samba nights...

 

i hear a sad song...i do not understand the words, but i can "feel" it is sad....deep, melancholy, and goes with the mood of the city...dark, mysterious and sometimes full of dread....i wander São Paulo, with not a clue where i am,  but i am told  that i am now in the heart of Samba....Barra Funda , an "oasis" amid the chaos, the neighborhood  where Samba began...originally the "voice" of slaves, now the musical expression of choice for many Brazilians....

just when i am wondering why, and for how long, can any culture endure one of the worlds most quixotic megacities (19 million), with the highest of all crime stats (5,000 murders annually)  and traffic stats (1000 added cars each day) , the music picks up a beat...sounds now happier and the people dance and sing....joy washes over everyone....in celebration, we drink cachaça ...warm, sweet and straight to the cerebellum....whew (how will i get home?)....made from the very sugar cane which promulgated slavery in the first place...but, i am smiling reeling along with everyone else....clapping, dancing....more cachaça...and more more...

suddenly the music stops... é o fim....abraços goodbye....thank  you...muito obrigado ...i hope we meet again..........yes, i do...

 

 

 

Comments

[Laura Montanari (She doesn't have the time to open the Italian-english dictionary)]

Yes!! David I remember wery well the "You Made Me Leave" presentation in Oslo! It was really great for all of us. After the "quite boring" presentation of the day before it was an explosion that wake up us.
When should it be possible to see it, may be.. In motion?

" Personal and free workshop"... really interesting! :)

Have you seen Preston Gannaway just won the Pulitzer ?

Writing a post after B.B. what a responsability..

City of God... I've seen it during a long night.. it was a strange sensation.. like been involved in the young photographer life..and I remember I had the urgence to go there

[David McGowan]

Severe cabin fever has set in here in Michigan. Actually we finally had our first 60 degree day of the year yesterday. Still nothing compared the thought of drinking cachaça (for me, with a half of lime and sugar on ice) in a hot city bustling with rhythm. Lucky cat!

[Glenn]

Bob - you're a one eyed cat, a peeping in a seafood store!
I just met a cool Canadian guy called Ed , he takes pics of Quarries , ask'ed him if he knews you !
DAH - how do you not flog yourself for daring to photogaph hope? I go to some prettyb ordinary places here in Australia and O/S and if I have a picture of something positive that is growing in a world of shit I fight to get that picture published ( well! I file it at 2 minutes to deadline so thers no choice)
What's going on here on my beat is not so much a war - yes it is a war , a war on souls , on self worth , on why the fuck are Australian citizens living like this!
The shocking pictures don/t work anymore , they have done their job - do you think that peiple who need a hand would find more use for representations of themselves that convey a sense of hope , of progress , of achievement than pictures of the squalor that they are subjected to day after day?

[Glenn]

Bob - you're a one eyed cat, a peeping in a seafood store!
I just met a cool Canadian guy called Ed , he takes pics of Quarries , ask'ed him if he knew you !
DAH - how do you not flog yourself for daring to photogaph hope? I go to some prettyb ordinary places here in Australia and O/S and if I have a picture of something positive that is growing in a world of shit I fight to get that picture published ( well! I file it at 2 minutes to deadline so thers no choice)
What's going on here on my beat is not so much a war - yes it is a war , a war on souls , on self worth , on why the fuck are Australian citizens living like this!
The shocking pictures don't work anymore - do you think that peiple who need a hand, would find more use for representations of themselves that convey a sense of hope , of progress , of achievement than pictures of the squalor that they are subjected to day after day?

[panos skoulidas]

PROTESTS ( they don't let the OLYMPIC TORCH to go through)
London, San Francisco... Everywhere... AGAINST CHINA..
CHINA's GENOCIDE attempt against TIBET...
STOP NAZI CHINA
ENOUGH WITH THE KILLINGS OF THE MONKS...
SUPORT DALAI LAMA's efforts for freedom and fee TIBET...

Go back in the history of the olympic games...
when the GREEKS invented the games...
primarily served the purpose of stopping the war...

TAKE AWAY THE "OLYMPIC GAMES"
from BLOOD THIRSTY CHINA...

Remember how ONE MAN, ONE MAN ONLY
( and that was GHANDI)..!
HUMILIATED, defeated., literally destroyed and
mocked the mighty BRITISH EMPIRE...

LET US ALL HELP THE DALAI LAMA TO REPEAT THAT VICTORY
BUT THIS TIME, AGAINST THE BIGGEST, SCARRIEST, FILTHIEST,
AND MOST DIRTY TYRRANT OF ALL TIMES... CHINA

AGAIN, take away the OLYMPICS from china...
the ancient Greek soul inside me ... forces me to do that...

STOP THE GENOCIDE IN TIBET...
And if , his holiness the DALAI LAMA prefers peace???!
I say WAR!!!!

[panos skoulidas]

Damn, where is PHILIP BLENKISOP
when you need him???
I also need to see JAMES N..
new work... about Tibet's GENOCIDE..
this time...
not like the recent "TIME" magazine ..
bull...

Paolo Pellegrin...!
where are you???

[panos skoulidas]

Damn, where is PHILIP BLENKISOP
when you need him???
I also need to see JAMES N..
new work... about Tibet's GENOCIDE..
this time...
not like the recent "TIME" magazine ..
bull...

Paolo Pellegrin...!
where are you???

[david alan harvey]

ANDREW SULLIVAN....LAURA

yes, "City of God" was remarkable...i have worked in those favellas and i thought the film totally captured them in an almost documentary way....i would like to see the film again...

DAVID MCGOWAN....

will you be in New York any time soon??

GLENN...

there is always "hope" albeit very "buried" sometimes...i found this little neighborhood in SP to be representative of hope amidst a plethora of dangers, pollution, traffic etc etc...music has always been a "breakout" for people....often the last "hope"...how pictures of hope vs. pictures of despair "play" in the press etc, i have no idea...but, i have noticed this...at photo fests, in photo contests etc etc., the "shocking" is no longer shocking...among some photogs, merely "contest material"...hmmm, is this a new discussion???? for myself, i just photograph what most interests me and let the "chips fall" where they may...for whatever reasons, even when i am in the worst possible environments, i tend to see the lyrical side of people..this is not RIGHT , it is just me...

PANOS...

what do you REALLY think about China??

hey amigo, i will try to get Jim and Paulo here for you soonest...

peace,if possible....david

[david alan harvey]

ALL....

i will be "off" until tomorrow morning NYC time...traveling all night from Brazil...

david

[Panos Skoulidas]

The original Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; Olympiakoi Agones) were first recorded in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until AD 393. Interest in reviving the Olympic Games proper was first shown by the Greek poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead" in 1833. Evangelos Zappas sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games in 1859. He paid for the refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium for Games held there in 1870 and 1875. This was noted in newspapers and publications around the world including the London Review, which stated that "the Olympian Games, discontinued for centuries, have recently been revived! Here is strange news indeed ... the classical games of antiquity were revived near Athens".

also...

The Games gradually declined in importance as the Romans gained power in Greece. After Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity became the religion of the Empire and banned pagan rites, the Olympic Games were outlawed as a pagan festival in 393 AD........??????? ) THANK YOU JESUS.......

Now read this..
CHINA BOYCOTTS THE OLYMPICS IN 1976
Also in 1976, due to pressure from the People's Republic of China (PRC), Canada told the team from the Republic of China (Taiwan) that it could not compete at the Montreal Summer Olympics under the name "Republic of China" despite a compromise that would have allowed Taiwan to use the ROC flag and anthem. The Republic of China refused and as a result did not participate again until 1984, when it returned under the name "Chinese Taipei" and used a special flag.

There have been growing calls for boycotts of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in protest of China's poor human rights record and response to the recent disturbances in Tibet. Many people are being urged even to boycott Chinese goods which, coupled with the in-balance of trade between China and the western world could mean bad news for the Chinese economy

[Jean-Sébastien Bréault]

DAVID (may I?),

Looking at your Samba Nights pictures,I've learned something right now: small story with a few greats picture is enough. I've just spend three days in New York, to shoot all day long, looking for a big story, searching the soul of the city. I was wrong.
I have 10 black and white rolls to edit.I'm going to try to make smaller story. Read this realy help me. Thanks. Hope a day participate at one of your workshops.

[Panos Skoulidas]

GENOCIDES IN HISTORY..

Nazi Germany and occupied Europe

The term "the Holocaust" is generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist German Workers Party in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.[80] A majority of scholars do not include other groups in the definition of the Holocaust, reserving the term to refer only to the genocide of the Jews,[81] or what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

Ottoman Empire (Turkey)

Armenian Genocide
On 15 September 2005 a United States Congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide "Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes." found that:
"The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 800,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland."

Assyrian Genocide
The Assyrian Genocide (also known as Sayfo or Seyfo; Aramaic: ܩܛܠܐ ܕܥܡܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ or ܣܝܦܐ, Turkish: Süryani Soykırımı) was committed against the Assyrian population of the Ottoman Empire near the end of the First World War by the Young Turks.

Greek Genocide
Pontic Greek Genocide [96][97][98][99] [100] [101] is a term used to refer to the fate of the Pontic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire during and in the aftermath of World War I. It is used to refer to the determined persecutions, massacres, expulsions, and death marches of Pontic Greek populations in the historical region of Pontus, the southeastern Black Sea provinces of the Ottoman Empire, during the early 20th century by the Young Turk administration. G.W. Rendel of the British Foreign Office noted the massacres of Greeks in Pontus and elsewhere during the Turkish national movement,[102][103][104] which was organized against Greece's invasion of western Anatolia.[105]According to various sources the direct or indirect death toll of Greeks in Anatolia ranges from 300,000 to 360,000 men, women and children....

Soviet Union

Victim of the Ukrainian Famine, 1933
Main articles: Human rights in the Soviet Union, Population transfer in the Soviet Union, Famines in Russia and USSR, Decossackization, and Gulag
There are several documented instances of unnatural mass death occurring in the Soviet Union, mostly in the 1930s. These include the famine of 1931-34, which Ukrainians call the Holodomor, and lethal deportations of national minorities such as Tatars, Chechens, and Volga Germans...

AND THE LIST KEEPS GOING...

AND FINALLY...

Tibet

On 5 June 1959 Shri Purshottam Trikamdas, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, presented a report on Tibet to the International Commission of Jurists (an NGO). The press conference address on the report states in paragraph 26 that
“ From the facts stated above the following conclusions may be drawn: ... (e) To examine all such evidence obtained by this Committee and from other sources and to take appropriate action thereon and in particular to determine whether the crime of Genocide - for which already there is strong presumption - is established and, in that case, to initiate such action as envisaged by the Genocide Convention of 1948 and by the Charter of the United Nations for suppression of these acts and appropriate redress;] ”
On 11 January 2006 it was reported that the Spanish High Court will investigate whether seven former Chinese officials, including the former President of China Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals. The court proceedings in the case brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet against several former Chinese officials was opened by the Judge on 6 June 2006, and on the same day China denounced the Spanish court's investigation into claims of genocide in Tibet as an interference in its internal affairs and dismissed the allegations as "sheer fabrication".

AND SPEAKING OF BRAZIL

Brazil
The Helmet Massacre of the Tikuna people took place in 1988, and was initially treated as homicide. Since 1994 it has been treated by the Brazilian courts as a genocide. Thirteen men were convicted of genocide in 2001. In November 2004 at the appeal before Brazil's federal court, the man initially found guilty of hiring men to carry out the genocide was acquitted, and the other men had their initial sentences of 15-25 years reduced to 12 years.
In November 2005 during an investigation by the Brazilian authorities, code-named Operation Rio Pardo, Mario Lucio Avelar, a Brazilian public prosecutor in the city of Cuiabá, told Survival International that he believed there were sufficient grounds to prosecute for genocide of the Rio Pardo Indians. In November 2006 twenty-nine people were held in custody for the alleged genocide with others such as a former police commander and the governor of Mato Grosso state implicated in the alleged.
In a newsletter published on 7 August 2006 the Indianist Missionary Council reported that: "In a plenary session, the [Brizillian] Supreme Federal Court (STF) reaffirmed that the crime known as the Haximu Massacre [perpetrated on the Yanomami Indians in 1993] was a genocide and that the decision of a federal court to sentence miners to 19 years in prison for genocide in connection with other offenses, such as smuggling and illegal mining, is valid. It was a unanimous decision made during the judgment of Extraordinary Appeal (RE) 351487 today, the 3rd, in the morning by justices of the Supreme Court".Commenting on the case the NGO Survival International said "The UN convention on genocide, ratified by Brazil, states that the killing 'with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group' is genocide. The Supreme Court's ruling is highly significant and sends an important warning to those who continue to commit crimes against indigenous peoples in Brazil."

peace...

[David McGowan]

David - I wish - actually I've got to settle down here and make some cash if I'm going to make it to Look3 - speaking of making cash, if anyone knows of a need for design services, check out my design page - http://www.humanfiles.com/pages/design.htm - shameless, I know, but I happened to be living in the worst economy in the States, surviving by freelance so I can keep an open schedule to shoot - but I promise to be in NYC the moment I can!

[Panos Skoulidas]

David saked above

"...PANOS...

what do you REALLY think about China??..."

Honestly, David... it doesn't matter what i , individually think of China...( today )... nor that i can change the world with my stupid
views and idealistic positions...

... but what REALLY matters... is theTRUTH...
... as long as the TRUTH comes out, then im happy...
and by the way, i have nothing against the poor people of china...
ITS THEIR MONARCH... or regime...
TYRANNY AND OLIGARCHY...

TYRANT= DICTATOR, DESPOT, AUTOCRAT,AUTHORITARIAN, OPPRESSOR, SLAVE DRIVER, BULLY, MEGALOMANIAC....

that's what i think of china, today...
peace

their retarded government practices

[marcin luczkowski]

HI ALL

I have a question for all...
Gilles Peress have a quote:"I don't care so much anymore about 'good photography'; I am gathering evidence for history".

My question... it is something what I don't understand... Why so many photojournalists make "good visual" photography, but they always enhance "I don't care about good photography, only news and 'history' I care"
They using black and white films, original sophisticated frames but they persist I DON'T CARE ABOUT GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY!!
so why they don't use snapshoot cameras ... I know majoli... but majoli make good photography but only used snapcam...
why they use pro cameras if images quality is not important?
and what it’s mean “good photography”??
pictures show important moment in history… isn’t it a good photography???
pictures show a drama … isn’t it a good photography????
Yes … Abu Ghraib pics vs. magnum photos…
Yes… family snapshoot are more important as a “gathering evidence for history” than any pictures in magnum and VII and UV and getty images all archives…
So…
Why Gilles Peress show his best pictures in portfolio… visual best!
Why weak press photography pap are not eternal and permanent than photos from “good photography” magnum archives???
Why young people don’t care for history if they don’t see colorful images or… my god… good photography!!! In their books?… from WWII or vietnam for example…
I ask againe what is "good photography"???
Why they afraid confess that photography is also their life… their passion... not only news and history?????
peace

[Marcin luczkowski]

LOOK ATE THIS PHOTO:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxZoom_VPage&VBID=2K1HZO6YCZFHG&IT=ImageZoom01&PN=1&STM=T&DTTM=Image&SP=Search&IID=2K7O3R8IELRQ&SAKL=T&SGBT=T&DT=Image

Is history needed to be captured by medium format?????
or only "good war photography"????

[Paul Treacy]

Will be back later to catch-up now that I've finished my latest project.

Should anyone be interested, here's the new site for my book where you can see it in its entirety.

Opinions sought.

Thanks.

http://paultreacy.com/FlagBook00.htm

[Herve]

I am gathering evidence for history".
-------------

I remember reading that, Marcin. It sure sounds full of shit and pompous, especially from Peress, who got famous for shooting little evidence and little History (not the only war photographer like this, BTW), but evrything around them, and good at it!

Though he may have said it in a way that was not as pompous, imperious and singled out as it does once written, oft-repeated, then erected as his profession of faith by writers.

Photography is an easy media to reduce to luminously sounding catch phrases, it does not take a photographer to do it. I can do it easily, then sign Cartier-Bresson or whoever, no one will bat an eye!

Good of you to assault the "citadel", I am quite intrigued by the total lack of critical approach from the interested audience (us, if you will) to a photographer's work once she/he's achieved recognition. Even if t deserves praise overall.

IMO, I do not know any other craft like this.

I think it's important to show photography we like or ponder about, to people who have much less interest in photography than us but still know photography when they see it, for living in the same century as us.

IMO, with these people is where the real pereniality and potency of the medium/art/craft of photography endures, and draws its "lettres de noblesse".

Also, in no other other craft do I feel this huge trench between being in and between out, the pros (published, working) and the amateurs (non-published, not working). Mind you, it seems the amateurs are the ones digging harder. It would seem that their photographic worlds reside more around singular (as in "I" am not...) negatives than positives, ie. most photography amateur live on the wish (fantasy for the huge majority) to be in, to be a pro, to be "one of them"!

Maybe just an impression, but it keeps lingering.

[Aga Luczakowska]

yes, yes... i am back :-)
I can not leave that place without a word :-) just sometimes i have less time :-(

I have been in Turkey (working on my project)and than in England working as sim cards seller on the streets of London ... it's quite long story even i was doing it only 3 days ;-) ... hehe... as you know i wanted to stay in London, but i didn't even see this beautifull city...i didn't even speak english (one of the most important things for me was to practice english in England) because i was only with Poles all the time... I was only working, traveling in underground, going back home to sleep... i felt i am missing something (i didn't do my photography, I was far away from my familly and friends)... the life is too short to stand on the street and selling cards...

In Turkey i started my project on young women in turkish religious society. Before i wanted to shoot story about Islam in Turkey but after my meeting with Tomasz Tomaszewski (you know him very well as i know :-)) i decided to make a story only about women in "turkish" islam (it was his suggestion, and i really like that idea!) Here is a link to my gallery (some of the pictures are old)
http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/contact_sheet/11082
The project is not finished yet. Next week i will travel to istanbul again and i wil stay there at least two months. I have opportunity to work for newspaper and to continue my story and the most important thing i will be with my second familly there (my boyfriends familly and him).

[Aga Luczakowska]

Glenn.. are you taking about Ed Ou? I know him to.. when you will see his say hello! I have been with him in one teat during eddie adams workshops last year! :-)

[Panos Skoulidas]

TURKEY TODAY
...STILL ILLEGAL TO SPEAK KURDISH IN TURKEY...
...THEY STARVE YOU TO DEATH IN PRISON... AND THEY CALL THIS
...SUICIDE...!!!!!!!

this is how the turkish government (again, not the people...)
still exterminates KURDS today...
Does that sound kinda "Hitler-ish"???? to anyone????

The Kurdish Genocide

Desmond Fernandes, who has worked on the Kurdish Genocide extensively, continued the seminar with a powerful discussion of the persecution of Kurds in modern Turkey. Fernandes pointed out that the Turkish government adopted a much more sustained genocidal program against Kurds, aimed at the assimilation of this community as ethnic Turks. Often the engineers of the destruction of Kurds were the same people who destroyed Armenians a few years earlier. Fernandes outlined the Turkish genocidal policy under the following categories:

(1) forced assimilation program—banning of the Kurdish language in Turkey, denying the existence of Kurdish history, the forced resettlement of Kurds in non-Kurdish areas of Turkey for assimilation, the indoctrination of Kurds through the Turkish education system, radio and television channels;

(2) banning of any legitimate opposition to the Turkish government’s programs—e.g., Kurdish cultural organisations, political parties, media outlets, etc.; and

(3) the violent repression of any Kurdish resistance. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds have been murdered by Turkish state authorities over the past eighty years—the Sheykh Said and the Ararat uprisings in the 1920s, the bloody suppression of the Dersim in the 1930s, as well as the PKK campaign in recent years. The Turkish state has imprisoned Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament, various human rights activists, as well as many academics advocating Kurdish rights such as the Turkish sociologist Ismail Besikçi. The Turkish government has also assassinated scores of journalists and intellectuals over the years.

[For a detailed analysis by Desmond Fernandes--including a thought-provoking discussion of the definition of genocide--see "The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey, 1924–1998," Armenian Forum 1, no. 4 (Winter 1998–99), pp. 57–107.]...

But, you see noone gives a fuck about the KURDS today...
everyone uses them to gain territory in Iraq and the middle east..

but since turkey and iraq snatched and stole and RAPED the KURDISH country... forbidden them to have a government..
they turned a whole country into an illegal zone...
Twillight zone...
If you are a Kurd, then you simply DO NOT EXIST...

it is illegal to be YOU in turkey... you are going to jail, if you dare to be YOU or speak your language...

KURDISH CIVILIZATION IS WAY OLDER THAN THE TURKISH...
IN OTHER WORDS THEY HAVE BEEN THERE WAY BEFORE... the turks... but who cares ??????

I really wonder who is going to photograph all that...
Turkey in 2008...
Again, one PHILIP B. is not enough... we need more...
not just good photographers (only) but educated enough,
to know how to recognize the truth, and also willing to TALK THE TRUTH...
peace...
and china, turkey and any other dictator out there...one more word for you...

"WE ARE WATCHING..."

[anon]

Aga, It's probably Ed Burtynsky...

[Panos Skoulidas]

Chinese water torture

A reproduction of a Chinese water torture apparatus at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial
Chinese water torture is the popular name for a method of water torture in which water is slowly dripped onto a person's forehead, driving the victim insane. This form of torture was first described under a different name by Hippolytus de Marsiliis in Italy in the 16th century.
The popularity of the term "Chinese water torture" may have arisen from Harry Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell (a feat of escapology introduced around 1913 which entailed Houdini being bound and suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, from which he escaped), together with the Fu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer that were popular in the 1930s (in which the evil Fu Manchu subjected his victims to various ingenious tortures, such as the wire jacket). Hippolytus de Marsiliis is credited with the invention of a form of water torture. Having observed how drops of water falling one by one on a stone gradually created a hollow, he applied the method to the human body.

"Victims were strapped down so that they could not move, and cold water was then dripped slowly on to a small area of the body. The forehead was found to be the most suitable point for this form of torture: prisoners could see each drop coming, and after long durations were gradually driven frantic as an increasing hollow would form in the center of the forehead."

...ANYWAYS , MAYBE all of the above is just "science fiction" or
a myth or a lie.....

...ANYWAYS lets play some music... now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfndZfKFNU
peace

[Panos Skoulidas]

... let me repeat myself ... once more...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r44OFO-MNPo&feature=related

[Panos Skoulidas]

DAVID (may I?),

Posted by: Jean-Sébastien Bréault | April 08, 2008 at 12:36 PM...

... please , JEAN-SEBASTIEN BREAULT... do not forget to show us too,..
all the photos from NY...
I wanna see, touch (prints) and learn...
peace

[Sean Gallagher]

Hey David,

Hope you have a safe trip back from Brazil. I was in Sao Paulo briefly in about 2001 and have to say that I was a little overawed at the scale of urban humanity there. I much prefered the slow ways of Salvador and Praia Do Forte up north. Looking at your photos in Divided Soul from those parts takes me right back there!

By the way, I have some good news. Have just booked some flights from Beijing to Charlottesville, so I shall be seeing you in June. Am quite excited as it's (a) my first trip to the States and (b) first 'big' photo festival, as I haven't made in to Perpignan or Arles yet. Shall be there from the 11th to the 15th then have to rush back to Beijing as my sister is visiting. Will be a short but hopefully fruitful and enjoyable visit!

Best,
Sean

[Herve]

Panos, you know who wrote that song (China girl), I think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-9SqJh0jzo&feature=related

(had a busy day and night at the Torch rallies against China. Yet another busy day tomorrow...)

[Aga Luczakowska]

hmm... Panos, i think the case in Turkey is more complicated than you think and you write...
have you even been there?

It's not exactly how you write... i think it's the problem that western media show things only the way they want...

I know a lot of Kurds who are living in Istanbul.. they say they are Kurds but same time they feel Turks and doesn't have problems at all... they say they don't like when people divide Turks into Kurds and Turks.. they feel same citizens of Turkey as other people...
I think they are a lot of things which people should see before they judge...
I don't want to judge, but i ask only to be carefull before saying strong words

[check mate]

good points Aga Luczakowska !!!!

[panos skoulidas]

HERVE,
its amazing how you guys in San francisco (and Seattle)
are always "ahead"...
More "sensitive"... you guys care.. and not afraid to protest...
Here in LA its been 10-15 years we worry, gather money...
try to wake up people...
I met his holiness the DALAI LAMA in pasadena I 1999..,
and since then... I CAN'T IGNORE HIS EFFORTS FOR FREEDOM...
The Olympic games should stay away from the china bully government...

AGA
as a kid I witnessed the Turkish INVASION in CYPRUS...
With horror...ATTILA movement...
thousands of the missing Cypriots are in the missing list since then...
of course you can blame it to the Greek propaganda!!?
but I witnessed with my own EYES , numerous times,
Turkish fighter planes ( how can you miss the obnoxious red flag)???
invading and violating the Greek national airspace across the Aegean sea..
turkey wants the oil but please remember there 2000 Greek islands and only 2 belong to turkey...
when I was working in newspapers in Athens I met and befriended two amazing Turkish guys from istanbul...
They just had ESCAPED...
I'm not going to reveal their names for their own safety,
but I know that they were journalists in turkey..
both accused as liberals communists and terrorists..
if you could only spend 10 minutes with those two Aga
and hear their story...of course they seeked asylum in Greece...
I covered for many years the protests and celebrations
of the KURDISH PKK party...
I interviewed real KURDS that had escaped...
real stories that had no reason to lie..
I've seen pictures of the dead and the tortured...
why should they lie...???
of course the last few years turkey tries to come out of the dark
and join the European Union..
But AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL IS WATCHING...
do you think that A. I. Is also lying.. about the numerous violations of human rights???
I personal hope that turkey will be democratic and free "some day"..
but until that day Aga you better agree with that Islamist army controlled
dictatorship in turkey...
otherwise you might find yourself in a mighty Turkish jail..
so yes, been there, study that, met a lot of "free" Turks
and Kurds... And sorry they are not the same...
but if you want my opinion...
you need to step out of the region for a while to see things clear...
You have to meet Turks or Kurds outside of the county ,
to tell you the truth...
don't expect people ( especially kurds) to tell you anything...
especially when they are only two minutes away from a Turkish jail..
again ,
good luck to turkey trying to get into the EUROPEAN WORLD,
and be accepted internationally...
its actually pretty easy...stop torturing people, respect human rights...
because Amnesty International are NOT closing down their offices
any time soon...
peace

[panos skoulidas]

Aga... Istanbul ...
I was also there when that Turkish Islamist fundamentalist
set a whole Greek tour bus on fire BURNING 50 GREEK TOURISTS ALIVE!!!
do you remember that??? Almost 19 years ago...
and by the way all the previous genocides that turkey committed
are not in my head..
These are historic facts...
anyways , good luck with recording the
women and Islam project...
and don't worry about me...
I'm too old, exposed and burned by all that..
I had a friend , soldier in the Greek army,
that got shot in the borders with turkey,
trying to provide a cigarette to a fellow Turkish guard..
he offered the cigarette...
HE GOT A BULLET BACK, as a thank you..

[Herve]

To be honest, Panos, I hate crowds (and I hate traffic!), I'd be more like the guy who is alone at 3am, cutting wires in the middle of the night. Not a face in the crowd, a soldier!

But I will do it, for the sake of gathering evidence, and with me you know it's never about good photography (i am a real Peress-ian!!!), but for the sake of History.... for Photography....

for P E A C E photography!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXZTBu_3ioI

[Herve]

Panos...All....Last night....Maybe my last.....Going back to the P E A C E front now......Motherfuckers!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3104/2400666288_3f46d3e3ae_o.jpg

[Marcin Luczkowski]

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2008/04/burt_glinn_19252008.html

[panos skoulidas]

HERVE,
GOOD JOB, GREAT JOB...
keep recording history...
nice photo...
Richard Geere.... Always helped,
supported Tibet and the Dalai Lama...
I wish I was there too..
all my support to my
spiritual teacher...
SOGYAL RINPONCHE...
he is a Tibetan monk...
lives and teaches in frisco...
In his presence I feel bliss...

Thanks again Herve..
I can't wait to see more.. photos
peace

[Jean-Sébastien Bréault]

An other sad day for the photography. his work on the Cuba's Revolution was fantastic.

[Aga Luczakowska]

Panos... i just wanted to say that there are always two sides of every conflict... in turkish "kurdistan" also...

I think Turkey is in a very hard moment....there is a huge problem not only between Kurds and Turks, Turks and Armenian people but also between Turks who want to have secular and Turks who want to have religious country...

I am not sure if we can understand so easily what's going on there.. and to judge so easily... i don't support turkish goverment, i don't support Kurds, also... i try to be neutral...

i am also not so sure if Turkey wants so much to get into EU...

what i see last two years Turkey goes more into east, not west... (it's what my project with women is about)... hope you don't understand me wrong... i am not turkish activist (btw... I am 00% Polish and christian girl)... i am just observer...
I hope Turkey will be still secular country because if i decide to live there i don't want to wear a head scarve like in Iran...
i just say it's not so easy to judge

PEACE! :-) and smile :-)

[Aga Luczakowska]

* 100% not 00% ;-) (sorry for mistacke)

[wrobertangell]

awesome David.
I have never met Panos, but I feel like I have in a way.
Panos, that would be very cool.

[panos skoulidas]

AGA
thank you...
please know, I NEVER, EVER JUDGED YOU...
actually I LOVE YOU..
everytime you write here...
I can see how SWEET you are as a person...
its my obnoxious way of writing that creates a lot of
misunderstandings...
thank you for the info, good luck with your project..
can't wait to see your photos..
and please stay neutral..
don't be like me...
I'm too old and stubborn to be neutral,
but I promise you I will try and also I will try to
find my smile back,
which I lost the last couple of days
due to all TIBET DRAMA...
peace and love

[Marcin Luczkowski]

HERVE

thanks for answer... :)

AGA

I'm jealous about your trips to Istambul...
I always miss Istambul when I read your comments.
I had idea to visit it this year, myself alone... just one week leica and a few films...
but it almost imposible... for many reasons...
there is so enegry in air...
I'm always waiting to see your new works.

pozdrawiam

[david alan harvey]

ALL...

i am just sitting down at the computer for the first time since i returned to New York this morning (6am and no sleep on plane)....

there has been no chance to read your comments yet, beyond where i left off...

in any case, i have to finish off a couple of things and then will try to get back to you...i also want to do a couple of your reviews ... i am so far behind...

anyway, i will read and comment as soon as possible....

cheers, david

[Panos Skoulidas]

HERVE... YES YES...
CHINA GIRL..

IGGY POP.. YEAHHHHHHHHH

thank you..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKs3t6lB9T8

[Panos Skoulidas]

FROM MAGNUM BLOG

"...Beloved Magnum photographer, Burt Glinn, passed away early on the morning of April 9th.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Burt Glinn served in the United States Army between 1943 and 1946, before studying literature at Harvard University, where he edited and photographed for the Harvard Crimson college newspaper. From 1949 to 1950, Glinn worked for Life magazine before becoming a freelancer.

Glinn became an associate member of Magnum in 1951, along with Eve Arnold and Dennis Stock - the first Americans to join the young photo agency - and a full member in 1954. He made his mark with spectacular color series on the South Seas, Japan, Russia, Mexico and California. In 1959 he received the Mathew Brady Award for Magazine Photographer of the Year from the University of Missouri.

In collaboration with the writer Laurens van der Post, Glinn published A Portrait of All the Russias and A Portrait of Japan. His reportages have appeared in Esquire, Geo, Travel and Leisure, Fortune, Life and Paris-Match. He has covered the Sinai War, the US Marine invasion of Lebanon, and Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba. In the 1990s he completed an extensive photo essay on the topic of medical science.

Versatile and technically brilliant, Glinn was one of Magnum's great corporate and advertising photographers. He had received numerous awards for his editorial and commercial photography, including the Best Book of Photographic Reporting from Abroad from the Overseas Press Club and the Best Print Ad of the Year from the Art Directors Club of New York. Glinn has served as president of the American Society of Media Photographers. He was president of Magnum between 1972 and 1975, and was re-elected to the post in 1987..."

another "magnum" death..
now that we really need them...

[Panos Skoulidas]

BURT GLINN (once said)

"I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it."

... from magnum blog...

DISCOVER THE ESSENTIAL TRUTH...of the situation...

HAVE A POINT OF VIEW about it....

... and i ask : HOW CAN YOU BE SURE YOU POSSESSED OR DISCOVERED THE TRUTH?

...and i answer: THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS HIDING DEEP IN YOUR
GUT... TRUST THAT VOICE THAT COMES FROM DEEP INSIDE YOU...

... and i ask again: "HAVE A POINT OF VIEW..." Is Burt Glinn,
try to suggest that we (photographers) should"take places"???
Is it possible OR USEFUL to stay "neutral" in a conflict... or a war....
Is it possible to "cover" TIBET'S GENOCIDE" and not get affected or lose your mind... or "ignore" china's games, with the world????????

HOW DO YOU DISCONNECT THE "EYE" FROM THE "HEART" AND THE "MIND" ???????

IF "NEUTRAL" DOES THAT HELP YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY AT ANY LEVEL ???????

IS IT WRONG TO "REVEAL" THE MURDERERS WITH YOUR CAMERA..????

OR IS IT OUR "DUTY"?????????

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH MR. BURT GLINN (rest in peace),

"...DISCOVER THE ESSENTIAL TRUTH OF THE SITUATION,
AND HAVE A POINT OF VIEW ABOUT IT..."

[Panos Skoulidas]

Demonstration At Olympic Torch Relay In Paris

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.StoryDetail_VPage&pid=2TYRYDKIA4MU

thank you PARIS, thank you MAGNUM...

( all that while we all waiting anxiously ... new material and photos
from our DAH reporter in San Francisco... Mr. HERVE........!!!!!! )

peace

[Panos Skoulidas]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tibet15mar15,0,510813.story

please click on the (REUTERS) video on the middle-right side of the
L.A TIMES page above...

"...Tibetan radio reported Friday that a curfew had been imposed. Armed police reportedly used water cannons and tear gas on the crowds.

"There's smoke and flames coming from the old city, but I can't tell what's going on since soldiers have surrounded the area," said one Lhasa resident by telephone, who declined to be identified because of fear of repercussions..."

peace

[Panos Skoulidas]

PEOPLE OF THIS FORUM...
let us all take a minute break and visit
MARCIN'S "news webpage" below..

AWESOME, FANTASTIC PHOTO....BRAVO MARCIN !

http://marcinluczkowski.com/news/

by the way.. how do i translate that ??? :

"...Wciąż pracuję nad serią portretów. Końcowej koncepcji na razie nie zdradzę. Modelami są moi przyjaciele i znajmoi. Czekam na cieplejsze dni by wyjść w przestrzeń, która będzie odgrywała ważną rolę w całym projekcie..." ????????

peace

[mike]

Panos...

I think Marcin says "Still working on a series of portraits. The final concept, for the time being, I will not give away. The models are my friends and acquaintances. I wait for warm days when I'll be able to go out into a space which will (heat up?) an important (part?) of the whole project..."

Still owe you an email... planning the la trip...

Marcin... how was my translation??

[mike]

PS... Marcin, I agree. Awesome portrait...