The Roma Journeys

Between 2000 and 2006 I together with writer Cia Rinne undertook travels in seven different countries with a view to gaining an insight into the life of the Roma and the conditions they face. We always tried to spend a considerable length of time among the people whom we wanted to learn about and, if possible, to live with them for a while.

It was our own interest that initially took us to the Roma streets in Hevesaranyos in northeast Hungary, where we spent four months at the home of Magda, an elderly Roma. The other journeys to Romania, India and our travels in Finland came about through personal contact, while in Greece and Russia we were initially assisted by human rights organizations and in France by the Centre de recherches tsiganes in Paris.

These Roma journeys were by no means meticulously planned, and instead the product of a number of coincidences that enabled us to come into contact with the Roma. We endeavored to communicate directly with them. In most countries this was possible, and while in Russia and India we were accompanied on our travels, and thus had willing assistance.

We have frequently been asked what had triggered our interest in the Roma, but we were unable to provide a definitive, let alone exhaustive answer. What is certain is that once we hard started we were unable to simply stop continuing with the project. The more we found out about the Roma and got to know them, the more our interest in and liking for them grew.

In keeping with the different countries traveled, the photographic body of work is divided into seven series, the sequence of which roughly corresponds to the chronology of our journeys.

[via official site: Joakim Eskildson]

Hungary

India

Greece

Romania

France

Russia

Finland

See more images at Joakim Eskildson’s website. The project has been published as a book as well.

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The guys over at modernmechanix.com have a blog which is filled with interesting stories back from the old days.

Especially check out the photography section where for example you can read a story dateing back to november 1928 about the “penniless inventor” who got millions for the invention of the photomaton:

Being lazy and not having much more to add i am quoting the recent post of Andrew who is pointing out a photo project by Gail Albert Haliban.

© Gail Albert Halaban

following text via Andrews Blog

So those of you on tender hooks today awaiting the results of my ‘A Room with a View’ competition will have to wait. Sorry but the day job has got in the way so no time to put all the entrants in a hat and compile a winners post. Will get to it over the weekend and all will be revealed on Monday morning first thing, I promise.

In the meantime though I would like to share a project on a similar tack by the marvelously talented Gail Albert Haliban. ‘Out my window NYC’ is a documentary photography project Gail is working on in collaboration with the Design Trust for Public Space about people and their views in New York City and beyond. Best of all Gail is in the midst of this epic journey and is looking for volunteers, here’s the skinny in her own words:

DO YOU HAVE A VIEW INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S APARTMENT? CURIOUS TO MEET THEM?

I am a photographer working on a documentary project about New Yorkers and their views with a specific interest in connecting neighbors who would otherwise never meet. If you look into someone else’s apartment, I would like to photograph you looking into their place and them looking back at you.

If you live in any of the 5 boroughs or nearby New Jersey, please contact me at newyorkviews@gmail.com with a jpg of you and your view today.

You will receive 1 FREE 8×10 photograph if your view is photographed for the project.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Gail is writing a blog as she goes here. Be sure to spread the good word.

The headline says it all. There is a new blog around since the beginning of march, revealing (and commenting on) “Photoshop Disasters” which are sometimes plain funny and most of the time professional bungling.

The Urban Legends Reference Pages gives some interesting background information on the “Human Statue of Liberty” which is a photograph by Mole & Thomas dateing back to ca. 1918. Around 18.000 people have been involved in the makeing of this “statue”.

For more”people pictures” go to the website of the Carl Hammer Gallery.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the relatively reclusive master of 20th century photography and the grandfather of photojournalism, personally involves himself for the first time in a film project about himself in HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON: THE IMPASSIONED EYE.The intense vitality and presence of Cartier-Bresson’s recollections bear eloquent testimony to his “impassioned eye.” An incomparable visual journey traces half a century of photographic assimilation of the world, exploring entire continents and introducing us to people, whose often delightfully humorous portraits by Cartier-Bresson, are frequently as famous as the sitters themselves.Actress Isabelle Huppert, playwright Arthur Miller, publisher Robert Delpire and the photographers Elliott Erwitt, Josef Koudelka and Ferdinando Scianna present their own very personal views on Cartier-Bresson as friend and photographer.

source: Palm-Pictures

“The Impassioned Eye” 1-10

full story

The wikimedia caption of the photograph “Boulevard du Temple” by Louis Daguerre states:

This is “Boulevard du Temple”, the first ever photograph of a person. The photo was taken by Louis Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839 in Paris. It is of a busy street, but because exposure time was over ten minutes, the city traffic was moving too much to appear. The exception is a man in the bottom left corner, who stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show.

High Resolution Image on wikimedia.org

Via Blake Andrews blog i found this video, which shows an event that took place at New York’s Grand Central Station and could be read as a hommage to “Boulevard du Temple”. Downshift in a constanty rushing environment.

Sitenote regarding Daguerre’s “Boulevard du Temple”

In his blog-post “traces” Nicholas Jenkins (literary historian at Stanford University) deals with the question of absence and presence of people in the daguerreotype “Boulevard du Temple”.

The LoC and Flickr started a new cooperation:

From the LoC-blog:

If you’re reading this, then chances are you already know about Web 2.0. Even if you don’t know the term itself, you’re one of millions worldwide who are actively creating, sharing or benefiting from user-generated content that characterizes Web 2.0 phenomena.

As a communicator, I want to expand the reach of the Library and access to our magnificent collections as far and wide as possible. Of course, there are only so many hours in the day, so many staff in Library offices and so many dollars in the budget. Priorities have to be chosen that will most effectively advance our mission.

That’s why it is so exciting to let people know about the launch of a brand-new pilot project the Library of Congress is undertaking with Flickr, the enormously popular photo-sharing site that has been a Web 2.0 innovator. If all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity. In many senses, we are looking to enhance our metadata (one of those Web 2.0 buzzwords that 90 percent of our readers could probably explain better than me).

The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

The real magic comes when the power of the Flickr community takes over. We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves. For instance, many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.

We’re also very excited that, as part of this pilot, Flickr has created a new publication model for publicly held photographic collections called “The Commons.” Flickr hopes—as do we—that the project will eventually capture the imagination and involvement of other public institutions, as well.

From the Library’s perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it.

More information is available on the Library’s Web site here and on the FAQ page here.

And with that, gentlemen (and gentlewomen), start your tagging!

So far flickr is hosting two LoC-albums:

News in the 1910s: Walk back in time through the eyes of photographers who worked for the Bain News Service.

Enjoy this set of 1,500 photographs from a collection containing almost 40,000 glass negatives made ca. 1900-1920. The photographs document sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, and political activities, with a special emphasis on life in New York City.

and

1930s-40s in Colour: Photographers working for the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) captured life across the United States, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Explore images of rural areas and farm labor, as well as aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training, and women working between 1939 and 1944.

Unfortunately there isnt much information given about Jan Sochor on his website or elsewhere in the net. He is describing himself as a:

[f]reelance photographer & webdesigner, born in Czech Republic, changing his base between South America and Europe.

At the moment 13 essays are published in his website www.jansochor.com. The topics cover a topical range

from

Amazon River: People living on the Amazon river banks, the largest river system in the world. Indigenous people pushed to the edge, Brazilians caught in the jungle towns with no hope to escape.

over

Jesus Combat: A slum called Calvario shows everydays effort made to survive in a ghetto. Collecting rubbish, get high by sniffing glue and watch out for not to get shot dead by El Sheriff.

to

Women Gold Miners: Women miners working in goldbearing mud, searching for gold and platine in the jungle rivers of Chocó, the western lowlands of Colombia.

The following photographs are taken from the essay Cockfight

Go to www.jansochor.com and check out all essays.