spring2life take2

some people are not born poor, but made poor. the idps that now live in navallady, batticaloa, in the former tsunami buffer zone (no permanent house should have been there, the former residents were all resettled) had their homes in the trincomalee district. the civil war came, they were driven out of their houses in the combat- or security zone and now live under most primitive conditions in sheds made of tarpaulins, corrugated tin sheets and leaves. you count the toothbrushes? 8 people live here, in a hut maybe 3,5×5 m².

and i learned a lot about gender budgeting, too (it pays to travel with the boss, who is a psychiatrist by education): if there is a male head of family, there will be: a mobile phone, a tv set (to watch cricket), a small motobike…

but the number of male-headed families is small. the usual story reads more like “lost husband in the conflict, lost the son, fleeing, now living with the small kids here until knowbody knows when, little support, fear, discrimination (by army/police)”. I spare you the details. It is simply incredible.

taking up the topic of my recent post “eyes”, just a bullet list of what it means to be poor in batticaloa, sri lanka (but feel free to put in any other place):

• the husband (if present) works as a day labourer, earning barely enough to feed the family
• the kids leave school early to add to the family’s income
• you live on your own plot, but twice a year it gets flooded and turns into a swamp. so the romance showing up in the lead shot is just a temporary one
• your daughter carries the daily laundry quite a distance. to wed her, you should save for a dowry, but don’t know from where to take it
• your plot of maybe 100m² houses well and toilet pit, not a really healthy arrangement
• when you are not in a specially affected group like the tsunami victims, you probable are poor and stay poor

by careful usage of funds, our project could increase the number of donated toilets, and some families in puthur, batticaloa, now have decent hygienic facilities. to help them to help themselves, the beneficiaries were paid in installments and themselves contracted the work. this also created a good sense of ownership – and kept the costs really low. and the toilet now is the most solid structure on the plot, much better then the house…

fortunately enough, un-habitat’s programme “cities without slums” will tackle this situation in order to achieve a structural improvement.

sometimes when the eyes open, gestalt reveals itself. though i am sweating for many of my pictures, on quite some occasions i just recognize, see. and sometimes, i also like the framing and don’t feel the necessity to crop or modify otherwise. rare moments that i really cherish.

at the moment i feel a bit like this pants on batticaloa beach: totally worn out after more than 30 hours work and traveling with only some naps. at least the official part of this mission was successful, so no reason to complain. photographically it still has to be evaluated. more after having slept, promised!

still under pressure, this time at the airport already, on the way home. today i got sad news again about the refugee situation in the north of sri lanka – ban ki moon seems to have categorized the situation ‘apalling’ regarding the government’s treatment of the tamil civilians – and he seemingly has seen only the least awful part of it. will try to compile something more coherent about this tragedy. meanwhile i share with you this image from the beach.

no words at the moment – time presses. i hope the picture speaks for itself

photographing in exotic locations usually means meeting people only once in a lifetime. photographing the not-so-well-off means that you even can’t just send a picture or two as email, and even when they write down their address – in the present case i couldn’t read it as i don’t know tamil.

but in this case i was happy: i had the opportunity to meet the fisherman of this post again and present them a print of the photo where he was posing 5 seconds for me.

it was a joy for him and for me. of course, some others now also want their portrait taken…

dark clouds over the sea here in batticaloa, no sunrise – matching weather for a holiday that is a holy day only for the sinhalese.

from some tamil houses we heard funeral music. a sophisticated way to express their sadness that they seem to have lost their case.

here on the east coast of sri lanka, the only people celebrating a victory were soldiers and policemen, all of them members of the 80% sinhalese majority of sri lanka’s population. the photo above was taken in dambulla. the tamils almost all were quiet, only the members of the ruling party tmvp showing open contentednes, and many others not daring to show their sadness about this defeat of the ltte (liberation tigers of tamil eelam).

whilst since quite some time large parts of the tamil population have turned away from the ltte because of their rigorous and cruel regime and assassinations, sharing the view of the world’s majority that the tigers were terrorists, the ltte was also seen as the only power that would give the cause of the sinhalese-tamil ethnic conflict some attention in the world. now there is nobody influential anymore who can claim a true devolution, equal access to power and the realisation of full rights for the tamils.

now the ltte has lost the war and their leaders, the sri lanka government has won the last battle. to win the peace it needs actions that can be recognized by the tamils as the true and genuine will to make sri lanka a home for all citizens, regardless of ethnics or religion.

risking the fact that it sounds boring to hear the same thing over and over again: being here on the east cost of sri lanka changes (again) my perspective. whilst at home wood pellets form the ever available and theoretically co2-neutral alternative for burning oil to heat the rooms, and that ever-ready central heating makes me lazy and lolling, here energy only for cooking can mean hardest work. for quite some time i wanted to catch such a push-bicycle loaded with firewood, and on the very arrival in batticaloa i was lucky not only for the subject matter but also for the matching light and dust.

dubai is amazing, over and over again. in the last months they have greatly improved their terminal, not being shy of any costs (of course, if have enough crude to sell). the neuw skytrain is a large chrome/light/water construction – really amazing. of course that beauty has a dark backside: flickr is censored, as are many social networking websites. well, this at least gives a nice impression of the future of german internet, due to the brave actions of a not-so-bright minister, just keen of cheap votes. but the structures this plucky lady helps to implement is the very same as the one ‘protecting’ the citizens of dubai. brave new world.

starting my journey to the east coast of sri lanka always is a train leg to munich airport. now train for a long way was a authochtonous, down-to-earth affair, ‘deutsche bahn’, ‘österreichische bundesbahn’ and so on, where the nationality in the name quite often meant also basic facilities. but already decades ago it started to change with the introduction of the ice-trains here in germany, where the ‘fahrgäste’ (including the word guest) sudenly became passengers. and since some years in the trains we also enjoy bi-lingual announcements of the next stops.

but today’s trip with the ‘railjet’ (sic) topped this by far: announcement even in mandarin, or was it russian? three classes: premium, first and economy (and this is no translation – it was announced in this very words. so we are truly becoming international now, and get treated almost like plain passengers, moving map display inclusive. the name ‘railjet’ of course is a signboard for this change.

well, the construction of salzburg train station still shows it’s origins from quite some time ago, and the railway station shows its old character, ‘railjet’ naming of the train or not.

trying to get at a new ‘airiness’ as well as combining photography with family undertakings, i had to resort to some shots without framing. of course the reject rate was a bit more than marginally higher, however one shot came out as good as expected: those armstrongs-to-be had the road for themselves on a sunny sunday in april, when all cars were banned round attersee in austria. and whilst some made a race out of it, dressed like top performers of the giro, others had their fun and aching muscles the next day.

and not being pressed (on the contrary, slowed down by the daughters) i had time enough to have a look over the lake to the shore we had passed some hours ago. early spring is a wonderful season, cautious, almost retained sometimes but already full of promises. what a wonderful time.

over at paul lester photography, paul praises david du chemin’s just published book ‘within the frame’. living in germany, i probably have to wait some more days until my copy arrives. the pieces david offered to read in advance sound as motivating as paul’s reflection of his first glance does, so waiting for a book this time is a bit harder than it uses to be.

developing my visualisation powers, not yet my vision, this year seems to be much easier than a year ago. and the unexpected thing is that my interest in photographic gear becomes lower than during the times i had experienced as photographically fruitless. even my love for photo magazines diminuishes, probably because i see clearer now what is just featuring new things, sometimes plainly and painfully superficially.

sofobomo for me is planned as a further boost of my capabilities. in the past months i have tried to compile coherent series and learnt a lot out of that: when shooting i have to have this purpose in the back of my mind. just shooting plenty does not guarantee the connection between good single images. in the meantime i use my free minutes like today when commuting to sharpen my sight and my sensibility for gestalt and color.

using the most modern electronic gadgets in form of a dslr and a laptop should be proof enough that i am standing with both feet in modern information society. still, forms and textures and colors from 100 years back in many cases enthuse me more than a big number of modern things. especially in everyday life i sometimes feel surrounded by things that raise the suspicion of beeing deliberately created ugly.

but it can also be a certain backwards directed paranoia that bends my perception, yes i do think this is possible. on the other hand, looking at that old cast iron door handle from a farm or trader’s house, i have a hard time coming up with contemporary counterparts (from normal houses, not upper class villas) that tickle my aesthetic fancy in the same way that this old piece does.

i just received the following email from a colleague/friend from batticaloa:

… our cousins daughter’s 8 years old baby kidnap on 28th April 2009 on her school. after we search in batticaloa area but we didn’t find her,2nd day mother received a phone call from unknown person they request money to release her amount is 3.0 million srilankan rupees,after we agreed to give this amount,after we didn’t received any call from this unknown person.on 2nd May 2009 morning we found our baby death body into the abandoned well can you imagine our family situation,still our family not normal that was I didn’t reply you.

what kind of country is this, what kind of people are doing this?

25 years of civil war have left this country so brutalized, have made a whole generation grow up with nothing but violence, suppression, killing, stealing, vandalizing. on both sides. and at the moment the government is committing large scale massacres and the world is looking away.

terrible is to weak a word.

a lazy mothers day brought no new images, instead some hours at the lake (17°c, swimming is possible but no real joy). late in the evening now the flat is quiet, time to go through the pictures of the last weeks again. the rosserer pilgrimage still has some images worth converting from raw. the little conductor from the lead shot perseviringly worked in front of the band and was really disappointed when they decided to have a break.

their music was genuine, not a single ingratiation to their modern demiotic, tv-popular conterpart. the german word for this demiotic music would be “volkstümlich” which is easily transmogrified to “volksdümmlich” (dümmlich = stupid) which again could find a nice parallel in “dem-idiotic”.

it’s not that just my other, ranting self just wants to come through again, but this demiotic/overpopular music is more than a nuisance, living on clichees and burying its roots under dogpiles of fake feelings.

form follows function was by no means invented by an architect of the 19th century, no, the farmers everywhere had followed this principle more or less intentionally probably everywhere in the world. in this farmer’s garden from maybe 100 years ago, now rebuilt in a museum village in austria, this guideline shows up in many incarnations: the placement of the flowers next to the fence because the space inside was needed for vegetables, the mixture of vegetables itself, following implied principles of organic gardening, the fence of small fir stems, doubled in density in the lower half to keep of the hen there and deer, roe and cow in the upper region…what i do like is the harmony not only of the forms here but also the colors.

nothing overly vivid is needed, no gaudy colors, yet the color contrast of red and green is attractive, hilarating and harmonious. and if you think the carriage/horseman scenery is too much cliche, let met tell you that it just happened: they arrived, the coachman just patted his horses and spoke to them while the son organised the beer, and then he had his break, chatting with bystanders or just standing. he was him, and it showed in a short and precious moment. the art of photography was to capture without intruding.

no time to go out shooting today. experimented with kids pics again, trying to move from illustration to interpretation, shakin’ off the fear of grain, trying to get hold of that ‘twins’ fascination. they are in many aspects so unresembling, but then again share quite a lot of attitudes like the posture of their head. entering this new territory of interpretation, less straight photography, hopefully also less square in a sense, i still have no validation system to help me judge if i’m right or way off. definitely a thing to develop, but it will take time. so here i go with a first essay on the ‘twins’ topic.

now we are already one week into sofobomo 2009, and i still even have no idea of a theme. i am really greatful for that fuzzy month which offers a great deal of flexibility, so i am still very optimistic that i will be able to finish a book. problem is that i am bound for a new 10 day business mission to sri lanka one week from today, and afterwards for 2 weeks of holiday with the family. either period can bring or cannot bring sufficient occasion for shooting, but in both cases time for editing and compiling will be restricted to the two last weeks of the fuzzy month.

reason to be pessimistic? no, other then last year i am much more confident in my skills, both visually and technical, i have already a scribus framework for a book, so i will manage to accomplish the task and finish in time if not some completely unforseeable and unsurmountable obstacles turn up.

today’s shot is from my commuting days in munich, a barber closing his shop for the evening, carefully having decorated the window with the flowers. i like the several subjects combining in time and space in this frame. and what looks quite straightforward still has 5 layers to select areas for darkening, sharpening and intensifying the colors.

wordless wednesday – everybody is asked to use her/his imagination to find a storyline. enjoy.

and if you want to see it *really* large, click here.

another small series from the rosserer pilgrimage. btw: rosserer is austrian/salzburg dialect for horse breeder. fascinating for me here was the surface of the instrument.

usually you see high gloss, like in the last shot, but this guy’s bass tuba did not pretend to be new and without blemishes. it looked old, well used and beaten, no pretending possible.

but the sound was great, without doubt. and having my traditional ‘bratwurst’ on a table in the back of the band gave me sufficient opportunity to watch the details. the guy sitting next to the bass tuba had one of those shiny, proper, straight instruments, and so i just had to make use of the reflection.

the traditional horse breeders’ pilgrimage from salzburg and surroundings to the church of ‘maria plain’ (see the 2nd image in this post) took place in marvellous weather. as a father of 3 girls, anything horse related of course is an attractive goal for an excursion, and hoping for photographic opportunities of course i did not oppose.

my first take on portraying horses and teams of horses was more so so than successful, but among the better shots are some nice portraits of coachmen and -women.

over the next days i will fill up the flickr set of this event and maybe post some more here.

no, i won’t bore you with this topic here again. but raw power this is, the power of the green weißbach waters (which is kind of oxymoronic as weißbach means white creek) cascading down in their canyon. having worked quite a while on this picture i am still not completely satisfied. i think i managed quite well to bring out the deep colors of water and moss as well as the brilliance of the reflections, but compositionally the right border puzzles me because of the out-of-focus blur. f-stop was already 11, 16 might have been better but at an focal length of 180 mm-e i doubt it would have rendered the rock in complete sharpness. i tried some cropping, but for several reasons i want to stick with the old barnackian 3:2 ratio (i estimate it to be more dynamic than 4:3) and then i loose too much of the diagonals, rocks and whitewater. so i will have to live with it. a view camera might have helped to solve this problem, or 2 shots with different planes of focus (i had used a tripod anyhow) and following combination in the gimp. alas – would/should/could doesn’t really help, so i enjoy what i have got and what i am able to destill out of it.

is there a life outside the raw (file)? probably there is. and i do know, yes, that the eye of the photographer is important for the picture, her or his feeling for composition, balance and all those factors that have to be considered in “the moment it clicks”. but all this fiercely defending the jpeg as the only necessary format that a good photographer needs (ken rockwell comes to no good remembrance here) in my eyes suffers from a singular flaw: the file from the camera is just another factor for a successful image.

it’s an undisputable fact that great photographic art can originate from media that do detract some factors from the photographers influence – think only of the polaroid process – and some pictures work because of qualities that allow to disregard technical qualities in the printmaking process. but the raw file in my eyes is the equivalent for the film original, the basis for an image, basis in a process that reveals image components that would remain hidden without diligent work.

decades ago this work could only be done in the darkroom, now the computer screen has replaced for many of us the darkroom work (let’s put aside the new possibilities of this tool or toolkit), but at least i do similar things as before: dodging, burning in, now complemented with local contrast enhancement and local sharpening, partial control of saturation etc.

the preview image to the right at first glance looks dull, but working with the new layer tools of bibble5 (still in preview) and subsequent local contrast enhancement plus refocus sharpening in gimp created a whole new image out of the raw file.

no, at least for pictures like this there is no life outside the raw.

a big advantage of the (pre-)alpine region i am dwelling in is the long duration of spring you can get by moving just a little bit. whilst the petals of the apple trees now lay in the street of my hometown, washed down by the rainfall of the last 3 days, just 10km to the south spring is still in its early stages. here in weißbach canyon the intensive green of a beech tree is still sensational as the other vegetation is still more in the pale and brown stadium.

and the rusty red of the lichens on the lime rock is just now extraordinary as there is not to much red to be found in the surroundings. in a week the scenery will have changed with blossoms and flowers everywhere.

for sofobomo, which has it’s first day of the fuzzy month today, weißbach canyon is one of my options. the flow of water there is a continuous fascination, and if my other options don’t work (or if i feel bold and want to make two books) i will surely come back there.