I’ve been seeing lots of photos from the 10th anniversary today and some of them are amazing and I couldn’t help but look back at my photos of ground zero when I went earlier in the year. It’s such a wonderful place but for all the wrong reasons.
Here’s a collection of photos of seen today (BBC, The Daily Mail & The New York Times)
Also, after seeing this and looking back on my own photos I remembered a photographer I discovered and have been meaning to blog about so I’ll post again shortly.
So the other week I decided to get away from Hinckley and take a visit to London to see a friend, being a little uninterested in the news at the time I hadn’t really looked into the London riots and their seriousness. Anyway I had my train booked and was going no matter what. I got down there on monday 8th August and everything seemed pretty normal…untill I was out having some drinks and was informed that the riots had hit the area where I was staying, which meant a little problem of getting home! We managed to get a taxi back (although it did cost us £40) it was our only option. It wasnt untill the next morning when I went into the local high street that I really how bad things had got. Seeing pictures/stories on the news doesn’t even come close to how surreal it was in real life. It was a massive shock to say the least. On the other hand I really enjoyed being able to see with my own eyes and really understand the trouble that was going on. Luckily the riots moved away from our area and there wasnt any more bother the next few days. But I did get the see how effected everyone was by it, the following days I found shops boarding up there windows and small high streets were completely shutting because of fear of more rioting. I was truly amazed!
So here you go (a few weeks late but thats what you get for using a disposable)…
So I havent posted in a while and that’s mainly because I can honestly say I’ve not really found anything that has caught my eye or been worth blogging…untill now.
Jonathan Hobin’s images from his series ‘in the playroom’ really caught my eye in both good and bad ways. His series of images show children in different forms of rooms (playrooms, bedrooms, ect) playing in a carefree way, but the photographer has but a deeper meaning to the images to show form a darker image.
I’ve always been intrigued my images with children because they get so much abuse and are always called ‘disturbing’ or ‘out of order’, for example Loretta Lux’s and Sally Mann’s work. Hobin’s couldn’t have said it any better
“The quizzical disposition of youth and the pervasive nature of the media are symbolically represented in my images through tableau-vivant re-enactments of the very current events that adults might wish to keep out of their child’s world. Just as children make a game of pretending to be adults as a way to prepare and ultimately take on these roles in later life, so too do they explore things that they hear or see, whether or not they completely understand the magnitude of the event or the implications of their play.”
I think this perfectly represents his images and after reading what he thinks has encouraged me to think differently about images including children. I have never been put off by images including children because having a little brother myself, I have always found myself taking random photos of him and he is one of my main focuses within my photography.
I bought my regular Company magazine the other week and discovered a really interesting article in it. It was by Jameela Jamil called “Cyber Schmyber”…
“SMS, MMS, tweeting, poking, Facebooking, BBM, WhatsApp, instant messaging, email, AOL chat, Skype..bloody hell. In a world where we’ve never been so well-connected, in truth, we have never been more detached. As a generation , ladies, we are losing touch by hiding behind technology. I’m sick of writing LOL or LMAO. I’d much rather laugh out loud with a real person. I hate those self-checkout machines in supermarkets. I miss chatting to cashiers. I even miss that awkward embarrassment you have when buying tampons, despite the fact that women everywhere have periods. Nonetheless, I miss it. What’s more, I hate it when those pissy machines start screaming ‘unexpected item in bagging area!’ making everyone stare at you as though it just shouted, ‘thief!’. It’s exhausting. My mum used to be on first-name terms with her local shopkeepers. They asked after her children, they saved her a copy of her favourite magazine before it sold out and they lookd out for her. These days, the only sense of community we have are online ones. We see our friends’ photo albums on Facebook and feel as though we’re up to date on their lives, buts it’s just an edited glimpse. Editing is the problem. We spend hours constructing the perfect text, or message rather than deal with natural reactions. And how can you get your point across with a limit of 140 characters? We’re losing the art of conversation- even handwriting. Half the birthday cards I send look like I’ve written them with my foot! I have countless friends who return from dates disappointed becuase there was no ‘conversational’ spark. ‘But we were so well matched over text’, they moan. YES, because it’s not real it’s pre-meditated and, very possibly, you or he had a friend who helped construct it. One quality I had find appealing in men is a quick wit. I love people who shoot from the hip and banter back at you. You don’t get that with technology. If you need a few hours to think of a clever response, then isn’t that a fake version of yourself? Also, I want real kisses not ‘xxx’. And my greatest pet peeve is that you can just stop contacting someone when you feel like deleting them from your life. Because of this, we are a generation unable to handle confrontation. And don’t eve get me started on the over analyses of what a tiny text or tweet means. I’ve spent hours with mates having conversations that go like this: ‘He didn’t put a kiss at the end, does that mean I shouldn’t?’ or ‘Does an exclamation mark make me look to eager?’ or ‘Does a dot dot dot at the end make me look to mysterious?’. Blah blah blah. It’s too much effort! Social networking does have it’s benefits and Facebook is a godsend when it comes to remembering birthdays. But we need to strike a balance. We can’t get lost in this cyber world. Today, I intend to scroll through my Facebook friends and make a list of everyone I actually want to see in real life and I’m going to arrange a date. Because, with, 13000 Twitter followers and985 Facebook friends, I’ve never felt more alone. Bring back the banter!”
After having a recent module about digital media, I’ve really started to focus alot around the idea of whether technology taking over is a good or bad thing?! I’m going to continue looking into this area of study and maybe even focus a project on it. Here is a link to the work I did for the digital media module; http://christycookmoduless.wordpress.com/category/252mc-digital-media/page/3/
Posted in Interests
I’ve seen these new photos by Alison Jackson on Channel 4, they are her recent work about the royal wedding.
Posted in Interests
I was fortune enough to get the oppurtunity to go to New York recently and I have to say it is the most amazing place! Here is a diary gallery of my trip…
Alis Pelleschi is a photographer I discovered about a year ago in a Glamour magzine, being called ‘the next big thing’. Instantly I took a liking to her work and now in contact with her with Twitter and Facebook. I like her work because her images are strong and technically good but also because she has a funny side to her and the way in which she works. We’ve recently had talk about a workshop day which she is trying to set up and I have my name down for.
http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/magazine/bespoke-special/birmingham/birmingham-video-blog
Like Glamour Magazine said last year…watch out for her!! Here are some of her images from ‘Super Fans’ and ‘Party Portraits’.
Christy! 