians prefer politeness to honesty, I had heard the other day. And business over no business, I guess.

Ever had Manchurian Cauliflower? One of the most exotic dishes I've ever had. You can get it in Delhi, at Connaught Circus h 27.

Die Socken-Serie

Als sich der weithin unbekannte Schweizer Fotograf Freddie „Trigger“ Berchtold letzthin nach San Francisco aufmachte, konnte er nicht ahnen, dass er dort auf ein Projekt stossen würde, dass schon bald zu seiner fotografischen Bestimmung werden sollte: die Socken-Serie.

Trigger besuchte in San Francisco seine Freundin, die Foto-Künstlerin Edna O’Look. Eines regnerischen Morgens wanderten die Beiden durch das Richmond Quartier in Richtung Geary Street als Edna unvermutet auf einen Gegenstand deutete, der auf dem Trottoir an der Ecke 25th Ave und Geary lag, und, wie es ihre Gewohnheit war, ausrief: „Da schau mal!“ Trigger schaute nicht, denn Edna O’Look machte ihn ständig, wo auch immer sie gingen, auf vollkommen unbemerkenswerte Dinge aufmerksam. Doch dieses Mal war es nicht so einfach, sie zu ignorieren, denn sie war stehen geblieben und blockierte Triggers Weg. Forschend beäugte sie ein Stück nasser Wolle, das für Trigger wie ein liegen gelassener Socken aussah, der, wie er fand, seiner Aufmerksamkeit auch deswegen nicht würdig war, weil es regnete und er dringend pinkeln musste. Doch Edna liessen solch gewöhnliche Umstände vollkommen kalt (ihr letztes Projekt hatte ausschliesslich mit Wasser zu tun und seither liess sie sich von allem, das in flüssiger Form daher kam, nicht mehr aus der Ruhe bringen). Zudem war sie voll auf dem Bewusstseins-Trip: sich irgendetwas bewusst zu sein, schien ihr an sich total positiv. Ein offensichtliches Kompensieren, wie Trigger es sah, denn Edna schlief zehn bis zwölf Stunden pro Nacht, kein Wunder also, dass sie ausserordentliche Anstrengungen unternahm, um in der verbliebenen Tageszeit extra-wach (oder, in ihren Worten, „bewusst) zu sein.

Es ist ein Socken, sagte Trigger. Interessant nicht? antwortete Edna. Es ist nur ein Socken! sagte Trigger mit deutlich erhobener Stimme. Was soll an einem nassen Socken auf der Strasse denn interessant sein? Nun ja, ich hab ihn bemerkt, sagte Edna. Natürlich würde ich nicht so weit gehen und dem eine spezielle Bedeutung zumessen wollen, doch die Geschichte hinter dem Socken könnte wirklich ganz faszinierend sein. Trigger musst immer noch dringend pinkeln und so sagte er: Können wir das bei einem Kaffee besprechen. Sowieso, sagte Edna.

Nachdem Trigger seine Blase erfolgreich geleert hatte, sagte er: Ich kann einfach nicht glauben, dass ein nasser Socken auf der Strasse Dein Interesse findet. Siehst Du einen Socken, der nicht an seinem üblichen Platz ist, denn nicht anders als wenn er an seinem üblichen Platz ist? antwortete Edna. Was hältst Du denn für den üblichen Platz für einen Socken? An einem Fuss oder im Schrank. Das seh ich auch so, gab Trigger zurück, aber was ist der übliche Platz für einen nassen Socken? An einer Leine zum Trocknen aufgehängt. Genau, antwortete Trigger, aber ich versteh es immer noch nicht, weil, na ja, also weil mir ist ein nasser Socken auf der Strasse ganz einfach vollkommen schnuppe. Nun ja, sagte Edna, es erlaubt Dir, den Socken und den Platz, wo er sich befindet, mit anderen Augen zu sehen. Wäre dieser Socken nicht gelegen, wo er lag, hättest du ihn wahrscheinlich nicht einmal bemerkt. Nun, sagte Trigger, ich habe ihn ja gar nicht bemerkt, obwohl er lag, wo er lag. Siehst Du, erwiderte Edna, das ist der Unterschied: Ich gehe bewusst durchs Leben und Du nicht. Und weil ich bewusst durchs Leben gehe, entwickle ich alternative Sichtweisen. Und das wiederum erlaubt mir, neue Zusammenhänge zu sehen. Und genau das fasziniert mich.

Das ganze Bewusstseins- und Aufmerksamkeits-Ding machte für Trigger nicht viel Sinn, denn ihm wäre lieber gewesen, er wäre sich der Leute, Orte und Dinge um ihn herum weniger bewusst gewesen. Im schien dieses ganze Bewusstseins- und Aufmerksamkeits-Getue völlig überbewertet. Was sollte, zum Beispiel, daran toll sein, wenn man sich seines Zahnwehs bewusst war? Oder seines Tinnitus?

Andrerseits faszinierte ihn Ednas Socken-Bewusstsein aber auch. Während der nächsten Tage erwischte er sich dabei, wie er ständig nach nassen Socken ausschaute, wo immer er auch ging. Er sah nie einen. Edna jedoch sah ständig welche. Nasse Socken? fragte Trigger. Ja, nasse Socken.

Trigger verstärkte seine Anstrengungen. Aber da, wo er ging, gab es keine nassen Socken. Doch dann, eines Morgens, sah er einen. Einen roten nassen Socken. An der Ecke Fulton und 32nd Avenue. Er war ganz aufgeregt, nahm seine Kamera zur Hand und begann zu schiessen. Aus allen Winkeln. Er strahlte vor Freude als er Edna davon erzählte. Als Kalifornierin teilte sie seine Begeisterung und freute sich für ihn.

Zwei Tage später entdeckte er einen weiteren Socken. Dieses Mal war es ein trockener schwarzer. Auf der Cabrillo. Er konnte sein Glück kaum fassen. Gleichzeitig war er leicht skeptisch, denn Cabrillo war etwas sehr nahe von Ednas und seinem Wohnort auf der 32nd Avenue. Und auch Fulton war verdächtig nahe. Hatte Edna vielleicht die Socken da hingelegt? Möglich, dachte er. Doch dann sagte er sich: Also jetzt, wo ich endlich meine Bestimmung gefunden habe, werde ich doch nicht so blöd sein und sie einfach wieder fahren lassen, nur wegen einer solchen doch recht unwahrscheinlichen Möglichkeit.

Ich vermisse zwei Socken, sagte Edna zwei Tage später. Einen roten und einen schwarzen. Hast Du sie gesehen?

Aus: Hans Durrer 
Inszenierte Wahrheiten
Rüegger Verlag, Chur/Zürich 2011

Delhi Impressions (2)

What brings you to Delhi? asks the middle-aged guy in T-shirt, shorts, socks and house shoes, whose accent I cannot place, during breakfast at my Nehru Place hotel. Where are you from? I ask. Jordan, he says and adds: You should not have come here. The traffic, the filth, the noise. they don't stop at red lights, they live hundreds of years back in time ... all of a sudden he lightens up: But the women, so beautiful! he smiles.
I'm visiting a former classmate, I say and ask back: And what brings you here? Outsourcing IT, he says but I have cut my stay short, I will be leaving tonight. I'm paying a hundred Dollars for this place here; for this money I would get a really nice place in Dubai, he continues. But not in Switzerland, I feel like adding but decide that this is probably not the right moment.

The internet place near my hotel demands that I show my ID (they copy it), put down my name, address and phone number. Every time I show up. This is the law, the guy in charge says. And this is quite obviously the only place that enforces it ...

I decide to buy a sim card. That however proves to be not as easy as I had thought: I need a passport size photo. Once I have that I'm told that I also need a copy of my passport and my visa. Then I have to fill in a form that wants to know the name of my father, my birth date as well as my age, the address of a contact person in India and and and ...

I have my shoes shined. I should also have my laces replaced, suggests the shoe shiner. I agree, he throws them away. Only now he realises that he has no replacement. He goes to see a colleague but returns empty-handed. He eventually seetles for a far too short pair from his stock.

The most difficult to bear are the begging children ...

The towns and villages on my way to Agra never seem to have been properly built or must have been, some centuries ago, subjected to bomb raids. How come? People simply don't care, I'm told.

Blow Horn is written on the rear of Indian trucks. As if such encouragement were needed ...

Delhi Impressions

At the entrance of my hotel is a metal detector. Every time I pass by it, it peeps. Then I climb the stairs where a doorman opens the door for me, he does not check my bag, he's only there to open the door ... 

 In front of the Tibetan village I was approached by a man with a colossal cotton bud who offered me an on-the-street-ear-cleaning. Since he and his tool didn't seem to conform to Swiss hygiene standards, I politely declined ... 

 Saw the Red Fort from various angles, India Gate through a veil of haze, Parliament House through exhaust fumes ... Got stuck in a sort of parking lot at Chandni Chowk, the cars were parked in such a way that there was simply no way of getting out ...

 And then there's the constant honking. When I once felt to comment on it to my taxi driver, I only at the very last moment realised that he himself was a very active contributor to this deafening noise ...

 Moreover, two things regularly come to mind: A student of mine in Istanbul, who, when I commented on the many Turks on the Galata Bridge, asked whether I had ever been to Delhi. And this quote from Spalding Gray's Impossible Vacations: "Like the trip from the airport into Amsterdam, the ride into Delhi was confusing; but there was no time to reflect on it. We both held on for dear life as the cab careened through streets of chaos. I only had time for two thoughts: one, how Gandhi had ever imagined he could bring peace and order to such a place, and two, that I did not want to die here and that was what I felt was about to happen."

Mario Quintana

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul. And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and that company doesn't mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises. And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open and with the grace of an adult not the grief of a child. And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow`s ground is too uncertain for your plans. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul. Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you will learn that you can endure that you really are special and that you really do have worth. So live to learn and know yourself. In doing so, you will learn to live.

Mario Quintana, 30 July 1906 — 5 May 1994, Brazilian Writer.

Simplexity

The architect Fernando Romero, born 1971 in Mexico City, worked from 1997 to 2000 in the offices of Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam. In 2000, he founded his Laboratory of Architecture (LAR).

"Simplexity" presents a selection of his projects and provides an overview of his visions, drafts, and buildings, and thus documents the progress of LAR in the first ten years of its existence.

My impression? I thought the projects and buildings in this tome extraordinary and fascinating, all of them, and would be hard-pressed had I to name a favourite.

Architecture, according to Fernando Romero, "is produced through a continuous translation process. What we do in our daily practice is the translation of restrictions, ambitions, challenges, conditions, political and economic moments into structures that contain usable spaces with unique identities."

Take the Seoul Performing Arts Center for instance: its design was inspired by the Ying-Yang concept (the idea of keeping opposites in balance), the defining principle of Korea's identity. So how does one translate that into architecture? Romero and his partners opted for a sponge-like structure in which the main forums are suspended.

Or take the Torre Bicentenario OMA/LAR that was meant to commemorate Mexico's bicentennial of its independence and the centennial of its Revolution. What did Rem Koolhaas and his team (OMA) and his local partners (LAR) come up with? "... the building is formed by stacking two pyramidal forms resembling those typical of Mexican prehispanic temples, forms familiar and unexpected, historic but also visonary."

Many architects, Romero has observed, are not keen on working in China and with the Chinese respectively but for him this collaboration is interesting because there are many similarities between China and Mexico. "In our case, our bridge in Jinhua was produced with immense similarity to the way projects are done here in Mexico." Unfortunately, the interviewer did not ask him to elaborate.

After leafing yet another time through this tome, I realise that I come back again and again to the Bicentennial Moebius Ring which has a single continous face that is two-dimensional at every point. As Raymund Ryan penned: "It embodies the notion of simplexity - it is geometric yet not static, with a single contiguous surface linked here to key dates in Mexican history."

But then again, I also come back again and again to the Mexico Pavilion in Shanghai and the Mercedes Benz Business Center in Yerevan, Armenia, and and and ... Simplexity is a tome worth spending time with.

Mercedes Benz Business Center in Yerevan, Armenia

Simplexity
LAR / Fernando Romero
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010

Foto:Box

Wau! So guet! Bin ganz begeistert, dass es dieses Buch gibt!
Denn hier wird für einmal vorgeführt, dass Bild und Text zusammengehören. Und das meint: dass ein Foto, ohne dass wir über seine Entstehungsgeschichte Bescheid wissen, so recht eigentlich nicht verstanden werden kann.

Fotobücher haben es ja gemeinhin so an sich, dass den Bildern keine Texte beigegeben werden oder wenn doch, dann nur ganz spärliche und zudem oft, wie ein Register, auf den letzten Seiten. Ganz so, als ob bei Fotos, die für würdig befunden werden, Aufnahme in ein Buch finden, diese losgelöst von jedem Kontext verstanden werden könnten. Doch das ist, obwohl gängige Praxis, gänzlich unsinnig.

Schön also, dass der DuMont Verlag Foto:Box auf den Markt gebracht hat, ein Werk, das sich zum Zeil gesetzt hat, "die Geschichte der Fotografie zusammenzufassen bezw. zu umreissen", erfahren wir aus dem Vorwort von Roberto Koch. "Dieses Buch versammelt zweihundertfünfzig grosse Fotografien, eine repräsentative Auswahl von Arbeiten einiger der besten Fotografen aller Zeiten. Jede einzelne ist so getreu wie möglich wiedergegeben und von einem Text und einer kurzen Biografie ihres Urhebers begleitet ... Um der Sammlung eine übergreifende Struktur zu geben, sind die Fotografien in zwölf Kategorien unterteilt worden, die unsere Kapitel bilden und sich dennoch in einem gewissen Masse überschneiden müssen, somit mit der Einordnung in eine Kategorie nie erschöpfend bestimmt sind {man ahnt zwar, was der Mann uns da sagen will, doch besonders elegant tut er es nicht gerade}. Die Themen lauten nach dem Erscheinen im Buch: Reportage, Krieg, Porträt, Akt, Frauen, Reise, Stadt (als urbaner Lebensraum), Kunst (-fotografie), Mode, Stilleben, Sport, Natur."

Dieses Buch lädt ein, Entdeckungen zu machen. Besonders anregend fand ich Garry Winogrands Central Park Zoo, Larry Towells Mennoniten in Chihuahua, Mexiko, Piergiorgio Branzis Junge mit Uhr, Martine Barrats Harlem, Dennis Stocks Audrey Hepburn, Annie Griffiths Belts Weisse Pelikane, Fulvio Roiters Umbrien, Li Zhenshengs Morgen auf dem Land ... so recht eigentlich könnte ich alle zweihundertfünzig in diesem Band versammelten Aufnahmen hier aufführen, denn auch Bilder, die ich schon lange kenne und schätze, betrachte ich in diesem Umfeld, und wegen der beigegebenen Informationen, mit (teilweise) neuen Augen.

Lese ich etwa nach, unter welchen Umständen James Nachtweys 11. September 2001 (das mich schon immer tief beeindruckte) zustande kam, bleibt mir fast der Atem weg. Bis ich dann zu den letzten beiden Sätzen komme, die mir angesichts des Vorhergegangen (die Aufnahme entstand unter Lebensgefahr) eigenartig daneben, sprachlich hölzern und vollkommen fehl am Platz dünken: "An diesem Tag fotografiert er impulsiv viele Farbfotos, denn er möchte sie so schnell wie möglich veröffentlichen. Das war seine Art der Sinnsuche, während er über die Trümmer jenes Tages stolperte, der nicht enden wollte."

Mit anderen Worten: Die Begleittexte sind von unterschiedlicher Qualität und behaupten manchmal schlicht Falsches. Über die Kontroverse zu Capas sterbenden Soldaten zu schreiben, die Frage sei gelöst worden, "als es Capas Biograf Richard Whelan nach eingehenden Recherchen gelang, den Namen des toten Soldaten zu identifizieren", ist schlicht Unsinn. Siehe auch meinen Artikel "Robert Capa's Falling Soldier" in Soundscapes vom September 2009.

Es versteht sich: "eine repräsentative Auswahl von Arbeiten einiger der besten Fotografen aller Zeiten" zu präsentieren ist schwierig, denn jeder, der sich mit Fotografie auseinandersetzt, wird Aufnahmen vermissen und/oder sich fragen, weshalb man von dieser Fotografin dies, von jenem Fotografen jenes genommen und so recht eigentlich überhaupt ganz andere Bilder hätte nehmen sollen. Für mich gilt: bei allen (vor allem textlichen) Schwächen, ich bin froh, dass es dieses Buch gibt - es zeigt mir Bilder, die ich nicht kannte, weist mich auf Fotografen hin, die zu entdecken lohnt und liefert die Information zum Bild, mit der sich ein Foto erst verstehen lässt. Schade, dass es nicht mehr solche Fotobücher gibt.

Foto:Box

Die bekanntesten Fotos der Welt
DuMont Verlag, Köln 2010

Russia: Alcohol Abuse

The Daily Telegraph recently ran a series of photographs by Asian women photographers, here's an example by Tatiana Plotnikova that reminded me of a painting; it profoundly touched me.


Picture: © Tatiana Plotnikova, Russia 'Russia: Alcohol Abuse'.

Per capita consumption of alcohol in Russia is among the top ten highest in the world, and the problem continues to grow. The Balashov Narcological Clinic in the Saratov region is one of many scattered all over Russia to treat alcoholics. Many patients have already experienced the terrible torture of delirium tremens but cannot stop drinking, as very often entire families drink habitually, from generation to generation.

On Learning

Everyone's got something they're good at, but not everyone takes the time to find out what that is. I was quite lucky that I was crap at school, being dyslexic. My number one goal was just trying to be not bored all day. I had actually decided to join the circus. I learned the unicycle, and wanted to be a stuntman, though they told me at school I would have to pass some kind of PE for that, and I thought, I'm not going to play rugby just so I can fall off a building.

And then I won some tickets to see a comedy show – Jack Dee, Jo Brand, Simon Fanshawe. Jack came out and did his thing and I just thought, that's what I do - and I don't have to stink of paraffin or elephant shit. I think if anything, though, it's having a hinterland - knowing about space travels, dinosaurs, in a way they don't teach you at school. Some people know huge amounts about one thing, others like me know very small amounts about lots of things. Dad was a teacher and as a kid I just asked him everything. Always loved learning about stuff but just hated the way school taught it.

From Euan Ferguson: 'I was lucky I was crap at school'. Ross Noble talks about motorbikes, Australian manners and his fearless approach to stand-up in The Observer, 26 September 2010.

Andreas Feininger

Recently, Hatje Cantz published "Andreas Feininger. A Photographer's Life, 1906-1999", a bilingual edition in English and German, with texts by Thomas Buchsteiner who introduces his work with these words:

"Andreas Feiniger lived for photography. He was interested in his echo, not in his ego. And thus, while we are acquainted with the many pictures that have gained worldwide acclaim as classics of photographic history, we know very little about his life behind and away from the camera", the foreword states.

"Biography", Janet Malcolm penned in The Silent Woman, "is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of the world." Thomas Buchsteiner's biography of Andreas Feininger, however, is not of that sort, it is simply an informative book, a solid piece of facts gathering - an exciting read it is not. That does not mean that there is no interesting and at times fascinating information to be found in this tome - there is, there is! To illustrate this, let me quote from the book:

It was also important to him to make the cycle of life comprehensible through his nature photographs, to illustrate relationships of interdependence, and to show how we are also involved in those relationships as living beings. At some point during the nineteen-sixties, he was fond of explaining this with reference to the example of the spider he had once observed from his desk - for the insect's lifetime and several days beyond - in the corner of a window in the workroom of his house in New Milford. The tiny organism, no larger than a pinhead, grew over the course of the summer into a stately spider. The spider does not hunt for food: it depends on chance prey, on flies and other insects that are caught in its web by accident. The spider simply waits patiently. Its web is an incarnation of geometry, clarity, and symmetric design, supremely economical and constructed instinctively with a minimum of material, an architectural masterpiece spun with a degree of tensile strength that, pound for pound and inch for inch, surpasses even that of steel. The spider also depends on other living things and could not survive alone. With the exception of certain bacteria, no living organism can exist in complete independence, every organism plays a part in the sympphony of life as Andreas Feininger wrote repeatedly in his many books about the 'language of nature'.

Andreas Feiniger's explorer's approach to nature, his photographic view and mode of interpretation are essentially neo-naturalistic. He focused on and emphasized the alliance of art and nature in a world that has come to be dominated by technology. With the aid of an architectural ordering system, he visualized processes of creative design in life, be they man-made or natural. He realized and revealed the implicit and explicit structures and forms of these objects, regardless whether they are organic or mechanical. The exploration of forms of nature through a search for geometric structure and artistic parallels had also become a popular pursuit among other photographers, especially in Germany since the nineteen-twenties. Karl Blossfeld's blades of grass resembled knife blades. Visually speaking, Albert Renger-Patzsch's blossoms optically appear as inorganic objects. Paul Strand photographed plants as machines. Of course, Andreas Feininger could hardly deny his biographical background and certainly not the Bauhaus and his training as an architect and engineer. The New Obectivity enobled both natural and artificial objects, memorialized their forms and functions, and celebrated their beauty through their apotheosis.

Andreas Feininger
Ein Fotografenleben
A Photographer's Life
1906-1999
(texts in German & English)
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010

Leadership & Leitkultur

To the present day, the idea of the leitkultur depends on the misconception that the liberal state should demand more of its immigrants than learning the language of the country and accepting the principles of the Constitution. We had, and apparently still have, to overcome the view that immigrants are supposed to assimilate the “values” of the majority culture and to adopt its “customs.”

That we are experiencing a relapse into this ethnic understanding of our liberal constitution is bad enough. It doesn’t make things any better that today leitkultur is defined not by “German culture” but by religion. With an arrogant appropriation of Judaism — and an incredible disregard for the fate the Jews suffered in Germany — the apologists of the leitkultur now appeal to the “Judeo-Christian tradition,” which distinguishes “us” from the foreigners.

Jürgen Habermas: Leadership and Leitkultur
The New York Times, 28 October 2010

Drei Mahlzeiten und dazwischen ist Leben

Rosel Bäkers "Drei Mahlzeiten und dazwischen ist Leben" erzählt einerseits davon wie das Bad Herrenalber Modell ("Wir waren die erste Klinik mit einem Therapieangebot für Menschen mit Lebensschwierigkeiten, die eine Anbindung an verschiedene Selbsthilfegruppen herstellte und pflegte.") begann (sie war Gründungsmitglied und Pflegedienstleiterin) und beschreibt andererseits die Arbeit mit Essstörungen nach Rosels eigenem Konzept.

Das Bad Herrenalber Modell gründet in der Vorstellung (wie die senegalesischen Wolof sagen) des Nit nit ay garabam - dass der Mensch des Menschen Arzenei sei, wie Walther Lechler in seinem Geleitwort ausführt: "Und Paracelsus betont: 'Und der Arzeneien höchste ist die Liebe.' Wer würde, wenn er in diese Erfahrung in sich inkarnieren durfte noch zögern, sich schlussendlich das Leben mit vollen Händen zu nehmen, das uns in Hülle und Fülle in jedem Augenblick zusteht."

Durch die Zusammenarbeit mit Walther Lechler und seinen Nachfolgern, durch viele kollegiale Gespräche und durch die Arbeit an sich selber, habe sie einen Reifegrad erreichen können, der ihr "fundierte, klare und einfach zu verstehende Aussagen" ermögliche, schreibt Rosel. Und: "Ich kann jetzt von mir behaupten, dass ich etwas zu sagen habe." Stimmt. Und es lohnt sich, ihr zuzuhören. Unter anderem wegen Sätzen wie diesen:

"Ich hatte eine wichtige Lektion gelernt: nämlich, meine eigene Vorstellung nicht auf einen anderen Menschen zu übertragen. Ich hatte begriffen, wie wichtig zuhören ist.

... es war für uns von dem Gedanken getragen, dass wir alle gemeinsam einen neuen Weg beschreiten wollten, in dem der Mensch die Person sein konnte, die er wirklich war. Keine Rollenmaske, kein Versager, sondern ein Mensch wie du und ich.

... auch die Frage, wer Schwierigkeiten bekommt, wenn sich der Essgestörte verändert, ist für den therapeutischen Prozess mitunter sehr wichtig. Ich arbeitete mit therapeutischen Elementen, aber auch mit alltagstauglichen Empfehlungen.

Bei allen Essstörungen geht es darum zu lernen, sich etwas zu nehmen, es zu spüren und die Nahrungsaufnahme auszuhalten. Bei allen Essstörungen geht es darum, dass die Betroffenen Essen benutzen, um besser mit dem Leben klar zu kommen. Der Nahrung wird also eine andere Aufgabe zugewiesen, als nur die der Ernährung. Die Nahrung hat ursprünglich die Aufgabe den Menschen zu ernähren. Aber auch Genuss, um Sinnlichkeit zu leben."

Die letzten Sätze stammen aus einem Gespräch mit Jürgen Bosbach, der zusammen mit Rosel Bäker dieses Buch schrieb und nachhakte: "Rosel, kannst Du bitte noch einmal auf deinen Satz eingehen: 'Wenn man Nahrung aufgenommen hat, muss man dies auch aushalten können!"

Und, neugierig auf Rosels Antwort? Sie findet sich auf den Seiten 51 bis 54 dieses anregenden und aufschlussreichen Buches, in dem sich eine Mischung verschiedener Arten von Text plus einige schwarz/weiss Fotos versammeln: Da steht der Brief neben dem Interview, wird ein erläuternder Text unterbrochen von eingerahmten Merksätzen (etwa: 'Mein Essverhalten spiegelt meine Lebenssituation wieder!') und man findet auch diesen Einschub von Jürgen Bosbach, der mir ganz besonders gut gefällt, weil er Rosel Bäker (wie auch die Arbeit an diesem Buch) sehr schön charakterisiert:

"Wie unterbrechen die, wie wir später feststellten, insgesamt zwölfstündige Interviewarbeit und gönnen uns ein Essen. Ich bin von der Persönlichkeit Rosels überrascht. Tausend Gedanken und Fragen huschen durch meinen Kopf. Ihre Leben könnte ebenso gut der Stoff für einen Film sein.
Schade nur, denke ich, dass der Leser ihre Erzählweise nicht wahrnehmen kann.
Diese Lebendigkeit, mit der Rosel aus ihrem Leben und von ihrer umfassenden Berufserfahrung berichtet, kann schriftlich nur begrenzt wiedergegeben werden. Rosel erzählt so spannend, dass keine Minute mit ihr langweilig wird. Bereits nach den ersten Stunden mit ihr wurden mir einige grundlegende Dinge klar: Rosel ist eine exzellente Fachfrau, die wirklich den Titel einer Zeitzeugin für sich beanspruchen darf und sie ist eine Persönlichkeit, die Wege aus der inneren seelischen Not eines Menschen begleiten kann. Somit freue ich mich, schon während des Essens, auf den Nachmittag."

Bleibt nur noch hinzuzufügen, dass die Verschriftlichung von Rosels Erzählungen sehr gut geglückt ist.

Rosel Bäker mit Jürgen Bosbach
Drei Mahlzeiten und dazwischen ist Leben
Rosels Tisch in der psychosomatischen Klinik Bad Herrenalb
Santiago Verlag, Goch 2010

Rio Pardo, Brazil

Copyright@ Ricardo Schütz

Once a semester, the Schütz & Kanomata crew in Brazil's Santa Cruz do Sul goes to have fish on the boat-restaurant in Rio Pardo, a picturesque town situated about 135 kilometers to the West of Porto Alegre.

Photographs are considered evidence of things being observed. While I have no doubt about that, it is what they trigger that makes them so special to me. Take the nicely framed pic above, for instance: the fact that it confirms that the boat had been there at a specific time is one thing, the other thing is that it triggers so many other pictures. "Photographs are associative images - they are Rorschachs," says San Francisco-based photographer Emelle Sonh.

So what images did this boat-picture by Ricardo Schütz trigger in my case? Many, of course, and mostly unrelated to the boat-restaurant - yet prominently among the Rio Pardo-related ones were several images of the superb cakes and coffee in the cafeteria of the Centro Regional de Cultura Rio Pardo ...

By the way, the pic above does not show the boat-restaurant (which is of course much bigger) but was probably taken from there.

Nürnberg - New York

What an idea, to juxtapose images of Nürnberg and images of New York City! Can that work? Yes, it can! Provided the photographer understands his craft as superbly as Horst Schäfer does.

I felt fascinated, and amazed, at how surprisingly similar, for instance, the demonstration of Spanish tradition at the Mögeldorf parish fair looked compared to the demonstration of German tradition at the Steuben Parade on New York's Fifth Avenue. Or, that opposing views at peace rallies on Union Square and in front of Lorenzkirche looked so very much alike.

New York is known as a unique city - and it is. Horst Schäfer shows us that Nürnberg is equally unique - and that they both aren't for, as these photos convincingly demonstrate, one can choose to see that the two cities also have quite some views in common. Sounds like a contradiction? Well, contradictions only exist in our minds, in real life they sit comfortably next to each other - provided we let them, of course.

"Horst Schäfer's images are never mere reproductions or 'views', but always moments of vision, brief yet decisive seconds in which something is 'seen'", Reinhard Knodt writes felicitously in his toughtful essay "Photographing the City - On Horst Schäfer" that accompanies the photos in this tome. This is how he comments on Schäfers' shot of the Brooklyn Bridge: "At the moment the shutter is released, the faces of the people crossing the bridge become visible in the spaces between the suspension cables. To calculate this moment, a mere tenth of a second, is simply impossible. It must be seen and arrested at its point of genesis."

What Reinhard Knodt penned about the shot of the Brooklyn Bridge is equally true of the other shots in this book - for examples, go here. Rarely has it been more apparent to me that Cartier Bresson's "decisive moment" is much more than a mere stroke of luck - to capture it depends also on patience, talent, the right attitude as well as "the good eye". There is no question that Horst Schäfer has all of that.

Horst Schäfer
Nürnberg - New York
(texts in German & English)
Erich Weiss Verlag, Bamberg 2008

New York City

"New York, Portrait of a City" by Reuel Golden, directed and produced by Benedikt Taschen, is impressive in every respect - Hardcover, 25 x 34 cm (9.8 x 13.4 in.), 560 pages, 3,686 kilos net. Moreover, it is a multilingual edition: English, French, German.

500 historic and contemporary images - by, among many others, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Arnold Newman, and Helen Levitt - give testimony of what made and makes this city tick. Once again I was amazed how many of the shots that touched me had been taken by anonymous photographers.

"The one constant throughout New York City's history has been its ability to change, adapt, and reinvent itself." This is how Reuel Golden, formerly the editor of the British Journal of Photography and executive director at Photo District News, begins his text about this famously unique city, full of "restless energy". No wonder then did E.B. White ("Here is New York", 1949) state: "By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere."

Reuel Golden divided his illustrated history - for this is what this tome essentially is - into five chapters:
1850 - 1913: City of Reinvention
1914 - 1945: Reach for the Sky
1946 - 1965: The World's Capital
1966 - 1987: Mean Streets
1988 - Today: Tragedy to Triumph

There are also biographies of the photographers to be found as well as pages on recommended viewing, recommended listening, and recommended reading (I was pleased to discover that Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn and Oscar Hijuelos' The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love were included). In short: here you get all the information you need for preparing a trip to New York - or for staying home and enjoying this extraordinary city from a distance.

Whoever has been to New York City will find food for memory abound in this tome. In my case (I've been there once, thirty years ago, for a few weeks), the photographs that mostly triggered associations were the street scenes, and the architecture - and they made me want to revisit this city.

As intriguing it is to let oneself be guided by photo documents, we are well advised to always remember that what we see in pictures is what we bring to them, and thus read into them. Let me elaborate:
On 11 September (or September 11, as North American logic goes) 2001, Thomas Hoepker of Magnum Photos took a photo of casually dressed people at the Brooklyn waterfront that he kept unpublished for four years out of fear, he said, "it would stir the wrong emotions." On 10 September 2006, Frank Rich of the New York Times, commented on the photo:
"It shows five young friends on the waterfront in Brooklyn, taking what seems to be a lunch or bike-riding break, enjoying the radiant late-summer sun and chatting away as cascades of smoke engulf Lower Manhattan in the background."
Needless to say this is a plausible way of looking at this photo, especially in light of what Thomas Hoepker, the photographer, had to say about it: "They were totally relaxed like any normal afternoon. It's possible they lost people and cared, but they were not stirred by it."
The reality of the people portrayed was however a totally different one. Here's what Walter Sipser, a Brooklyn artist, who is the man on the far right of the photo emailed to Slate: "Had Hoepker walked fifty feet over to introduce himself he would have discovered a bunch of New Yorkers in the middle of an animated discussion about what had just happened. He instead chose to publish the photograph that allowed him to draw the conclusions he wished to draw ...".

Reuel Golden
New York - Portrait of a City
Taschen, Cologne 2010

Stationery Design

"Stationery Design Now!", edited by (and with a foreword from) Julius Wiedemann, and a text by Jay Rutherford on the letterhead in English, German, and French, is fun to spend time with. Moreover, it is illustrative, and inspiring.

The letterhead, the envelope, and the business card are "the three most important parts of the stationery set", Wiedemann writes and while the business card is still widely used, the letterhead and the envelope "are going through a steady decline."

On the one hand, this is not at all surprising given the omnipresence of emails, mobile phones, and social networking sites; on the other hand, this is flabbergasting for the business world, we are told, expects the competitors to distinguish themselves - and well-crafted stationery would surely help doing exactly that.

Impressive and convincing examples of superbly-crafted stationery that are all tailored to attract is what this useful tome provides.

Stationery Design Now!
Ed. Julius Wiedemann
Taschen, Cologne 2010

Chongqin - City of Ambition

Ferit Kuyas, 1955 in Istanbul geboren, schloss sein Rechtsstudium in Zürich 1982 ab, 1986 begann er sich beruflich mit Fotografie zu beschäftigen.

Chongqin, City of Ambition, ist sein jüngstes Werk. Im Vorwort von Diana Edkins erfährt man, dass es sich bei Chongqin um eine der grössten Städte der Welt handelt - sie liegt in Chinas Südwesten, in Sichuan, und ist bekannt als Stadt des Nebels. Dieser Tatsache tragen auch Kuyas' Aufnahmen Rechnung - die meisten zeigen in Nebel gehüllte Ansichten.

Die Mehrzahl der Fotobildbände erklären einem nicht, was man vor Augen hat und auch dieser Band macht keine Ausnahme. Und so blättere ich also, bleibe mal hier, mal dort hängen. Meine Augen registrieren Stadtautobahnen, Baustellen, Flusslandschaften, Grünzonen - kurz: eine im ständigen Aufbau begriffene Stadt. Abgesehen von einem prominent platzierten uniformierten Wachmann in einer Betonlandschaft sind kaum Menschen zu sehen.

Mich lassen die Aufnahmen einigermassen ratlos, berühren mich auch nicht wirklich, weder ästhetisch noch inhaltlich, mit Ausnahme des gerade erwähnten uniformierten Wachmannes in seiner Betonlandschaft, der sich in mein Gehirn eingegraben hat. Nun gut, denke ich mir, vielleicht helfen ja das Vorwort von Diana Edkins und/oder der Text von Bill Kouwenhoven weiter.

Von Kouwenhoven erfahre ich unter anderem, dass die Familie der Frau von Ferit Kuyas aus Chongqin stammt und diese Arbeit gleichzeitig autobiografisch und dokumentarisch sei: "Seine Fotografien vom China der Megastädte, vor allem von Chongqin, sind Meisterwerke in dem Sinn, dass sie kulturelle Unterschiede poetisch wie auch fotografisch überbrücken." Aha, doch welche kulturellen Unterschiede sind denn da eigentlich gemeint?

Bei Diana Edkins las ich dann: "Die Farbfotografien, die aus Licht gewoben sind, verführen den Betrachter mit der Unschuld üppiger Leuchtkraft, während sie gleichzeitig seine Vision konvulsivischer Schönheit präsentieren." Und: "In Kuyas' Fotografien spiegelt sich Umberto Ecos Vorstellung, was das Fotografieren ausmacht - nämlich eine heterogene Sprache mit vielen visuellen Dialekten, die gleichermassen unglaublich erscheinen." Da sich mir der Sinn solcher Sätze nicht einmal ansatzmässig erschliesst, wandte ich mich wieder den Fotografien zu. Und je länger ich sie mir anschaute, desto mehr sah ich, was ich zuerst nur beiläufig wahrgenommen hatte: dass da sehr überlegt (eine Baustelle im Vordergrund, fertige Häuser im Hintergrund; ein- und zweistöckige alte Häuser eingerahmt von mehrstöckigen Gebäuden neueren Datums; Autobahnbrücken ins Nichts) und überzeugend Veränderung dokumentiert wurde. Dass dabei vieles im Nebel liegt, drängt sich zwar bei der Nebel-Stadt Chongqin auf, obwohl, etwas weniger Nebel hätte diesem gelungenen Unterfangen gut getan.

Ferit Kuyas
Chongqin - City of Ambition
Benteli Verlag, 2009

Indian Photography

Although I've never been to India, I have listened to stories by people who've been there and read quite some novels about the Indian universe. In other words, I have visited India many times mentally and therefore had a pretty good idea of what to expect when I opened PRIVATE's issue on "Other Side India" (number 43, winter 2008-09) - and then, of course, almost all looked like what I did not expect. The coalminers portrayed by Arindam Mukherjee and by Srinivas Kuruganti, for instance, reminded me of Sebastião Salgado's Brazilian goldminers; of the bandwhallas, for many years Kolkata's party entertainers, I had never heard, and that there was a Catholic community in Goa was also entirely new to me. And there is still more to be discovered. It is a learning experience to spend time with this valuable tome.

Copyright @ Sucheta Das / Gauri Gill

Copyright @ Arindam Mukherjee

Copyright @ Bijoy Chowdhury

Copyright @ Prabuddha Dasgupta

Copyright @ Srinivas Kuruganti

Views from my balcony

Copyright @ Hans Durrer

The two pics were taken just minutes apart.

Gliese 5819

An artist's impression of Gliese 581g, which astronomers say is near Earth - relatively speaking - at 120 trillion miles. Photograph: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation/AP

Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable planet of similar size to Earth in orbit around a nearby star.

A team of planet hunters spotted the alien world circling a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, 20 light years away.

The planet is in the "Goldilocks zone" of space around a star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form.

"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

If confirmed, the planet would be the most Earth-like that has ever been discovered in another solar system and the first strong contender for a habitable one.

More than 400 exoplanets have been discovered by astronomers, but most are gas giants, like Jupiter, that would be inhospitable to life as we know it.

Astronomers used the Keck telescope in Hawaii to study the movement of Gliese 581 in exquisite detail and from their observations inferred the presence of a number of orbiting planets. The team report two new planets in the Astrophysical Journal, bringing the total number known to be circling the star to six.

One of the planets, named Gliese 581g, has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and takes 37 days to orbit the star. Astronomers believe it is a rocky planet with enough gravity to retain an atmosphere.

Unlike the previously discovered planets, Gliese 581g lies squarely in the region of space were life can thrive. "We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone — one too hot and one too cold — and now we have one in the middle that's just right," Vogt said.

One side of the planet is always facing the star, much as one side of the moon constantly faces Earth. This means that the far side of the planet is constantly in darkness. The most habitable region of the planet would be the line between the light and dark regions.

"Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," Vogt said.

The average temperature on the planet is estimated to be between -31 to -12C, but the ground temperature would vary from blazing hot on the bright side and freezing on the dark side.

"The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 percent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy," said Vogt

Ian Sample: New Earth-like planet discovered
The Guardian, 29 September 2010

Great Photography

On http://zonezero.com I've recently come across a brief note on the passing away of photographer Jay Colton. The name was not familiar to me yet the text made me curious and so I clicked on the link to his website

http://www.jaycolton.com/index.html

where I've found photographs that fascinated and moved me deeply.

There are these moments when you just know that what you are looking at is not only something special or aesthetically brilliant but magical.

Die Weltreise einer Fleeceweste

"Die Weltreise einer Fleeceweste" von Wolfgang Korn ist bei Bloomsbury Kinderbücher & Jugendbücher erschienen, kann jedoch mit Gewinn auch von Erwachsenen gelesen werden.

Worum geht's? Um die Hintergründe und Zusammenhänge der Globalisierung.

Wie kam es zu diesem Buch? Des Autors Verlag wollte ein Buch über die Globalisierung, doch obwohl dieser dazu schon lange eine gute Idee hatte, fehlte ihm noch der passende Hauptdarsteller. Und diesen fand er dann in der Fleeceweste. "Besser als es ein Notebook oder ein Wecker könnte, würde die abenteuerliche Geschichte meiner Weste zeigen wie heute alles mit allem zusammenhängt."

Die Geschichte nimmt ihren Anfang in Dubai. Wieso in Dubai? Weil da das Erdöl zutage tritt, aus dem einmal eine Fleeceweste wird. Eine Fleeceweste aus Erdöl, wie soll das gehen? Durch Erhitzung wird aus Erdöl Polyethylen und andere Kunststoffe gewonnen. Aus diesen entstehen dann Einkaufstüten, Verpackungen für Lebensmittel und Chips, Gehäuse von Handys, Walkmen, Notebooks und anderes mehr.

Weiter geht es nach Bangladesh, wo in einem Schmelzofen, "in dem gerade ein Teil PET-Granulat, das aus unserem Rohöl gewonnen wurde, und ein Teil recycelter PET-Rohstoff aus Deutschland zusammen erhitzt werden", um in der Folge ganz dünne Polyesterfäden auszuscheiden, die dann gehärtet (doch sie bleiben elastisch) und auf Spulen aufgerollt werden. Und weiter geht es in die Weberei, wo die Westen genäht werden.

Die nächste Station ist Singapur, der grösste Containerhafen der Welt. Und von da weiter, mit einigen Zwischenstationen, bis nach Senegal ... Dieses instruktive Buch erläutert nicht nur wie heutzutage alles miteinander zusammenhängt, es liefert darüber hinaus viel hilfreiche Aufklärung darüber, was die Medien unterlassen, uns mitzuteilen. Etwa, dass es in Bangladesh nicht nur Überschwemmungen, Hunger und regelmässig sinkende Fähren gibt, sondern "auch Strände, Parklandschaften, sogar Berge und Wälder, in denen noch Bengalische Tiger leben."

Wolfgang Korn
Die Weltreise einer Fleeceweste
Eine kleine Geschichte über die grosse Globalisierung
Bloomsbury, Berlin 2009

My Wild Places

Recently, I've started to get increasingly interested in landscape photography (in the widest sense). This has been triggered by a text on Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell by Sigrid Neubert in her wonderful work on the Nymphenburg Park in Munich (Ein Garten der Natur, Knaus, Munich 2010) that reads: "He knew that the beauty and dignity of nature can help us to feel embedded in the big scheme of life."

It is with this sentence in mind that I've approached Luca Campigotto's "My Wild Places" (Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010) and felt mostly lost - at first, that is. With time, however, other sensations developed - I began to warm to some of the photos because they widened my view, and made me aware of a spaciousness that I've not often noticed in landscape photography.

"My Wild Places", Campigotto decided to call this tome that shows mostly barren, lifeless nature. I thought this a bit confusing for I usually associate "wild" with uncontrolled growth or wildlife. To Campigotto however "wild" seems to mean abandoned, untouched, lost, ungraspable, moon-like - that at least is how I preceived these pictures. The views offered are uncommon and in this sense these images are eye-openers.

Walter Guadagnini, under the title "The Overstepping of Emotion" (What's this? I wonder), describes Campigotto as "a lover of photography, travel, and reading in equal measure" and has identified "that not perfectly horizonal line ... (that) in fact marks that crucial passage from the view to the vision" as a fundamental element in Campigotto's work. When paying now attention to this, we look at these photographs with a changed mind.

"... looking at photographs means looking for oneself in the past", Campigotto writes. I must admit that it is beyond me how I could be looking for myself in the past while, for instance, looking at a photo of the Straits of Magellan (in Argentina). In fact, if I were to decide to look for myself in the past I would very likely choose to look at different kinds of photographs. With this statement here I can however easily identify: "In the midst of solitary and wild scenarios I feel truly free. And so I take a photo to carry away that fascination - without aspiring to any form of testimony, just to continue being seduced." I love that!

Luca Campigotto
My Wild Places
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010

Why we travel

Few of us ever forget the conncetion between "travel" and "travail," and I know that I travel in large part in search of hardship - both my own, which I want to feel, and others', which I need to see. Travel in that sense guides us toward a better balance of wisdom and compassion - of seeing the world clearly, and yet feeling it truly. For seeing without feeling can obviously be uncaring; while feeling without seeing can be blind.

Though it's fashionable nowadays to draw a distinction between the "tourist" and the "traveler," perhaps the real distinction lies between those who leave their assumptions at home and those who don't: Among those who don't, a tourist is just someone who complains, "Nothing here is the way it is at home," while a traveler is one who grumbles, "Everything here is the same as it is in Cairo - or Cuzco or Kathmandu." It's all very much the same.

Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology.

... the great promise of it is that, traveling, we are born again, and able to return at moments to a younger and more open kind of self. Traveling is a way to reverse time, to a small extent, and make a day last a year - or at least forty-five hours - and traveling is an easy way of surrounding ourselves, as in childhood, with what we cannot understand. Language facilitates this cracking open, for when we go to France, we often migrate to French and the more childlike self, simple and polite, that speaking a foreign language educes. Even when I'm not speaking pidgin English in Hanoi, I'm simplified in a positive way, and concerned not with expressing myself but simply with making sense.

Pico Iyer: Why We Travel

China Photographs

PRIVATE, the international review of photographs, dedicated its issue number 50 (autumn 2010) to "China: True or Real?" When I asked PRIVATE's picture editor, Véronique Poczobut, for a review copy and some jpgs of her choosing, I was curious what pics she would select. The ones by Wang Mei I would have chosen myself for, despite that they were taken in Northwest China, I remember having seen similar scenes of magic in the mountains of Fujian Province, in China's South.

Cover: © Yan Ming

© Wang Mei

Liu Jingxun's black and white photos show, well, I'm not sure what they show but the title "Other Places" is certainly an apt characterisation of the photographer's artfully playing with light. As he himself says: "Photo-shooting is like sleepwalking in the God's world in a dark night." No wonder his photos radiate a meditative quality.

© Liu Jingxun

Zhang Xiao's series is called "They". The photos were taken mostly in the city of Chongqin and some towns nearby. Chongqin is located in the Southwest of China, on the banks of the Yangtze River, and became "a major economic centre" in the last few years. This is a bit of an understatement for Chongqin is huge (population 33 million) and is one of the fastest growing cities in China.
The photos show locals in a variety of (mostly posed) life situations. I can't really say what makes them so special to me but they made me go back and look at them again and again. I simply did not seem to tire of them.

© Zhang Xiao

There are many more convincing shots in this tome. My favourite is Ma Hongjie's "Family Stuff", a series of pics that shows families with parts (or maybe all?) of their household. The only reservation I have about this recommendable issue is the quality of the texts. Let me give you an example: "'Family Stuff' reveals the interior structure of Chinese society. It brings out the original family life and interprets the life philosophy made of tangible materials under contemporary social context." This is not only bad English, this is simply incomprehensible. You are well-advised to concentrate on the pictures, they are truly worth your attention.

Old School Photography

Copyright @ Emelle Sonh

As gently as possible, in communion with the subject, I bring images from the world through 35mm Leica or Nikon lenses, and onto a negative. Then, I bring it back into the world in the form of full-frame single-exposure limited edition (5) c-prints. All images are photographed as I found them, and printed with no digital manipulation. Very Old School. My first art form, dance and choreography, which I practiced for many decades, has influenced my work as a photographer.

http://emelleart.com/

Herz aus Sand

Ort der Handlung dieses Romans ist ein Camp in der Westsahara, wo UNO-Beobachter einen Waffenstillstand überwachen und ein Referendum organisieren sollen und mit Tausenden von Flüchtlingen, deren Traum die Heimkehr oder die Flucht ins Wohlstandsparadies Europa ist, zusammentreffen.

Dann taucht Druncker auf, ein Berliner Architekt, der Frank, den Protagonisten dieses Romans, an Alma, Franks grosse Liebe erinnert und dem Autor Anlass ist, von Franks Vergangenheit zu berichten.

Als ehemaliger Delegierter des Internationalen Komitees vom Roten Kreuz im südlichen Afrika hat mich vor allem interessiert, wie der Autor diese Beobachter-"Arbeit" vor Ort schildert. Sehr überzeugend, weil sehr realistisch, kann ich nur sagen.

Ein Beispiel: "Nun, es ist nicht an mir, die Erfolgsaussichten unserer Mission zu beurteilen. Laut meines Einsatzvertrags bin ich ein Beobachter. Ich brauche also nichts weiter zu tun, als zu beobachten. Hielt ich dies einst für eine Tätigkeit, die erhöhte Wachsamkeit und Scharfsinn erforderte, wurde ich hier eines Besseren belehrt. Nicht die Tiefe soll ich ausloten, nicht in Abgründe hinabspähen, nicht nach Hintergründen forschen, meine Aufgabe erschöpft sich im Betrachten der Oberfläche." Und im Berichte-Schreiben, was Frank wunderbar trocken so kommentiert: "Auf den Abgabetag hin wird jeweils der Bericht der Vorwoche kopiert, werden ein paar Adjektive geändert und die Daten angepasst. Ein Wochenbericht soll nicht aufregender sein, als es unsere erlebte Woche war ... (...) ... Wo nichts geschieht, erhält jedes Wort dramatisches Gewicht. Ganze Bedeutungsfelder kommen ins Rutschen, wenn wir beispielsweise 'manchmal' durch 'gewöhnlich' oder 'schottergrau' durch 'herbstgrau' ersetzen. Und obgleich diese Berichte völlig nutzlos sind, opfern wir ihnen bereitwillig unsere Zeit. Wir können nicht auf sie verzichten. Wozu wären wir sonst hier?"

Genau so isses. Ein Bürokrat ist ein Bürokrat, ob "sur le terrain" oder am Hauptsitz in Genf.

Daniel Goetsch führt in diesem gelungenen Roman vor, was es mit internationalen Beobachter-Missionen auf sich hat: Augenwischerei einerseits, Beschäftigungsprogramm andrerseits. "Herz aus Sand" ist ein aufklärendes und aufklärerisches Buch, das mich immer mal wieder zum Schmunzeln brachte: "Es geht das Gerücht, er schreibe die besten Wochenberichte, stilistisch gekonnt und sehr präzise. Wen wundert's? Jeder verfällt anfangs diesem Ehrgeiz. Als Neuling steckt man viel Herzblut in die Berichte. Man nimmt sie als willkommenen Anlass, sich über die Zustände hier zu empören. Man prangert das Elend an, die Ungerechtigkeit, den Drogenmissbrauch, den Kantinenfrass, das verdreckte Sitzbrett in der Latrine. Man berauscht sich am Glauben, mit dem Schreiben die Wirklichkeit zu entlarven."

Es sind solche Einsichten und Schilderungen, die die Lektüre dieses schön gestalteten Buches lohnen. Und Sätze wie dieser: "Und natürlich schreibe ich alles nieder und beschönige es, wo es angezeigt scheint". Und dieser: "Wie versprechen ihnen Demokratie und Freiheit, wissen aber selbst nicht mehr, wie es entstand und warum es uns heilig ist." Und dieser: "Meistens waren wir uns uneins. Wir hatten nicht dieselben Bücher gelesen, nicht dieselben Wahrheiten gefressen." Und und und ...

Daniel Goetsch
Herz aus Sand
Bilger Verlag, Zürich 2009

Did 9/11 make us all go mad?

This is an excerpt from Robert Fisk: Nine years, two wars, hundreds of thousands dead – and nothing learnt in The Independent, 11 September 2010. Were it not for journalists like Fisk, I probably would have given up reading newspapers a long time ago.

Did 9/11 make us all go mad? How fitting, in a weird, crazed way, that the apotheosis of that firestorm nine years ago should turn out to be a crackpot preacher threatening another firestorm with a Nazi-style book burning of the Koran. Or a would-be mosque two blocks from "ground zero" – as if 9/11 was an onslaught on Jesus-worshipping Christians, rather than on the atheist West.

But why should we be surprised? Just look at all the other crackpots spawned in the aftermath of those international crimes against humanity: the half-crazed Ahmadinejad, the smarmy post-nuclear Gaddafi, Blair with his crazed right eye and George W Bush with his black prisons and torture and lunatic "war on terror". And that wretched man who lived – or lives still – in an Afghan cave and the hundreds of al-Qa'idas whom he created, and the one-eyed mullah – not to mention all the lunatic cops and intelligence agencies and CIA thugs who failed us all – utterly – on 9/11 because they were too idle or too stupid to identify 19 men who were going to attack the United States. And remember one thing: even if the Rev Terry Jones sticks with his decision to back down, another of our cranks will be ready to take his place.

Indeed, on this grim ninth anniversary – and heaven spare us next year from the 10th – 9/11 appears to have produced not peace or justice or democracy or human rights, but monsters. They have prowled Iraq – both the Western and the local variety – and slaughtered 100,000 souls, or 500,000, or a million; and who cares? They have killed tens of thousands in Afghanistan; and who cares? And as the sickness has spread across the Middle East and then the globe, they – the air force pilots and the insurgents, the Marines and the suicide bombers, the al-Qa'idas of the Maghreb and of the Khalij and of the Caliphate of Iraq and the special forces and the close air support boys and the throat-cutters – have torn the heads off women and children and the old and the sick and the young and healthy, from the Indus to the Mediterranean, from Bali to the London Tube; quite a memorial to the 2,966 innocents who were killed nine years ago. All in their name, it seems, has been our holocaust of fire and blood, enshrined now in the crazed pastor of Gainesville.

This is the loss, of course. But who's made the profit? Well, the arms dealers, naturally, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin and all the missile lads and the drone manufacturers and F-16 spare parts outfits and the ruthless mercenaries who stalk the Muslim lands on our behalf now that we have created 100,000 more enemies for each of the 19 murderers of 9/11. Torturers have had a good time, honing their sadism in America's black prisons – it was appropriate that the US torture centre in Poland should be revealed on this ninth anniversary – as have the men (and women, I fear) who perfect the shackles and water-drowning techniques with which we now fight our wars. And – let us not forget – every religious raver in the world, be they of the Bin Laden variety, the bearded groupies in the Taliban, the suicide executioners, the hook-in the arm preachers, or our very own pastor of Gainesville.

And God? Where does he fit in? An archive of quotations suggests that just about every monster created in or after 9/11 is a follower of this quixotic redeemer. Bin Laden prays to God – "to turn America into a shadow of itself", as he told me in 1997 – and Bush prayed to God and Blair prayed – and prays – to God, and all the Muslim killers and an awful lot of Western soldiers and Dr (honorary) Pastor Terry Jones and his 30 (or it may be 50, since all statistics are hard to come by in the "war on terror") pray to God. And poor old God, of course, has had to listen to these prayers as he always sits through them during our mad wars. Recall the words attributed to him by a poet of another generation: "God this, God that, and God the other thing. 'Good God,' said God, 'I've got my work cut out'." And that was just the First World War...

For the full text, go here