Mmm..am left with lots of pictures (duh) – mostly of my beautiful grandmother and of the Christening of my nephew which took place on Sunday. I’ll go through them sometime today I hope, and share them soon, but for now – here’s a quick recap of the dok:11 stuff and the scrapbookers I met during my stay in Oslo last week :)
DOK:11 started with the Norwegian Picture of the Year Ceremony. As always – inspiring and interesting – and hm, even less female nominates than last year it seemed..or maybe approx the same, but they won fewer of the prizes (only one out of hm, 10 1st prizes were won by a woman). Now, I have no idea how many who sent in and stuff, whether the imbalance started there or not, but well, to me it seemed like approx 45-50% of the attendees of the whole dok:11 were women, so there can’t be a lack of female press-photographers..? Just sharing some observations as an outsider..:p
I was lucky having Gudrun (creator and owner of 3ndypapir :) ) with me for this part, as it was open to the public too (hey Gudrun, congrats on the Pencillines-DT! :) So glad Anna found a new Norwegian for “my” spot hehe :) ). We had time for some food after the ceremony too before dok:11 started for real and I had to attend alone (everybody in there seem to be there with somebody, and/or know a lot of people…small communities does that I suppose, but it makes you feel even more like an outsider when alone and not knowing anybody)
The Dutch photographer (living in Sweden) Pieter Ten Hoopen opened the whole festival, sharing his intriguing projects and photographs. To me, two of the projects really stood out – the one of the Iraqi prostitutes in Syria (in his pictures, taken with hidden camera, you could even see children – and he told of special offers of “take one woman – get a child for free”). He got access to talk with the women who fled the war, having lost their husbands and families, and finding themselves trying to survive. The other project was about Stockholm, the city he now lives in, and of loneliness and of depression and of love of the city..(paraphrased, taken from the memory).
There were also a panel discussion on the future of photojournalism, but I was busy taking notes (as it was in direct relation with my masters degree-paper) and only after it ended I realized I didn’t take any photos of that. Not that photos would have mattered much, but I like to think I’ll sometime get around to do a mini about the whole event with my own impressions and stuff, but ahwell…(I still haven’t done that for the last years dok-festival anyways :p). Polish Justyna Mielnikiewicz shared her photos of the people of Ukrania and on Georgian women among other stuff – gorgeous and of a whole different culture and way of living. No pictures from that either, hrm!
On Thursday I spent some time with Tove, also known as ToveTyll :) It’s the first time I met her, and I am both excited and looking forward to photograph her big party later this summer :)
Later it was time for the Mexican pressphotographers from Ciudad Juarez : Ernesto Rodrígues, Lucio Soria and Julián Cardona. They shared an intriguing body of work – their everyday work-environment of photographing crime scenes in Juarez, a city with rising toll of death (holding one of the highest muder-rate in the world) complicated by a seemingly failed politics. Their images were strong and raw, and their work-environment so far far away from our everyday life…even having to bury their own colleagues murdered for exposing stories of what they believe is the truth.. “The US’ hunger for drugs is one of the main reasons” (paraphrasing), they introduced the seminar with..
To me, it was weird looking at crime-scene images with murdered corpses exposed, even when the corpses only consisted of separated heads and limbs…these are the images they print in their newspapers, of their own citizens – such a reality far away from ours (in Norway we’re not supposed to print/take such pictures if we come across such scenes).
On Friday I met Anette & Kine (who both quit blogging it would seem…hope you get your other blogproject up & going soon, Kine!) to look at Travis Shinn’s pictures of musicians which exhibited at Internasjonalen. Awesome images, strong in expression and lovely work with light & shades, most of them beautifully choreographed (?) and placed in context with the backgrounds. Yeap. Me like. I like the colors in this picture, but decided I’d edit it B/W to better get the Shinn-feeling haha.
Andrea Star Reese opened the Friday evening with her main body of work – the underground-series Urban Cave. Intriguing, touching and inspiring. Having “only” three years behind her as a professional photographer, she draws her strength from her background of having been a film-documentarist/videophotographer for years. Urban Cave is about an underground-tunnel in NYC and its inhabitants, and I loved every moment of her storytelling. She also shared some images from her other and newer projects from Indionesia (hmm..unless I am too mistaken re which country).
Stephanie Sinclair was next, and I also loved her photos and storytelling. I did snap images of her presentation, however, I think she was the one who asked people to not share the images because of some of them not being published yet, so alas..(hmm..or maybe it was Carolyn Drake who asked people to not publish any images of her presentation…ahwell..better safe than sorry). Sinclair shared projects on child brides (from all over the world, one of them as young as five year), the war in Lebanon and polygamy in USA (she were allowed to follow some FLDS, fundamentalist Mormons over a very long time and continues to stay in touch).
Right. On Saturday, the last day – Carolyn Drake presented her work from Ukraine and Central Asia, leaning more towards landscapes rather than people (if I am not too mistaken).
Danish Thomas Lekfeldt was next, and I liked his approach on photojournalism. You might also recall his series of photos of Vibe, called “A star in the sky”. I remember seeing it in hm, VG I think it was.
The headliner was next – Eugene Richards. He briefly took us through his massive body of work – I loved his way with B&W photos..and his storytelling…everything needs to be put into context I think he said, and well, it certainly does give the pictures more life in a way…after going through a number of different images, he shared more from his latest book-projects, like the one on the mentally disabled, and his latest book-project, “War is Personal” was touching to say the least..
Adding one last picture, of the stupid moon that was supposed to be on its biggest that evening. It seemed bigger to me the next evening, but I didn’t manage to take any good pictures of that. After being thrust on two strangers that evening, searching for the afterparty, I decided to just go home with the last subway when the search got delayed. I’m not sure if I regret that or not, after all – I did have a Christening to attend to the next day and I’m a wreck when it comes to late evenings and I didn’t know anybody anyways, but still…ahwell..
Right. Now I’m gonna check the recorder & x fingers it recoded the interview I did for my M.A.-paper just fine and maybe I’ll even attempt scribing some of it..
Right. Lots to catch up to! Better get started!
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