Author: Stuart Freedman

Athens

I just returned from almost a week in Athens on assignment for a magazine writing about how Greeks are coping on a personal level with the rape of their country by international finance. I found many things – a grinding poverty for some – more akin to the Developing World than to Europe but also small stories of hope; of people learning again what community and solidarity mean. Small stories, beautiful stories.

I had barely a couple of hours over a day or so to make some images and none of them reflect the immediate situation, but they were a therapy – going out and photographing people and their lives in the markets and on the streets.

My special thanks to journalist and fixer extraordinaire, Helen Skopis for patiently putting up with me and making all the ‘phone calls – and to two young and very talented photographers, Angelos Tzortinis and Alkis Konstantinidis who were generous enough to share their time and considerable experience to give me some background as only photographers can.

Thanks to all.

 

Greece - Athens - A child in costume plays in front of a sentry during the Changing of the Guard in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Syntagma Square

 

Greece - Athens - A fishmonger looks indulgently on a Greek Orthodox priest as he buys seafood from a stall in the Athens Central Market on Athinas Street
Categories Blog, photography

The Freeman/Freedman view

I was recently interviewed by the prolific and extraordinarily talented Michael Freeman for his OCA (Open College of Arts) course as part of his featured photographer profiles. You can see the piece here or click on the image below.

Michael seems to have included a great number of my images and teased out quite a bit from my past lives as a photographer…

 

 

Categories Blog, photography

iPad portfolio

After much deliberation, I bought an iPad last week to use as a portfolio. I know that there is much debate about what clients actually want to see in a folio and a beautifully printed book is hard to beat but this seemed a good compromise as an addition to print. Logistically, I’ve always found it very difficult to schlep around town with three or four folios of differing sizes with the combined weight of a small car so I’m hoping that it will be well received.

My initial problem was finding an iPad portfolio program that worked smoothly, was easily customisable and didn’t require the intellect of a particle physicist. After a bit of searching I found Foliobook. What I really liked was that it has a pretty easy interface and a whole load of instructional videos. It took several hours of working out what I wanted and uploading images with iTunes to get something I was happy with. I created a simple jpg image for the front page that imitated my website design and overlaid that above a template structure in the program. The results are below as screen grabs. Once your images are in folders its very easy to change orders and set slideshows. I particularly like the ability to email an image directly from the slideshow.

Over the last few years, I’ve had Plastic Sandwich make me several print folios so I was very pleased to see that they’ve made a rather lovely one for the iPad as well. Just like my print books, they’ve embossed my name on the front and the whole thing slips into a very sturdy slip case.

So far, it looks like a very valuable addition to a range of ways to show work.

 

The title page uploaded as a jpg and laid over a Foliobook template

 

 

A page showing an image and a contact sheet view

 

 

Drop down menu with slideshow settings

 

 

A library of images for one of the galleries

 

 

Details of the slideshow controls

 

 

A very useful ability to email any of the images in the presentation

 

The iPad in a custom case from Plastic Sandwich

 

The Plastic Sandwich case and slip cover

 

Categories Blog, photography

Tearsheet – Pervoe Vtoroe Tretye magazine

No, I don’t know how to say it either but this Russian magazine that commissioned me were utterly charming, paid well – before time – and were a pleasure to work with… My thanks to Olga, Evegeny and Natalia.

Another Delhi food story again soon…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Blog, photography

A website refreshed…

I’ve just completed a refresh of my website. Listening to clients it was clear that people wanted to see recent images much more often and so I’ve added a new section right at the top of the page called New Work. I’ll be updating regularly so I hope people will look in now and again.

In addition I’ve updated the Destinations section with some new images.

Here’s a screen grab. Click the image to go to the site

 

Categories Blog, photography

Meditation Flash Mob…

I’ve mentioned before about people finding private space for themselves in busy cities so here was a nice little thing – a meditation flash mob – perhaps a couple of hundred people or so came to sit by the stone lion in the great Court of the British Museum on Friday evening… shame I was photographing rather than being a part of it as it looked rather interesting…

 

UK - London - A man performs qi gong exercises as part of a meditation flash mob in the Great Court of the British Museum

 

UK - London - People taking part in a meditation flash mob in the Great Court of the British Museum

 

UK - London - A woman taking part in a meditation flash mob in the Great Court of the British Museum
Categories Blog, photography

Dickensian Delhi

 

I visited the Dickens exhibition at the Museum of London yesterday – a really powerful evocation of the writer and his times.

What always struck me about Dickens was his ability to convey the despair and misery that the city around him housed: no stranger to debt, his past was marked by the fear of slipping back into poverty. I think that the exhibition gave me a very apt adjective to describe the dark underside of a city that I have worked in so much, namely Delhi. Perhaps all societies lurching through such painful Capitalist development are like this – but certainly Delhi is Dickensian in its mercilessness and its cruelty. The lack of a safety net and not-so-subtle machinations of caste mean that the people who produce the city’s wealth by selling their labour are completely at the mercy of the vagaries of the Market and the violence of the street. In a similar fashion to Dickens’ time they must struggle against a whole moral code that tells them they are nothing if they have no status. I’ve mentioned here before a slim volume of reportage and writing from those at the bottom of the dark underbelly of this metropolis called Trickster City and the more that I looked at the exhibition yesterday, the more I thought of Delhi.

Dickens’ “slime and ooze of the Thames” is the realm of the boy who picks bits of detritus out of the poisoned Yamuna River on a pathetic raft of polystyrene and rags. Budi Lal, pouring through other people’s filth and rubbish and ignored by all except the snarling dogs and his debtors is Boffin, the Rag Picker from Our Mutual Friend. The men burning plastic bags could be from the slum in Bleak House; Tom-All-Alone’s.

All of them would recognise Victorian London.

 

 

India - New Delhi - A young scavenger on a raft, beneath the road bridge across the Yamuna River by the Kudsia Ghat, New Delhi. Scavengers trawl the filth of the river to find objects to sell. The river is so polluted that it can no longer support life, however a community still live and work on it's banks.

 

India - New Delhi - Buddhi Lal, 30 works before dawn collecting refuse to recycle and resell. Known as 'rag-picking' he can make perhaps Rs150-200 a day and is often chased and attacked by stray dogs because of the smell of his work

 

India - Delhi - Destitute men gather around a fire made from refuse and plastic bags to try and keep warm. It is estimated that around 100000 people are homeless in the city

 

 

Categories Blog, photography

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