VISA POUR L’IMAGE: 22 FESTIVAL OF PHOTOJOURNALISM IN PERPIGNAN

It arrived, as every year, the unmissable event for lovers of photography: the most important festival of photojournalism in Europe, Visa pour l'Image 2010, that we Catalans have the luxury of having only at two hours drive from Barcelona.

The professional week will run from 30 August to 5 September. Since Sunday there were people getting credited in the Palau Pams.

PALAU PAMS

This year's edition is back in force, improving on the previous year. I would highlight three areas:

The photo of daily events that has strong impacts on violence and injustice that are shaking the planet. It is ,and has always been, the primary role of photojournalism and, with the unprecedented force that has the unique image, we must continue to raise our commitment to such inequality and injustice. As expected, the earthquake in Haiti and the revolt in Thailand bear the palm.

In the World Press Photo , also present here and that the locals from Barcelona will soon enjoy thanks to Photographic Social Vision, there are images that border on the insufferable as the stoning of a man. Are these images that show a death in live ,and that are so awful, should be shown? Just remember about Sakineh Mohammadi Astiani in Iraq ordered to be stoned for adultery. Images of the World Press do not allow us to fall into indifference and makes to add all our forces to prevent such a great barbarity.

WORLD PRESS PHOTO. COUVENT DES MINIMES

Other blocks are the retrospectives exhibitions. Two of them superb. Worth to attend Visa pour l'Image 2010 only to see them.


William Klein: New York, Rome, Moscow, Tokyo.

Klein, along with Robert Frank, is the greatest living photographer. His book New York broke with everything that had been in documentary photography before. Today, his pictures have not lost a shred of modernity. They are still great images for this time.

WILLIAM KLEIN EXHIBITION IN LE COUVENT DES MINIMES

William Albert Allard. National Geographic. Five Decades: A Retrospective.

Allard is one of the masters in colour and one of the best National Geographic Magazine’s photographers. I would like to highlight certain phrases in his introductory text to the expo:

"Many of the photographs in this exhibition were made while in the road, in a bar, in the streets, or even walking in the countryside. Often not looking for anything in particular. I used to be receptive to what the chance would like to bring. I just watched".

"When I give a talk to young people I explain that, when they leave to find work (as do virtually everybody must do if they want to have a car or enjoy a home with amenities) think about finding an activity you enjoy doing with all your heart rather than thinking about the money. Not many people can say that. I'll can say it without problem. I know what it is to work all life on a task that fascinates me".

WILLIAM ALBERT ALARD EXHIBITION. COUVENT DES MINIMES

WILLIAM ALBERT ALARD EXHIBITION. COUVENT DES MINIMES

The third block is formed by stories in -depth. I think a great part of the future of photojournalism goes through here. I would highlight:

Polygamy in the U.S. by Stephanie Sinclair of Seven for National Geographic and The New York Times

An intimate look on one of the most closed Mormon sect known for its practice of polygamy.

One wonders, how the hell some photographers get access to these issues?


The Urban Cave by Andrea Star Reese.

For two years this American photographed the lives of these homeless, men and women, living in New York, showing then with great dignity. Under a bridge, in a dilapidated building or in a tunnel, these photographs reveal the beauty of a place and a people.

THE URBAN CAVE. COUVENT DES MINIMES

Eloi the bubble child by Hubert Fanthomme.

Another in-depth report of the history of this baby and her mother ,who can only embrace and comfort him through the plastic.



The black gold in Chernobyl by Guillaume Herbaut

Twenty years after the catastrophe, the military machine cemeteries and the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine are subject to a full-scale looting.
Great example of work and investigative reporting.


Ian Fisher, an American soldier by Craig F. Walker.

The story followed over two years and a half, this young American soldier since he joined the army, his training, his stay in Iraq and their return home.


Migrants in Calais by Carsten Snejbjerg.

This story was named a 2010 Humanitarian Care award.

In the Arsenal des Carmes are presented some of the best images of the international and French press. You can see Albert Bertran’s Haiti photos done for el Periodico de Catalunya, and there’s also the Diari de Terrassa represented by photographer Cristobal Castro.

DAILY PRESS. ARSENAL DES CARMES

And finally, a visit to l'Eglise des Domicains where, among others, is the exhibition of National Geographic photographer specializing in nature, Mike Nichols, The sequoias: the war of timber in California. Stresses a giant 18-meter,colour print, sponsored by Canon, one of the photos of Nichols that stands in the impressive frame of the Church.

MIKE NICHOLS' PHOTO. EGLISE DES DOMINICAINS

PHOTO MEETING BARCELONA ’10 OJO DE PEZ

During the 15, 16 and July 17 Barcelona was placed again on the map of world photography thanks to International Photo Meeting organized by La Fábrica. That meeting was a big success. Let’s hope that initiative to become a classic and to be repeated year after year. I won’t write an exhaustive chronicle.

The portfolio review was conducted by many well known locals as Silvia Omedes, Jessica Murray, Rafa Badía or Fernando Peracho.

SILVIA OMEDES

Among those who came from abroad I would highlight Christian Caujolle, Vu agency founder and one of the most important theorists of photography in the world, and Robert Pledge, to whom I took the opportunity to say hello. Bob, for his friends, is a photographic legend alive. In the golden age of photojournalism, he founded Contact, the photo agency in 1976. An agency that distributes the work of photographers like Annie Leivobitz, and who employed mythical photographers as David Burnett, Frank Fournier or Alon Reininger, all World Press Photo winners and with photos included in the list of the 100 photos of the century. I worked closely with Frank and Alon in Madrid in 1982, covering the Spanish general elections won by Felipe Gonzalez. There, Alon Reininger gave me my first lesson about how to use portable flashes. Those interested will find here the story.

ROBERT PLEDGE

I attended to the Susan Meiselas’ and Oliviero Toscani’s conferences. I was particularly interested in the so-called “conversations with”. For half an hour, a dozen people could have a conversation with photographers as emblematic as Susan Meiselas and Alex Majoli of Magnum. We had to book in advance and I was lucky. I attended with David Monfil. Both are preparing a project with Nacho Rodriguez and the talks were very useful. Both Susan and Alex gave faith of the unstoppable interest in documentary photography, but recognized that the golden age of magazines were over. Both are experiencing with multimedia media images, in which they mix photos, video and sound. As already explained Pepe Baeza, the future of photography lays there.

I didn’t know well the work of Alex Majoli, an Italian who is one of the promising young Magnum photographers, but much better Susan Meiselas’, especially the photos she took in the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. La Fábrica had just released her book, but I already had bought it in London in 1981. I asked Susan, how no, to dedicate it to me. She saw the book and said. “Oh! It’s the old one!

FOTO: ORIANA ELIÇABE

Alex said something very important. He said you must take into account what the market needs. You can do a thorough job on your wife and then complain that you don’t get it published with all kinds of excuses, he said. Everybody wants to go to photograph Afghanistan to, but the media can only publish a couple of stories, not eighty. Instead the media is searching stories on the economy, on the crisis on Wall Street, etc. In short, if we want to get published we need to know what is being sought, not only photograph what interest us.

ALEX MAJOLI

Finally, although the lectures were the most interesting, we photographers always get distracted by small details that attract our attention.

CURIOSITIES 2. CAPA GOING UP

A nice surprise for a blog still newborn, I started it in middle August. Big climb due to Capa (Stock photo, Capa and the copyright) Thank you Bob!

SEPTEMBER 11 CATALONIA’S NATIONAL DAY.

NIKON F ,24 mm F:2,8, TRI-X 400 ASA

I took this picture in September 11th of 1976 in Sant Boi, an eternity ago. It was the first massive political act in Catalonia after Franco’s death. It’s a simple photo that pictures pretty well this important moment. Perhaps because of this has been used plenty of times, as a books cover, like a gift in numbered and signed gelatine prints, in collective exhibitions and also in my exhibition “In the Threshold of Change”. Just a handful of photographers documented the first Catalonia's National Day. Maybe now it would be different. I imagine the thousands and thousands of people in the event taking pictures, all of them, with his mobile phones and digital cameras.

/ PICTURES FROM MY OTHER WINDOW. THE END OF THE NEWS PHOTO?

FOTO: JAVIER ELVIRA

This is another News Photo taken for my brother Javier Elvira from a window of my parent's home , where I lived before, and where my brother lives now with his family. Though working as an engineer, Javier is a good photographer with a good amateur camera, a Panasonic DMC-FZ5. A spectacular fire occurred just in front, at the end of the last year. Fire-fighters arrived just after 5 minutes. The pictures of Javier are unbeatable. It was impossible for any photographer working for a newspaper or from a picture agency, to learn about the fire and come in just 5 minutes, and also to beat the privileged point of view of my brother. Javier called me right away and I put him in touch with El Periodico de Catalunya. He sent their photos by e-mail and one of them was published the following day and, very important, got paid for it. There are many people taking photographs that, of course, do have other professions, that don't charge any fee, just happy to see their photos published, with the consequent damage to the professionals who do try to live on the photos they take. And there are others who send their pictures to Banks of Images of 1 dollar a picture, which is putting in serious distress many of the traditional photo agencies.

Today, for every incident that happens there is always a ,better or worse, photographer with a camera. And in the News Photo, to be there at the moment makes all the difference.

(LEER EL RESTO / READ THE REST OF THE ENTRY)

XAVIER MISERACHS & PETER PAN

On Thursday, December 11, Teresa Gimpera, Colita and I presented in La Casa del Libro the book Memòries de Barcelona, with photos of Xavier Miserachs and Colita, published by Lupita Books. The book is an extraordinary document of life in Barcelona in the fifties, sixties and early seventies until the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. In addition to the magnificent Colita portraits of the people in the so-called Gauche Divine, made up of writers, artists, actors, models, film makers, photographers and architects, in which the two authors were moving like a fish in water, the book is a tribute to the Xavier figure. I would like to highlight the emotive words of Colita to finish his speech that reminded me of the figure of Peter Pan. Colita said Xavier Miserachs have not died and will never do.

This day we remembered him, said Colita, because his daughters, Arena y Mar, had participated in the edition of this book where his spirit was very present through his fotos. But that when they will become older, their descendants would be those who would take over, as well as the children of these, always using the immortal Miserachs photos as a testimony of a past and extraordinary time.

I could not help but to draw a parallel with the work of James M. Barrie. An adult Wendy, that has forgotten her adventures as a child, discovers that Peter Pan, whose age remains unchanged because he lives in Neverland, has visited her daughter entering through her window. And in the same way, the figure of Xavier will continue living and unchanging over time through his particular Neverland: his photographs. And the generations behind us will keep smiling at the aspiring Davis Cup players in their improvised tennis courts, at the man in the hat on the scooter and at the dog that acted like the humans

PICTURES FROM OTHER WINDOW. NO HOPE

This is another News Photograph taken from a window; from my parent's house where I lived before and now lives my brother Javier Elvira who took the photos. I could discourse upon, again, about the end of the News Photograph but I do not feel like it. Why someone would perform an act so terrible, for which there is no going back, at noon and in a central Barcelona street at this time of the year? Although they say they are the worst dates. When you run out of hope you have nothing left.

WIND IN BARCELONA

Last weekend we had very strong winds in Barcelona.

Video filmed with a Nikon D90

/ POLLUTION IN HUELVA

Yesterday I read in the newspaper that the Coast’s General Direction had ordered the company Fertiberia in Huelva, which has 370 workers, to stop throwing waste into the sea, which the company says will cause its closure. In the 80’s I went to Huelva, together with the journalist Perfecto Conde, sent by the magazine Interviú, to photograph the industrial pollution. Already then, they said that Huelva was the most polluted city in Spain. During the 90’s, I came back to Huelva, with the journalist Albert Cañagueral, to re-shoot the same subject, this time for El Periódico Sunday issue. And I see that, until yesterday, they had not taken measures to stop the terrible pollution. At last!

PASTA ALLA FERDINANDO SCIANNA.

Last weekend I cooked for two. I used a recipe that gave me the Sicilian photographer from Magnum, Ferdinando Scianna. I know many photographers who cook very well. Maybe we can find the reason, if we consider the photographers who worked in the laboratory of black and white, in the biographical book by Xavier Miserachs Fulls de contacte. Xavier compares the ritual of black and white developing with cooking: ingredients in their right amount and time to think while listening to music in the solitude of the lab or the kitchen.

This is the Ferdinando’s recipe that I named Pasta a la Ferdinando :

Peel the tomatoes with boiling water.Empty and cut into very small pieces (Two tasty tomatoes per person).

Abundant basil. A handful for every three people.
A clove of garlic per person. Then shred, not too fine, in a blender, the garlic and basil with extra virgin olive oil. The tomato is added. Put salt and pepper. Mixe with a lot of energy to "salsify" everything.

I gave the receipe a personal touch and added diced black olives.
It was delicious, although I must admit that my pasta dish never was as good as Ferdinando’s.

BYE BYE PEPE RUBIANES

The actor Pepe Rubianes died of lung cancer this past Sunday. Rubianes was a very beloved person and we will miss him greatly; him and his monologues. His ashes, as his last will, shall be scattered throughout Cuba and Kenya, two of his favourite countries and where, he explained, was very happy.
I took this picture of Pepe Rubianes several years ago for Man magazine; I used two Multibliz strobes, one ahead and one behind to highlight the smoke from his usual cigarette. Ouch!

COUNTY ARMAGH. THE BANDIT TERRITORY

Past Monday, a policeman was killed by Continuity IRA in Craivagon, County Armagh in Northern Ireland. A few years ago, shortly before the peace treaty, I photographed Armagh for El País Sunday Magazine. The British called County Armagh the Bandit Territory by the large number of IRA snipers operating there. Let’s hope that these attacks do not alter the always fragile peace process in Ulster.

MASS PROTEST OF BARCELONA'S PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS

On Friday March 20, a large majority of Barcelona's press photographers demostrated in front of Barcelona’s Palau de la Generalitat, the building of the autonomous government of Catalonia. The protest was due to the excessive repression of the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan autonomous police, toward the students ,that complained about the plan of Bologna, and the press covering the act on Wednesday 18. Thirty journalist, mostly photographers, were attacked despite carrying ,clearly visible, the identification bracelet. The photographers placed their cameras on the ground while flying pictures of wounded comrades on Wednesday.

SPRINGTIME IN THE AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

Every Monday I teach Theory and Technique of Photojournalism at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The campus is in Bellaterra, a half hour from Barcelona by car, a bit too far; I travel often by train and sometimes by car. But when spring arrives and the weather is like today, all travel’s inconveniences are offset by the beauty of the environment, wich gives you a breath of fresh air, away from the big city.

MORE LAND ZONING CORRUPTION

I Photographed La Muela wind farm a few years ago, while photographing Zaragoza for a book for the recent Expo on water. Already then, a lot of people told me that La Muela was one of the richest municipalities in Spain. The cause: the money generated by the electricity produced by modern wind turbines driven by the Cierzo wind. But it seems that there are people who always want more. Up to know, the mayor and 17 more people were arrested accused of corruption. The reclassification of protected land into building land, the best, easiest and most profitable business in the world, doesn’t stop in our country.

/THE MISTERY OF MY NEIGHBOUR’S PICTURE

Nikon F80 Nikkor 300 mm f:4 Fujichrome 100 ASA

I'm very surprised. Or, perhaps, I shouldn’t. On March 18 there were exactly 8 months since I started this blog and I decided to take a look at Google Analytics: a tool that provides you ,with great accuracy, all statistics relating to the blog visits. These had already seen 41,485 pages; I placed the 10 first under the label The 10 most viewed posts . The first one, by far, with up to 2184 pages read, was Curiosities 2. My neighbour’s pictures , a 5.26% of the total page views for this post I wrote on September 2.

That post was an article that referred to my second photo of the series Pictures from my window, published just 10 days after starting the blog, titled My Air France neighbour. This photo was the second most watched of all the posts with 633 page views, or a 1.53% of the total. Most of the visits came through Google after writing in Spanish Las fotos de mi vecina (The pictures of my neighbour) . At that time I wrote the phrase on Google and my entry was on the first page of Google, at number 5.
Yesterday I wrote again Las fotos de mi vecina . Of a total of approximately 310,000 entries, mine is still on the first page of the search engine, but has already climbed to the number 1. Gosh! Anybody could explain me why?

YAK 42 ACCIDENT

In these days continues the sad spectacle of the Yak 42’s trial. Meanwhile, in the small Christian cemetery in Kabul, a commemorative plaque, which opened in August 2003, honours the memory of the dead Spanish soldiers.

TRAVELING AGAIN,

There was a certain time since my last travel. But the opportunity came and I took advantage. They were almost a couple of weeks, very, very far away. I departure from El Prat airport, met this spectacular sky and I could not resist. It was a good omen and the first of thousands of photographs I took throughout the trip.

BARCELONA 2009 . CORTE INGLÉS RACE PHOTOS

This popular race often goes by the Gran Via, under my apartment. But they changed the route this time so I could not photograph it from my window and I had to go down to the street, but only a couple of blocks away. More 55,000 runners participated in this edition.

I used a Nikon D80 with a 20mm 2.8, a 180mm 2.8, and a 18-70 mm zoom. As you can I shoot some pictures using Nikon SB-800 strobe separated from the camera by a sync cable and underexposing the background a diaphragm for a more dramatic effect.