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The reckoning

stuartfreedman — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:52:09 +0000

Delighted that at least some justice has been served today for the people of Sierra Leone and Liberia after Charles Taylor was found to have “aided and abetted” war crimes” by a United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague.

Sierra Leone - Freetown - Ibrahim, a victim of the rebels amputation policy during the Sierra Leonian civil war. Ibrahim was amputated in Freetown in 1999 when the rebels occupied the Waterloo area. They tried to hack off his other hand but were unable to. Hastings resettlement camp

Sarajevo

stuartfreedman — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:29:15 +0000

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the start of the war in Bosnia. Cities, like people can produce strange feelings in visitors – leave tiny traces of discomfort and Sarajevo always struck me as being a little odd; a little schizophrenic… of course I never knew it before the war as a place of civility and culture. The work I made there was always conditioned by conflict but I thought I’d take this opportunity to show a small selection of work from the city taken almost a decade apart that show two different sides. The work from 1997 was made as I’d just returned from a near fatal trip to Sierra Leone and I came back to a landscape of a bitter and fragile winter. I remember the dark coffee and the sleet, the ominous surrounding mountains and the deep, jagged gouges in the buildings – and in the people. I photographed the Blind School, devastated by shelling but trying slowly to come back to life. I photographed children learning to use their canes on a path that the instructor, Borko swore was surrounded by unexploded ordnance. It made the children – and me – very diligent. A decade later I came again in better weather and better spirits with an old friend of mine from Delhi, the critic and writer Meenakshi Shedde to make a story on the Sarajevo Film Festival. Clearly, for me and the city, most of our visible scars had healed.

Bosnia – Sarajevo – Two friends navigate their way to school through a possible minefield, Sarajevo.The Blind School was the only centre in the region for visually impaired children and young adults. It was extensively damaged during the civil war and was used by the Bosnian Serb army as a military position from which to snipe and shell the city. The few teaching staff left during the war managed to visit some of their blind pupils and continue a limited education. The school reopened after the war ended but conditions remained dire.

Bosnia - Sarajevo - A boy makes his way to class in the destroyed Blind School.

Bosnia - Sarajevo - Two friends walk together at the Blind School

Bosnia - Sarajevo - A teacher pays a home visit to a deaf-blind boy and his family

Bosnia - Sarajevo - The Peace Statue and the Orthodox cathedral, Sarajevo

Bosnia - Sarajevo - A square in Sarajevo's Old Town showing the Sebilj and the minaret of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque

Bosnia - Sarajevo - Men play outsize chess in a park, Sarajevo

Bosnia - Sarajevo - A couple enjoy drinks in the late afternoon sun at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Athens

stuartfreedman — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:54:42 +0000

I just returned from almost a week in Athens on assignment for a magazine writing about how Greeks are coping on a personal level with the rape of their country by international finance. I found many things – a grinding poverty for some – more akin to the Developing World than to Europe but also small stories of hope; of people learning again what community and solidarity mean. Small stories, beautiful stories.

I had barely a couple of hours over a day or so to make some images and none of them reflect the immediate situation, but they were a therapy – going out and photographing people and their lives in the markets and on the streets.

My special thanks to journalist and fixer extraordinaire, Helen Skopis for patiently putting up with me and making all the ‘phone calls – and to two young and very talented photographers, Angelos Tzortinis and Alkis Konstantinidis who were generous enough to share their time and considerable experience to give me some background as only photographers can.

Thanks to all.

Greece - Athens - A child in costume plays in front of a sentry during the Changing of the Guard in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Syntagma Square

Greece - Athens - A fishmonger looks indulgently on a Greek Orthodox priest as he buys seafood from a stall in the Athens Central Market on Athinas Street

The Freeman/Freedman view

stuartfreedman — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:03:01 +0000

I was recently interviewed by the prolific and extraordinarily talented Michael Freeman for his OCA (Open College of Arts) course as part of his featured photographer profiles. You can see the piece here or click on the image below.

Michael seems to have included a great number of my images and teased out quite a bit from my past lives as a photographer…

Tearsheet – Pervoe Vtoroe Tretye magazine

stuartfreedman — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:11:58 +0000

No, I don’t know how to say it either but this Russian magazine that commissioned me were utterly charming, paid well – before time – and were a pleasure to work with… My thanks to Olga, Evegeny and Natalia.

Another Delhi food story again soon…

The Englishman and the eel text

stuartfreedman — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:57:45 +0000

As promised, I’ve published the piece about eels and London’s peculiar love of them in the Writing section of my website.

The direct link is here.

UK - London - Eels in a barrel in the yard at Cooke's Eel and Pie shop in Hoxton

What to do with the old Christmas decorations…

stuartfreedman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:13:14 +0000

UK - London - A performer (Mummer) dressed as the Holly Man - the winter guise of the Green Man - processes along the Thames in a traditional 'wassail' ritual to welcome the New Year

The Englishman and the eel

stuartfreedman — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:44:33 +0000

Although I already featured a tearsheet of a recent assignment on London’s pie and mash shops (see here), I thought I’d take the opportunity to show some of the images that didn’t make the magazine edit. Although I’m certainly no interiors photographer, I’ve always been intrigued by the survival of period details in these shops – a palimpsest of past London lives. Crucially, none of the images that Effilee featured showed the interior of the Manze shop in Walthamstow market. I thought this had the best architectural details although, dating from the 1930′s, it wasn’t the oldest.

I saw the piece (and my accompanying text – a link that I will post soon) almost as a bit of visual archeology. Like the long closed Jewish Soup Kitchen that I photographed at the start of my career (see here) these places are disappearing year after year. As I’ve said before, the corporate, identikit British high street is a poorer place for the passing of traditional cafes and all manner of independent shops.

Whatever you’re preconceptions of this food – and I guarantee that they are likely wrong – I urge you to try it even if it’s just an excuse to rediscover something of the past that for now, is still with us.

UK - London - A customer eats a plate of eels, pie and mash in Cookes' Eel, Pie and mash shop in Hoxton

UK - London - A plate of stewed eels and mash at Manze's Pie and Mash shop in Tower Bridge Road

UK - London - An antique flower pot (with a typically 1930's aspidistra...), a broom and an umbrella by a door at Manze's Pie and mash shop in Walthamstow market. The interior is Grade 2 listed

UK - London - UK - London - Original tile details at Manze's Eel, Pie and Mash shop in Walthamstow

UK - London - The interior of Manze's Pie and Mash shop in Walthamstow market showing the rare pressed tin tile ceiling

UK - London - A pre-decimal cash register at Manze's Eel, Pie and Mash shop in Walthamstow

UK - London - Original tiles and a boxing poster from the 1970's in Cookes' Eel, Pie and Mash shop in London Fields

UK - London - UK - London - The interior of Cookes' Eel, Pie and Mash shop in London Fields

UK - London - A man eats a plate of eels, pie and mash at Manze's Eel, Pie and Mash on Tower Bridge Road, the oldest in London dating from 1902

Imran Khan… again

stuartfreedman — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:11:50 +0000

It seems that Imran Khan, who I’ve photographed a couple of times on assignment (and previously written about) is finally making a breakthrough in the murky and dangerous world of Pakistani politics with a large rally on Christmas Day. I was delighted therefore to see that his new book, Pakistan, a personal history includes a couple of my images of him.

Here’s one they unfortunately missed…

Pakistan - Lahore - Imran Khan the former Pakistan International Cricket player at prayer in a mosque in Lahore, Pakistan

Delhi at 100

stuartfreedman — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:54:23 +0000

There’s a rather charming slideshow on the BBC here on the changing face of Delhi by one of its elderly residents. A shame that the city authorities haven’t made more of this to be honest. Delhi remains an enigmatic and petulant youth amongst other capitals: certainly for me infuriating and engaging at the same time.

Of course, as Kanika Singh, Convener of Delhi Heritage Walks told Tehelka magazine, not everyone shares that view, “Only last year, we evicted all street hawkers while preparing for the Commonwealth Games—and now we are celebrating their contributed (sic.) to our ‘heritage’. I don’t feel like celebrating this occasion. Whose Delhi are we celebrating?”.

The point is surely that cities only belong to their inhabitants when they feel they have some stake in them. I agree that most of Delhi is too busy trying to earn a crust to survive to be bothered about the anniversary but surely (and, if you’ve read this blog before you will know that I am the very last person to romanticise or excuse the Raj) the city is the sum of it’s parts: Hindu, Muslim and the British all have legacies that has made Delhi what it is and decrying any of those for some neo-nationalist point is surely counter-productive. Delhi is what it is and pretending that the city – or indeed much of India for that matter, doesn’t have some English blood is as pointless and saying it isn’t a melting pot of past empires. Selective cultural memory is a very dangerous thing for all societies (remember Ayodya?) and only by melding the various strains in a city (certainly one as large and anarchic as Delhi) can you hope to create a genuinely inclusive society…

Anyway, lecture over. Here’s one I made earlier…

India - Gurgaon - Bricklayers constructing a house in the shadow of an exclusive new development