"You must begin by being or pretending to be an authority on some subject or other."

Some interesting and familiar notes on writing, editing and reviewing in this Guardian Review article on TS Eliot 
(picture above by EO Hoppe).


"You must begin by being or pretending to be an authority on some subject or other."

'I have written nothing whatsoever for three years and I do not see any immediate likelihood of my writing. The writing of poetry takes time and I never have any time."


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Apologising to one contributor for the fact that, a year after being accepted, his article had still not been published, Eliot tried to enlist his sympathies: "I can only say that there are others – in fact nearly all of my contributors at one time or another – whom I do not dare to meet in the street. Conducting a review after 8pm in the back room of a flat, I live qua editor, very much from hand to mouth, get myself into all sorts of hot water and predicaments, and offend everybody. At the end, the review is squeezed together somehow, and is never the number that I planned three months before." In this case, he promised the article would be published "early next year"; in the event, it never appeared.

Interview with Gerhard Steidl

A quote from Gerhard Steidl in an interview for Photography Now, translated by Joerg at Conscientious. Read it all here.


 

"On the other hand, I find it terrible when someone sends me a PDF or an bound dummy made from crummy digital prints. I'm not interested in that. Those are all the same: The same paper, the same printing, the same binding. I'm not old-fashioned, but it is going into the wrong direction if the bookmaking technique orients itself towards the contents on the screen. Because making books really means to take the information out of the contents on the screen, and to rework it in a physical way."

The Execution of Gary Glitter

There's a bizarre programme on Channel 4 tonight called The Execution of Gary Glitter - the basic idea is capital punishment has returned to the UK and Gary Glitter is first up for the noose. (It's not the only bizarre what-if programme put out by Channel 4 - Death of a President dramatised George W. Bush getting shot. What next? The Waterboarding of Tony Blair? Why not - and in real life too as reality torture, right up Channel 4's alley.). Gary Glitter is an easy target, and there are lots of reasons to hate paedophiles - but there are also other views and Clive Stafford Smith (who has fought for criminally imprisoned Guantanamo detainees as well as consistently battling the death penalty) gives his view on the programme below.

The Execution of Gary Glitter: why do we love to hate paedophiles?

By Clive Stafford Smith on Nov. 9, 2009

 

Which group of people is most consistently hated by virtually the entire British population? Would they be murderers? Muslim extremists? No, there is one group that comes top every time I ask the question: paedophiles. 

The degree of hatred for is consistent and venomous. The vilification runs so rampant that when one tabloid newspaper ran a campaign against ‘paedos’, some poor paediatrician had her house vandalized. 

Now Channel Four has entered the fray, reintroducing the possibility of the death penalty into British society, and staging the televisual hanging of Gary Glitter, convicted as the paedophile we love to hate. While the jurors in the drama are actors, if Simon Cowell ran the programme as the X-ecute Factor, the texts pouring in would no doubt have turned a technological thumbs down. 

I wonder how many of these voters would ever have paused to consider what causes people to be sexually attracted to small children? How many people, in other words, have ever wondered whether they, or anyone else, would ever choose to be a paedophile?

It would seem self-evident that paedophilia is a mental illness. To be sure, a very dangerous illness for all its victims and one that must be addressed through measures that make our children as safe as they can be. But I have represented a number of paedophiles over the years and, while I only have to look at my own small child to fully evoke the horror of each offence, I have learned as much about the world from these terrible cases as from any.

Indeed, one of my heroines is Lorelei Guillory. Her six year old child Jeremy was killed by my client, Ricky Langley (pictured), in Southwest Louisiana. There is no doubt that he did it. No doubt at all. But does that mean we should execute him, as well as despise his crime? 

A year before Ricky was born, his father, drunk, drove the family car into a bridge. Two children were instantly killed. One was the six year old, tousle-haired Oscar Lee. The mother, Bessie, was catastrophically injured. She spent most of the next two years in hospital, much of the time in a full-length bodycast, from her neck to her ankles. 

It is perhaps a tribute to the father’s utter heartlessness that this was when Ricky was conceived. Nobody believed Bessie was pregnant for more than five months. She continued to be prescribed a pharmacy full of drugs, and the unborn Ricky suffered his own private Hiroshima from all the x-rays. When they finally cut the cast open, there was a whooosh! The doctors strongly urged an abortion; the husband, rigorously Catholic, refused. 

By the age of eleven, Ricky was already sleeping on tombstones, and pinning notes on the school board telling people that he was really his dead brother Oscar Lee. His early records lay to rest the possibility that his mental illness in later life could be feigned. It took a long time, but he eventually trusted me enough to say that I could meet with Oscar Lee if his dead brother wanted to talk to me. Ricky is perhaps the most seriously mentally ill person I have ever met. 

Ricky is a paedophile. People may despise him for it, but nobody could hate Ricky more than he does himself. At this point he hates Oscar Lee as well. In the roiling storm clouds of his mind, Ricky hears Oscar Lee prompting him to molest children. Whether you can understand it or not, when Ricky strangled Jeremy Guillory, he thought he was killing Oscar Lee. 

By definition, mental illness is not rational, but I showed Ricky’s aunt a picture of poor Oscar Lee in 1963, and a picture of Jeremy in 1991, and she could not tell them apart. This is the closest that you and I will ever come to seeing inside Ricky’s mind. 

In common with so many family members, themselves innocent victims of murder, Lorilei desperately wanted to understand why her child had been torn from her. Like so much of the media, and so many government officials, the prosecuting attorney encouraged her merely to seek revenge and assured her she would find relief when Ricky got the death penalty. 

Perhaps he really did believe this would end her pain; certainly he wanted to get re-elected. Lorilei initially testified for the prosecution, and Ricky was sentenced to death. Years passed, appeals were filed, Ricky got a new trial, and Lorilei still had no peace.

This time around, Lorelei asked me whether she could meet Ricky. Naturally, I agreed. She wanted to be alone with him. I told her there would be no strings attached; if she wanted to testify against him later, quoting what he said, that would be her choice. 

Ricky was grateful. He had the chance to apologize. He did his best to explain what happened and why. He said he was fine with being locked up for the rest of his life. He was convinced that he was incurable and he was afraid of himself, as much as he was of Oscar Lee. 

Lorelei had always referred to him as ‘Langley.’ As she left the cell, convinced that he was indeed profoundly ill, she said, “Ricky, I’m gonna fight for you.” And fight she did. 

First, she insisted that she did not want the death penalty. She, too, was a Catholic, and her faith told her that she would gain no catharsis from his death. The prosecutor said she was “an odd defendant (sic)”, and then tried to have her other child removed from her, calling her an unfit mother. 

Then we picked twelve jurors who understood mental illness, and it became clear that Ricky would not receive the death penalty this time round. At this point, Lorelei confronted her own demons, and came out of long night of prayer decided: Ricky was insane, and since he could not control what he did, he should not be punished for it. He should, rather, be in a mental hospital. 

She insisted that he remain in hospital forever, and he agreed. But she insisted on testifying, and told me to only ask one question. 

“Ms Guillory, do you have an opinion as to whether that man over there”—I pointed to Ricky Langley—“who killed your child Jeremy, was mentally ill at the time he did it?”

She took a deep breath. “I feel like Ricky Langley has cried out for help many, many, many times. And for whatever reasons his family, society, and the system has failed him. I feel like he is sick, and that he has cried out for help.” She turned to the jurors. “And even though I can hear my child’s death cry, I too, can hear Ricky Langley cry for help.” And yes, he was sick. 

The jurors acquitted Ricky Langley of capital murder. Desperate for ‘victory’, the prosecutors violated the rules again, to make sure Ricky would go to prison rather than a hospital. Now Lorelei must endure a third trial, which is on-going even as I write this. 

As for Lorelei, she insists that she has never forgiven Ricky; she has only told the truth, and tried to be merciful. Almost twenty years after her loss, she continues to struggle every day. 

And yet she stands as a beacon to the rest of us. It is a shame that Channel Four failed to observe her golden rule: Hate the sin, but try to understand the sinner, or the world will remain a dangerous place for our children.

A version of this article appeared in The Guardian.

Generic Leakage

I mentioned Beso Uznadze's wonderful Tbilisi portraits in the previous post and it made me wonder how much you have to know a place, or have some emotional attachment to it, to make meaningful pictures of that place. Is it essential to have a detailed knowledge of the place or some emotional attachment (as Uznadze had in his Tbilisi Portraits), or can we just flit in, snap some genius shots and then dash out. It's the same with portraits - do we have to know our subjects in intimate detail or can we just zip off a few pictures and rely on our genius to get us through.

I don't know how important it is to have a detailed knowledge of a place - I think it's probably a barrier sometimes - but I think it's rare to find a photographer willing to say, Nah, I know nothing about this place but I thought it would be cool to photograph the new skyscrapers and the smog, highways, development, destruction and so on.

Which is perhaps what people should sometimes be saying because it is equally rare for a photographer to stray outside his or her usual patch and say something profound or interesting - the pictures can look great though. 

That connects to  the weird venn diagram that denotes the relationship and overlapping between travel/documentary/photojournalistic photography - though even recognizing all those genres takes a leap of faith. I think if one is honest they are a lot closer than one might expect - and all have that wow-doesn't-this-look-great text which is more or less subordinated to the main idea depending on where on the generic spectrum the photographer has chosen to lie.

In other words, what are the similarities and differences between Magnum's collective work on Georgia, Georgian Spring, and Beso Uznadze

Or in other other words, what is the difference between the pictures that appear on say  Conscientious (or this blog or any of the blogs highlighted right), Lightstalkers and The Travel Photographer. Just because we say it's different doesn't mean it's different. And I haven't even mentioned Flickr, which looms omnipresent in the background - it's coming to eat us all!

And in plain and simple words, what am I trying to say - I haven't really got too much of a clue but hopefully some kind of sense will ooze through. Not everything is clear cut, might that have something to do with it?



  

The Secret Life of the Berlin Wall

It was 20 years ago today...

A fine programme that features the heroes, villains and those caught in the middle is The Secret Life of the Berlin Wall.

Sullen, Smiling or just Unconvincing: More on the NPG

 

No Smiling Please #1  by Colin Pantall


More on the NPG Photographic Portrait Prize  from Diane Smyth (one of the judges) at the BJP - this time on the question of  smiling.

Most of the portraits (the exception is  Circe, by Nathan Small) show people who aren't smiling - but they are showing a range of expressions and very few are actively sullen. The problem comes with the unconvincing, vacant look which one can find here and there in the show. But that's always the way.

Read the article, there are a few differing perspectives in there and some big assumptions being made, most of which I don't agree with most of the time.



Once more, with feeling

No smiling please, it's the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Diane Smyth, one of this year's judges, talks to the 2009 winners about the recurring fascination with adolescence

Rosie Bancroft © Paul Floyd Blake, winner of the 2009 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

The National Portrait Gallery opens its doors to the Photographic Portrait Prize this week, a contest it has organised over 18 years in one form or other, proving increasingly popular with the public year on year, but drawing an annual chorus of derision among some quarters of the photo community.

The competition ran for a decade in partnership with the John Kobal Foundation before it was relaunched in 2003 with sponsorship from Schweppes, and more latterly from the law firm Taylor Wessing, who began their support last year, when a record 273,000 visitors came to the show of 60 shortlisted entries. But it's come in for its fair share of criticism too, particularly for its apparent obsession with grim-faced, adolescent subjects.

This year is no exception. The winning photograph, Paul Floyd Blake's shot of Rosie Bancroft, shows the 14-year-old British Paralympic hopeful calmly eyeing the camera. And the second, third and fourth places - taken respectively by Vanessa Winship, Mirjana Vrbaski and Michal Chelbin - all feature adolescents, while the Godfrey Argent Award, which this year went to recent photography graduate Ali Lomas, also shows a young woman, balefully ignoring her chips. As one of the judges this year, I can only say it wasn't deliberate.
We looked at more than 6300 images over two days' judging in August, depicting everything from smiling, playful children to tightly composed OAPs. But this is what rose to the top, and although we weren't unanimous about the placings, we did agree these five images deserved special recognition. Perhaps we simply reflected our society's obsession with youth, or perhaps, as Winship comments, there's just something enduringly fascinating about the young.

'The point of transition between adult and child is interesting,' she says. 'I liked this girl because of her poise. She's holding the bottom of her dress, so you can see she's not 100% confident, but she's certainly not afraid. I feel it's an image we can all relate to.'

As for not smiling, Winship wonders why it's even an issue - in painted portraits the subjects rarely smile, she points out, and no one thinks to question it. 'I suppose people often use cameras at celebrations, where everyone smiles for the shot,' she says. 'But I don't see the absence of a smile as a negative thing, and I certainly don't think it implies that all is not well.'

Natural pose

This year's winner agrees. 'It's really quite recent that we want people to smile in pictures,' says Floyd Blake. 'In real life you don't go around grinning.' He prefers to try to capture people 'as they are', encouraging his subjects to relax in front of the camera. Bancroft is a fantastic model because she doesn't act up in the frame, he says, and he shot her in a pose she naturally assumed. 'She relaxed into it as I was changing plates,' he says. 'I just asked her to hold it. It's the second time I've photographed her, and perhaps that helps.'
Chelbin concurs, adding that she believes the key to making a good portrait is building a respectful relationship. Her fourth prize-winning shot was taken in a juvenile prison in Russia, but although she worked there for several days, she never asked the prisoners what they were jailed for. 'It's important to represent the subject with dignity and respect, no matter who he is,' she says. 'I usually spend time with the people I photograph, from hours to days and even more, so there is mutual trust.

'The shoot with Stas took several hours in different locations,' she adds. 'He was willing but very quiet - in general he is extremely quiet and distant, mostly hanging out alone. When I approached him I immediately noticed the intense gaze in his eyes, as if under that sealed expression there is a volcano about to erupt. There is a contrast between his very intense, almost suffering, gaze and his physique - although he's well built, he seems to be powerless. I only found out later he'd murdered someone. After arriving at the prison he tried to commit suicide but was saved by the guards. He has almost no friends and is considered a low class prisoner by the other inmates, which makes his life even harder.'

Vrbaski takes completely the opposite approach. She was brought up between Canada and Serbia, and is now studying at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, specialising in photographing complete strangers, and she found the model for her Taylor Wessing portrait simply walking past her studio. 'It seems that the less I know about my sitter the better,' she says. 'I couldn't disagree more with the concept of the portrait as a way of capturing the essence of a person.

'I believe that the essence of a human being is so complex and contradictory it is impossible to capture,' she adds. 'But having said that, I am just as against staging an expression. An authentic, genuine look is an absolute prerequisite for my portraits. As with the girl in this photo, I search for the kind of unselfconscious expression that makes the viewer forget about the physical model sitting in a studio and allows them to look beyond.'

Like Floyd Blake and Winship, she's inspired by painting, adding that her third prize winning image works because the girl's face 'shares the archetypal quality of classical painted portraits'. 'There's something that makes her become more than just the girl she is,' she adds. 'This is what I consider a universal portrait, a portrait that detaches itself from the times in which it was made and from the model posing for it.'
The girl's clothes may help. While the other three winners all photograph their subjects as they find them, Vrbaski shoots them in her studio in clothes she's picked out herself. Ali Lomas, who was selected for the Godrey Argent Award, which is given to the most outstanding black-and-white photograph or the best photographer aged 25 and under (she won for the latter), did something similar, carefully staging her photograph and scenario it was shot in. She doesn't consider her work to be portraiture per se, she's more interested in fashion photography, and shoots characters rather than individuals. Fittingly, she won the extra prize up for grabs this year - a commissioned shoot for Elle magazine.

Her work came from her final show at Loughborough University, a series of staged shots of young women in various scenes and poses. In fact, all of the winners' images come from ongoing projects rather than one-off portrait sittings. Winship's image is taken from her continuing work in Georgia, for example, 'which will be characterised as typologies, although I don't necessarily see it in that way'.

Floyd Blake is photographing young Olympic hopefuls in the build up to the 2012 London games, while Chelbin's shot one is of many taken in the Russian juveniles' prison. Vrbaski's photograph, meanwhile, is from a consistent body of work, in which up to 40 individuals at a time are photographed in exactly the same conditions. All of the photographers recognise that a series of images is different to a single shot but, says Chelbin, one isn't necessarily better than the other.

'I wouldn't include an image in a series if it didn't speak for itself,' she says. 'When images are presented together more layers are added to the experience of viewing. The use of creative tools such sequencing can intensify the experience and make a larger impact on the viewer. But the advantage of showing an image alone is that the focus is on the shot and the person in it. It's taken out of the context, so the narrative becomes that bit less important.'

Serious portraits, in both senses, taken by committed photographers with a clear sense of purpose - perhaps the Taylor Wessing judges know what they're doing after all.

ON VIEW

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is on show at the National Portrait Gallery from 05 November until 14 February. Visit npg.org.uk for details and opening times.
To see further work from this year's winners, visit: www.floydphotography.co.uk; vanessawinship.com; mirjanavrbaski.com; michalchelbin.com; alilomas.co.uk.

Beso Uznadze

It was good to see Beso Uznadze in the NPG Portrait Prize again. His Tbilisi Portraits won the BJP International Award last year. It's a series that is rich, beautiful and soulful and has a depth and sensitivity that is compelling. And they're beautiful, I'll say that again because that's important too.