Izzy and Indie

5 minute read

I was later than usual collecting my daughter from school. It was quiet after the cacophony of kids and their voices had ceased reverberating around walls and through picture covered corridors.

The calm gave us a chance to chat without the distractions of other parents and children that accompany the melee that marks the end of the school day.

The other reason why it was unusual was that today we had planned a visit to the Silk Mill: a working museum still producing silk for textile, now an artisan operation rather than an industrial one.

We walked towards the Mill rather than heading straight home, and we were both happy and somewhat excited, I think, for the diversion.

‘Look, there’s Hazel, I can see Hazel,’ I said, as we strolled past the playground. Mattie started running in Hazel’s direction and I followed, knowing that we had some time to kill before the light show kicked-in at the Mill.

The playground was busy. Children with jumpers tied around their waists played football and groups of different ages formed around apparatus according to how much risk was involved. The swinging, spinning tyre soaked up all the centrifugal forces a group of older boys could muster. The heavy steel arm rocking almost imperceptibly in its concrete foundations.

The sun set slowly over the hazy horizon. A formation of Canada geese honked and flew in formation directly overhead.

Mattie had made a new friend.

‘I’ve made a new friend, Daddy! This is Indie!’ she shouted, hauling Felix onto another apparatus. Indie said nothing. Just beamed. Wide-eyed.

‘Daddy! Felix said ‘Indie’! He said your name, Indie!’

Indie smiled.

Her Mum laughed.

‘She’s very shy’, she said.

‘How old is Indie? I said.

‘She was five in November. She doesn’t go to school here, but she is in year ‘R’, so they are roughly the same age,’ she said. ‘I’m coming off a night shift, so I’m feeling a bit dozy,’ she said.

‘I remember that feeling. Where do you work?’ I said.

‘At the care home on Newbury Road,’ she said.

‘I know the one. I took Mattie there when she was crawling. The residents loved interacting with her, kind of brought them out of their shell, it seemed,’ I said.

‘Yeah, it’s a real shame all of that has had to be put on hold. I’ve spent the last two years interacting with residents through hazmat suits. We’ve had to wear visors, masks and full-body biological suits just interacting with them. It’s been awful. The worst thing is, they don’t really know what’s going on. I just see them wasting away. You go into their room and they’re dead. Then we have to inform the family via zoom. It’s horrendous.’

‘Have you had any time to decompress?’ I said.

‘I could really do with that. Some time away from it all. We’re just so under-staffed. That’s the real problem. We don’t have the resilience. I wasn’t due to work today, but they asked me to stay and do another shift to cover for someone off with Covid. It’s nowhere near as serious this time round, but we still can’t risk it with the residents.’

Izzy hugged herself as a breeze whipped through the swings. It was getting cold and we needed to get going.

We said our good-by’s but then ended up trickling our way together to the Mill like water along a parched river-bed: inching this way and that, meandering with Felix as he checked-out every interesting stone and viable hiding place.

The lights in all their saturation and hue seemed to take on a new significance. The 200 year old clock chimed and the visual display pulsated like a luminescent organism. We stayed until the final switch was flicked and the Mill fell dark, silhouetted against the faint glow of the February stars.

Soho Foto Werkshop

I had great pleasure leading a street photography workshop for City Academy in London recently.

While not committing wholeheartedly to making work during the two days (my eyes were never far away from my charges), I did nevertheless make use of the opportunity of using a little gem of a camera – a Rollei 35.

It is unobtrusive, small and feather light allowing discretion not normally afforded someone who regularly touts a dead-weight dslr.

I found myself photographing from the chest sometimes thus keeping both eyes roving.

Here are a small selection, some sharper than others. Zone focusing, baby.

It has been a while.

Ps. film stock 10 year out of date ‘press 400’ scanned on Epson v850 pro.

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Potocari War Graves, Srebrenica, March 2019

5 minute read.

Having been surrounded by death in my working life, I found myself habitually immune to the historic tragedy of the Srebrenica Genocide. I was about to embark on a memorial walk with thousands of others, towards the place where this tragedy happened, but realised that all those years had made me emotionally detached, immune to the feelings that loss and tragedy had on the ‘other’.

It was a strange experience, then, to be so far removed from this place of trauma – sat one rainy winter evening, scratching away at the surface of a print – to find a deep sense of sorrow welling up from somewhere unfamiliar. I was using scissors and a scalpel working methodically over each identifiable face, re-creating the image I’d seen in a hotel stairwell in Srebrenica itself.

Day 1, Mars Mira, Bosnia Herzegovina 2019, (defaced Dec 2019)

The woman was disfigured for reasons unknown, by a sharp implement. Present yet partially erased, like a distorted memory. Now I was thinking about these individuals in the context of victimhood, and placed myself in the skin of the protagonist, in control of their image if not their lives. By obfuscating reality, I was somehow re-energising that sense of loss felt by so many of those who had taken part, and started to feel the effects of that onerous process.

I re-photographed the prints as objectively as possible: square on, copy lighting at 45 degrees, just like the many documents I’d photographed for court purposes, but which were almost always equally suited to a humble photocopy. A few months went by before I looked at what I had again. I felt I needed the images of some of the deceased to make this personal and specific. The web is a wonderful tool for preserving memories, and a search quickly found a site devoted specifically to the systematic cataloguing of victims together with their names and dates of birth.

Zijad Ahmetovic 02.10.74

Here, perhaps, was a way to connect past and present – with portraits that were badly reproduced, poorly lit or in some way deficient. Their lack of detail seemed to be an error of quantity as well as quality. Undeniably, if they’d lived longer, these blurry images would have morphed into pixels with more detail. There would have been no shortage of choice had this atrocity happened in the Facebook age.

At the heart of this is an emotional response to the degraded quality of these family snapshots together with the violence of the event and my appropriation of violence in realising this project. The 12 victims were born in the same year as me, 1974, and meant that they all died when they were 21 – a significant and symbolic year in anyone’s life.

From the top of the Stari Most, Mostar, July 2019

To be clear, this to be about me. My intention in this post is to add a context to my interest in the subject. My goal is to throw a little more light on a region so close to home but so vulnerable to extremist ideology and still harbouring significant sections of society in denial about this murky chapter in its not too distant past.

A copy of the work in book form can be seen here:

https://www.blurb.co.uk/books/10176238-21

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Very pleased to be able to share this new Photobook about my experiences in Bosnia. All profits from the sale of the book will go to the charity Remembering Srebrenica.

21 Bosnia Revisited By DJ Norwood Book Preview

 

Yew

Taxus Baccata

Silhouettes ruling over their kin – Voluminous shadows breaking through the mist, Like abandoned ships cruising a woody sea. In isolation, defining their orbit – Interstellar black holes, consuming light, From a bleached-out sky.

Near immortality lends to the exit door of a church, A spirit more real than any Christian myth. The chapel is orientated around it, Deferring to a power and status as witness, To the folly of civilizations over five millennia.

The connection with eternal life doesn’t end there – Twisted, contorted boughs suggest internal pain, Imprint memento mori of undead beings – Hallucinations of Hydra, Gorgon and Frankenstein, Course through sticky sap like blood, Reddening the bark in winter.

For hundreds of years these knotted fibres defended this Isle, Bending over archers’ backs, straining against sinew, As volley after volley were released at the enemy, Whomever they were, whatever century, For these conflicts are like the gentle breath of summer, Through poisoned, pointed needles.

 Images and text © DJNorwood (in isolation) May 2020

Photobook Publishing(2/3)

7 minute read.

In this second segment of a three-part post I chat with another first-time bookmaker for his behind the scenes experiences of the process.

Kevin Percival‘s quietly insistent work documents the landscapes and communities on the remote Scottish Island of Tanera (Ar Dùthaich), charting the symbiotic relationships left by generations its of inhabitants.

DN: Once again, many thanks for loaning me the book. I’ve had a chance to look through the images and most of the text now. It’s a really beautiful project and object.

It seems like a much more fluid and complicated place when you read the end text than is the case on first viewing. I like the way the book withholds small asides and personal histories until the reader has put in the effort to uncover them…Perhaps that’s for later on in the discussion…

Can I start by asking you your initial motivation for the project and at what point you began to realise it would work best in book form?

KP: I think my motivation was EXACTLY that really: I wanted to make a project which looked at rural issues. Having grown up in the countryside and gradually moved to bigger and bigger towns and cities during my adult life, I gradually became aware of how under-considered and under-represented these rural communities have become in the UK (both politically and culturally). When we consider the rural, we’re so used to seeing these postcard pictures, with blue skies and stunning sunsets- the rural as the ‘sublime’ or ‘picturesque’- all these ideas which have gradually become commercialised and solidified on calendars. To the point where I think we forget that real people still live there, and have to try and carve out an existence for themselves too.

When I first moved there for work in 2012, I didn’t know what shape the work would take – that would develop through making the images. As we drove the final single-track road which snakes from Ullapool out to Achiltibuie where our employers’ boat was moored, we were told that there was a currently a bit of a fuss in the community as petrol at the local stations had recently crashed through the £1.50 a litre mark (at the time this was the same as the premium being paid at motorway service areas on the M25). Given that there was only two buses from Achiltibuie to Ullapool a day- people rely on their own transport (not to mention boats) for work- and this kind of price jump is the sort of difference which forces people to choose between putting fuel in the car or buying food in the most extreme cases. This was the first time I’d really considered this and it really stuck with me throughout the project- though never really makes it explicitly into the work.

We’re bombarded by stories about inner-city poverty all the time, but rarely even consider what people in the countryside do. I was once told by an ecologist friend a story of her going into a city primary school. She asked the pupils she was teaching “Where does milk come from?” and was told “from a bottle”. When she asked where it comes from before that – kids tentatively said “milk comes from Tesco”. This is just one example of how urban and rural realities do not intersect. So all these ideas were floating around in my head as I made the work. I didn’t want to deny beauty of the area, because ultimately I’ve always been fascinated by the ecology and Romanticism of the countryside, but I wanted to balance that by saying ‘hey, people make their lives here too it’s more than just a chocolate box’. Putting the work into a book allowed me to blend these narratives together in a more complex way. The idea was to make a book that rewards repeated viewings, so each of the oral histories you read, gives you a very slightly different sense of the place and understanding of the photographs.

The images are made up of portraits, vistas and details the exception being a couple of interiors. In relation to the portraits, did you have a specific cross-section of the community you wanted to represent as a kind of ethnographic survey of the island? How did you go about selecting your subjects?

For the portraits, I tried to show anyone I met whose work or lives impacted on the island at the time we were working there. There were only 5 people living on the island including us, so I focussed on people who lived on the mainland but influenced the daily running of the island.

I often talk about my interest in the traces found in the landscape- the evidence of human interaction with it and presence upon it. I wanted to show the people leaving those traces now in the early 21st century.

My only regret here is not showing more of the holiday makers who often visited every single year for periods of 10 or 15 years. I tried to show a mix of people from different backgrounds and ages though.

When it came to doing oral histories, I felt it was particularly important to represent a variety of perspectives- from young people right through to those in their 60s/70s. From people who have moved to the local area relatively recently, to people who have lived there all their lives- be that 18 years or 60.

It seems to me that one of the most rewarding aspects of bookmaking is the editing – making new relationships with the image so connections are made visually where none existed before – but also the most fraught in the sense that this is a very definite process and once it’s done there’s no going back. You are, in a sense, creating a finalized world in which to immerse your viewer…

In terms of editing that was a really, really long process and I think it’s a really ‘how long is a piece of string’ question – it really varies from project to project and person to person. Almost from the beginning I was working on a rough edit. After our first summer on the island in 2012 I’d scanned and worked on a selection of images- probably about 50 or so that I was interested in, and this informed my shooting for the following year, which meant it became much more directed. I made another edit in 2013 and some of the gaps had been filled in, but others became obvious. So I continued to go back and shoot, editing between trips.

I made my first dummy book around this time, 2013/2014 when I started my MA. I wasn’t too happy with it so left off trying to get the book into a final form for 2 years or so to work on other projects. It wasn’t until early 2016 that went back and I really began to feel like I was getting somewhere. I find editing an uncomfortable process. With this project, it’s when I realised just how attached I’d become to the actual place – never mind the images. It’s very easy to establish relationships with certain images and over time those relationships can easily become entrenched- particularly when working on something for so long. I think you eventually get to a point where you have no idea what’s ‘good’ any more!

I feel very fortunate that I had a bunch of amazing photographer friends who I’d met in various places and I had a lot of help from them, firstly cutting the numbers down to a manageable level, and then bouncing ideas around for the final 66 images which made it into the book. It’s fascinating to see what other people find interesting in your images. I have no problem with handing someone I trust a handful of ordered prints I’ve agonised over for days, and saying ‘make an edit’, watching as they undo all your hard work! Call me a masochist but it’s all part of the process – it quickly brings your own objectivity back if you can let go a bit.

The people I edit with also ask the hard questions – if there’s an image they’re not sure on- you need to be able to justify why it’s there. They don’t have any of your emotional attachment to the particular situations you remember whilst you were photographing.

In the final 6 months before printing, the sequence was re-edited I don’t know how many times, and I had people from wildly different areas, fashion photographers, documentary photographers, commercial. I prefer to work with prints, little contact prints 6x6cm mostly, followed by about 12x12cm once the edit is down.

I felt so ready to get the project out by this point so the editing wasn’t fraught in that sense, but I was very conscious I wanted to do the land and the people justice. Like many things, it’s a deceptively simple story, which belies a hugely layered, complex ecology of place and I really wanted to get some of the complexity across. So that’s where the pressure comes- am I being honest? Am I exploring the many truths of the place and the people? Am I telling these stories fully and with sensitivity?

Due to funding through KickStarter my time-frame for production was super short- print/design was all done within about 3 months. Sean, my designer absolutely took me under his wing at this point, having done a few photobooks of his own (check out his work seandooley.com). He made some helpful final sequencing tweaks, worked up the designs quickly and gave it a much cleaner, more ‘modern-yet-classic’ look than I had in my dummies. I went round getting quotes from a bunch of printers but ended up going with one in Italy who Sean had used before.

My biggest lesson learned here was to always go out [to the printers] and be on press for the printing. In the end I didn’t have the money to do this, but I think it would have smoothed out a bunch of communication issues. Proofing long-distance is a ball-ache. I was really pleased with the final print quality, but getting to that point via email was mainly due to the fact that the printer was so experienced.

Also, no matter how much time you build in to the schedule (seriously- even if it’s months..) I would NEVER again book a launch before the books have come off the press.. If doing a small one-off print-run your baby will get bumped down the print queue if a bigger job comes in. And that’s before deliveries get delayed at customs/for bad weather/because of aliens/strikes/badgers etc.

Ha! The image of militant badgers picketing outside post offices is a strong one. Thanks again for your time and I wish you every success with the book. Buy it here.

All images ©kevinPercival

Photobook Publishing (1/3)

4 minute read

In a this three-parter, I interview photographers venturing out for the first time into the sometimes intimidating world of book publishing. Each has their own take on the process, and speak with refreshing candour about their experiences.

First up, my former boss and gifted photographer Steve Meyler. His latest project, 66 hours, employs the landscape as metaphor to talk about a tragic episode in the history of a coastal community. You can read all about the project here.

DN: Hi Steve! I thought I’d share some ramblings from folk about book making and I wondered if you would like to contribute. Hope so. Do you have any pithy tips for aspiring newbies in the wonderful world of publishing? Love to hear your thoughts…

SM: Here we go – my two penneth – just rattled this out for you, whilst sitting in the sun (summer 2019!ed) and enjoying the sea breeze…

First, decide what your aspirations are.

Do you want to be the next Stephen Shore, or are you happy to publish for friends and family? Without being a terrible pessimist, the world is full of amazingly talented snappers generating fantastic work, it’s unlikely most ‘smudgers’ that self-publish books are going to end up with the world at their feet.

What’s your aim when producing a book?

The best, purest and most noble reason to create a book or zine is to produce an object; as beautiful an object as possible, to share with others. As photographers, we tend to focus our attention primarily on content but it is perhaps wise to remember you’re also creating and presenting/selling an object. Would you tote your best work to and from galleries in the worlds cheapest portfolio case? – probably not! I’m still very much a newb to this world myself and squarely fall into the category of publishing books in small runs for a local or friend oriented customer base.

Where does cost fit into the overall scheme?

My only goal is that the projects pay for themselves if there’s a small profit, that gets funnelled to the next piece. If there was to be a loss, then I would do my best ensure it wasn’t a big one. This leads to the first golden rule derived from my experience – don’t order too many books from the printer. There are printers out there that specialise in small runs of self-published work and will produce as few as 50 copies at a time. These are digitally printed works (more on this later).

In your experience, can you describe the technical aspects of the printing process?

So, if you have a huge market to service and require a minimum of 500 books then Offset printing is the way to go. Superb quality from carefully made printing plates that are yours to keep, which, if there’s a mistake (typos etc.) are there forever. The cost per copy is very low in high volume. For B&W with high contrast and deep rich blacks, duotone is the recommended process.

For small runs of books which can be corrected from run to run, the digital press is the answer. In recent years digital presses have come on in leaps and bounds and a good printer will produce images (particularly in colour) that rival an offset press. For high-quality B&W on digital, I would advise using a 4 colour process to create what a printer calls ‘rich black’. The alternative is a ‘flat black’, this is the preferred option when cost is the primary concern or the depth of black in your images is not a concern. Paper choice is, of course, a personal matter but for photographers, the opacity of the paper is Important, ‘bleed through’ from the previous page is undesirable.

Where would you suggest people start with the design of their books?

I would suggest using a professional designer unless the work overall is lo-fi or very simple indeed. Photographers get rightly annoyed when they hear about amateurs taking work away from them and producing sub-standard work, the same goes for book design – pay a professional, it’s worth the money.

So you have your run of beautifully designed and realised books, can you talk us through your approach to marketing?

The final part of this mini business is of course pricing. If you’ve been snapped up by Faber & Faber for a 20 book deal, you don’t have to worry about the next bit. If you’re self-publishing in low volume, however, It’s a very simple retail business price segmentation. If a copy of your book has cost you £20 to produce, then a standard profit margin would be a further £20 for the author, bringing your wholesale price to £40. Any retailer or onward seller will then want the same margin leaving your RRP in a bookstore at £60. This final pricing segment can be mitigated if you sell in person but it’s easy to forget the additional costs of running your mini-publishing house, a website or money handling fees are examples. When it comes to shipping, the cost, of course, varies with location and this has to accounted for in your production costs and profit margins. The best way to ship photobooks and ensure they arrive in perfect condition is to use an oversize cardboard padded bag. Wrap the book in plenty of small bubble wrap, ensure it fits tightly into the bag and the package will survive any manner of abuse. The packaging cost will obviously be commensurate to the quality and cost of the contents.

Thanks Steve! Do you have any final words of wisdom to share..?

Remember a book is a long term investment, don’t be too discouraged if initial sales are slow. Your creation will be for sale as long as you have stock and its gratifying to know that people will part with their hard earned cash to own your work and keep it in their home.

66 hours is now sold out, but Steve has some fine prints for sale in his online store, as well as other contemplative and provocative projects that deserve time and reward scrutiny.

 All images ©Steve Meyler

 

A Timeline and a Leap (Bosnia Pt.3)

‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hands? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.’ – Macbeth, II, ii

Every 30 minutes a man plunges 20 meters into the Neretva River.

Every 12 months there’s a peace march.

Every 40 years there’s a war.

 

(On the morning of July 16, 1995, five days after the fall of Srebrenica, Serb soldiers shot hundreds of Muslim men in a wheat field on Pilica farm. As the days wore on, piles of bodies were strewn across the field. A bulldozer moved slowly along the rows, scooping up the corpses and dumping them in the pit.)

 

It takes a body 2.04 seconds to hit the water.

all images ©djnorwood 2019

Equilibrium (Ecocide)

5 minute read.

Pictures in honour of the extinction rebels.

The following is an extract from influential human geographer Yi-Fu Tuan referencing mythology and environmentalism.

‘In the Chinese cosmological order, things that belong to the same class affect each other. The process, however, is not one of mechanical causation but rather one of “resonance.” For example, the categories east, wood, green, wind and spring are associated with each other. Change one phenomenon – green, say – and all the others will be affected in a process like a multiple echo.

‘So the emperor has to wear the colour green in the spring; if he does not the seasonal regularity may be upset. The idea here stresses how human behaviour can influence nature, but the converse is also believed to occur. Nature affects man: for example, “when the yin force in nature is on the ascendancy, the yin in man rises also, and passive, negative, and destructive behaviour can be expected.”

‘Environmental influence is clearly recognised in the cosmological order of the Saulteaux Indians. Thus the winds are not the only powers in nature that have to be classified and located in space, they are also active forces in conflict over the middle ground where man lives.

‘North wind declares that he intends to show no mercy to humans; South Wind, in contrast, intends to treat humans well. The fact that North Wind cannot defeat South Wind in battle means that summer will always return.’

Mythical Space and Place, Yi-Fu Tuan

Pictures made in woods north of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire threatened with destruction by the HS2 Project.

All images ©djnorwood 2015

Mak Muranovic (Bosnia pt.2)

‘With a lack of education, democracy, freedom, can be easily abused.’

Mak photographed outside ‘Art Tours Sarajevo’ HQ, July 2019 ©djnorwood

Topics mentioned include:

• Tito
• PTSD
• Democracy/Authoritarianism
• The Siege of Sarajevo
• ‘The land of honey and blood’
• ‘The tunnel of hope’
• Living conditions during the siege
• Dobrinja district
• ‘The Spirit of Sarajevo’
• Populism and politics
• Milosevic/Karadzic/Mladic
• The intervention of the EU
• War crimes
• Refugees
• Geopolitics
• Media sensationalism/regulation

Thanks to Mak for his lucid and provocative thoughts on the past, present and future of his country.