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In the port city of Patras, there are hundreds of immigrants who were deliberately denied the slightest assistance (housing, food, medical care, freedom of movement) -even those that have already been legally recognized as refugees. Most of them have fled conflicts in Darfur, Afghanistan and Syria, and when they saw the squalid living conditions in Greece, they tried to continue their journey to other countries of the European Union, risking their lives again. Trucks transporting goods between Italy and Greece are the only way to access the ferry linking the two sides. The increasing militarization of Greek ports forces immigrants and asylum seekers to improvise the most unlikely and risky maneuvers in order to hide in the basement of a truck. These people have left their countries thinking that Greece would be a short station in their trip to Italy, France or Germany. But, six years have gone and they still remain in Patras, living all together in an abandoned factory next to the port... - Enri Canaj
“I traveled in Africa after finishing college. I bought an old motorbike and more or less stumbled across Namibia on my journey. It was instantly spellbinding—the extraordinary landscapes, the colorful and varied inhabitants and their surreal and often brutal history. I photographed the same tribe back then with my old film camera but always wanted to return to make a more extended project. I’m fascinated by history and often choose projects that make connections with the past.” “Each image, a portrait of Herero tribe members of Namibia,
reveals a material culture that harkens the region’s tumultuous
past: residents wear Victorian era dresses and paramilitary
costume as a direct result and documentation of its early 20th
century German colonization.
Namibia’s borders encompass the world’s oldest desert. Bleak
lunar landscapes, diamond mines, German ghost towns, rolling
sea fogs, nomadic tribes and a hostile coastline littered with
shipwrecks and whale skeletons comprise the region’s striking
and haunting natural features. Namibia’s geography has
witnessed a turbulent and little documented history of human
settlement, upheaval and war within a particularly brutal
period of European colonization.
In the European scramble to colonise Africa, Kaiser Wilhelm’s
Germany claimed one of the least populated and most hostile
environments on the planet. It became Deutsche Sudewest-
afrika. Though sparsely populated, it was already home to the
San, Nama and Herero people. Rhenish missionaries set about
converting and clothing them after European fashion. Over
time, this became a Herero tradition, and continuing to dress
in this manner was a great source of pride to the wearer.
Gradually, regional variations in the silhouette emerged; for
example, the addition of 'cow horns' to headdresses reflects
the great importance with which they regard their cattle.“ - Jim Naughten
The human/nature interface creates an edge we are constantly walking along, especially in rural areas. Historically, this tension is often depicted in terms of survival, but I wanted to show it could be a bit more contemplative, joyous, humorous, yet still occasionally harsh. Once I realized this, the project seemed to take on more of a cohesive form.—Kari Medig
In Hinduism, sadhu is a common term for an ascetic or someone who practices yoga. Sadhus have given up trying to achieve the first three Hindu goals of life: kama (enjoyment), artha (practical objectives) and even dharma (duty). The sadhu is solely dedicated to achieving moksha (liberation) through meditation and contemplation of God. Sadhus often wear ochre-colored clothing, as a symbol that they have given up many things in life. Serge Bouvet present some portraits of these particular hindouists.
For the past three years I have documented life in Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia and where I grew up, to understand how it has transformed from the world most dangerous city to one that is praised as one of Latin America’s safest and fastest growing cities. However, what I have found, is a city that is regressing to its violent past. At the center of the city of Medellin rests one of the most dangerous neighborhoods known to locals as Barrio Triste (Sad Neighborhood). I began this project after meeting Fatima Mazo, a displaced mother of 4 children. Her husband was slain by paramilitaries for refusing to enlist with them. Faced with the same demand, she was forced to leave her farm in Concordia and found refuge in this small community at the center of Medellín. This personal project is an effort to document the hope, despair and struggles of residents like Fatima of this neighborhood as well as way for me to understand the current reshaping of this city I once call home. Over the last decade, efforts by the local government to change the image of the city of Medellín have spurred a wave of urban revitalization and the interest of foreign investment. Increasing violence due to drug trade has been spreading to marginalize neighborhoods. Neighborhoods such as Barrio Triste are battlegrounds for drug distribution by emerging criminals groups formed by demobilized paramilitaries groups and urban guerrillas partially fuel this violence. But corruption among officials and police officers, unemployment and constant migration of displaced civilians to the city are factors also attributed to this problem. Barrio Triste was once a residential neighborhood, but over decades has been ousted by repair shops, warehouses and bars. Greased stained streets and dilapidated buildings become alive by the commotion of mechanics and street vendors during the day. Displaced families, homeless, sex-workers and drug addicts fine refuge on the empty sidewalks at night. A Symbiosis among the night and day residents sustain the survival of this neighborhood. Amidst this chaos, law and order is strictly and silently enforced by ‘Los Convivir’ a paramilitary group that controls the sale drugs and runs a protection racket for shop owners. There are two versions as of how this small neighborhood came to be known as Barrio Triste. In the 1920’s a French man with the name of Tristan owned most of the houses and shops of the area. Locals found it difficult to pronounced the name Tristan but sounded more like Triste, Spanish for sad. The other version tells of wealthy landowners that upon gazing from their rooftops at the shacks along the river would say: “Look at those poor people, they must be sad to live like there”. Eventually, the two stories have come to be local folklore and Barrio Triste, officially named The Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is known to local residents as of the cities main drug dispense center. I remain optimistic that things have change for the better; Barrio Triste serves a window to the violent past that once plagued the city of Medellín. It reminds me of a past I left behind and the hardship the citizens of this city and this country have endured over many years. - Juan Arredondo
Egypt's Second Revolution - The revolution that began on Jan. 25 and seemed to culminate with the Feb. 11 fall of President Hosni Mubarak had begun all over again, with Egyptians rebelling on the streets of Cairo against military rule, putting the promise of the Arab Spring at risk. Young Egyptians battled security forces in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square, throwing rocks and firebombs and police and soldiers responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition and beatings. More than 30 were killed and over a thousand injured.
There's a large muslim community in Aarhus, Denmark, and a very high number of danish converted to Islam. The estimated number of women wearing the niqab in Denmark is about 150-200. Aisha is a Danish woman who converted to Islam 22 years ago, when she was just 20. Today, she wears the niqab, the 'total veil', subject of many discussions in different countries in Europe.
Like so many other governments in Europe, the idea of banning the burqa or niqab in public places has been progressing in Denmark. The debate caused a split beetween the Conservatives and the Liberal Party in 2009. Lawyers of the Justice Ministry finally found the proposal unconstitutional.
But today the idea is still a topic of discussion: it is argued that the burqa or the niqab are strongly anti-integrationist, an attack on the dignity of women and also a security risk. "Even if the Niqab will be banned, I'll continue to wear it, anyway," Aisha says, it is my religion, my choice and I have to respect it. -
I began photographing Mumbai Sleeping in the summer of 2009 to explore the diversity of a basic human experience such as sleep. I was in awe of the taxi drivers in particular who slept in such a romantic balance with their vehicles after leaving their families in the rural parts of India to make a living in the city of dreams.
I was also motivated by the opportunity to photograph people while they are unaware of the camera and to remove the politics of the pose from my images. In this sense I liked to believe I was capturing portraits of the unconscious.
Of the few people that awoke while I was photographing them, no one objected to my actions after I explained what I was doing. I remain ever grateful to India and its people that allow artists to capture real life without the politics of consent.
Over 350 images later I still find myself compelled to document this phenomena of urbanization in the 21st century where space has become so scarce in a city like Mumbai that 'private' acts are often conducted in public. Mumbai Sleeping is a testament to the strength and human spirit of the lower class urban population that drive the wheel of the city by day and sleep on it at night - forcing us to question whether a good night’s sleep is a luxury or a necessity.
The people captured in “Living Periferia” live with it every day of their lives. The violence, the drugs, the weapons, the lost bullets, which take dozens of lives every year… The fights, the battles with the police. Some barely escape. Others fall in the street law and to save them from oblivion their friends and family draw enormous pictures of them on the walls of the shantytown. It’s a posthumous tribute to their courage, their way to remember them as local heroes. This work dives in a forgotten world, where many times not even mailmen are allowed in. It’s a world that goes beyond poverty. Wide ghettos in the further corners of Santiago where the State has managed for years to dump what they would rather not see. What investments must never see. What rich people should better keep ignoring. Chile is now one of the richest countries in South America. The government celebrates the 4.4% economical growth in the last year and everyone claps when they say the international crisis hasn’t reached yet. But no one looks at this face of Chile when they receive the applauses. Derelict that generates more derelict. Violence that generates more violence. The toughest and more efficient school of crime. A society inside the society whit their own codes and mechanics that result inconceivable for the rest of the world. The order inside the chaos, where only the one who yells louder, the one who hits harder or the one who shoots faster can emerge. Or survive. These photos are a personal puzzle about fragmented social representations. The foreign eyes of someone that, of all the going round, ended up being a local. But who’s look reflects the beauty of an ugly and shocking world to the eyes of whom looks from across the street.
"This journey across Ethiopia traces the origination of coffee that goes back to the thirteenth century. Legend says that a herder named Kaldi noticed his goats “dancing” after nibbling bright red berries. Kaldi brought the berries to a nearby monastery where holy men declared they must be the work of the devil and threw them into a fire. Yet, the aroma was too tempting and they quickly raked the roasted beans from the embers, ground them up, and dissolved them in hot water, yielding the world’s first cup of coffee." - Ami Vitale
"Ninety miles from America and roughly the size of Pennsylvania the totalitarian communist state of Cuba is home to more than eleven million people. A multiracial society with a population of mainly Spanish origins and Catholic faith, Cuba boasts one of the best health care systems in the world with the average life expectancy comparable to the UK while it's average monthly salary is only $20.00. Prolonged austerity and the state controlled economy's insufficiency in providing adequate services and goods have forced an estimated 40% of Cubans to turn to the black market in order to obtain necessary clothing, food and household items. Historically, Cuban law subordinates it's people from freedom of movement, speech, assembly and the press. However, efforts by the government for economic and social reform have recently loosened some of the constraints on travel, real estate and business creating a mixture of excitement and trepidation in the Cuban people." - Susi Eggenberger
Kyoko Hamada’s Self Portraits Imagine What Her Life Will be Like in 30 Years "When I first tried on her gray wig, the latex makeup, and her clothes, I gazed at the mirror for a long time. My initial reaction was to chuckle, but I started feeling a little uneasy soon after. The wrinkled face staring back at me resembled my own with thirty-plus years added to it. When I smiled, she smiled back at me. When I pouted, she pouted too." "It was the first time I had met her, but she was simultaneously someone I already knew quite well and someone I knew nothing about. It has been a year and half since I started photographing Kikuchiyo-san and I have gotten used to dressing up as her. However, when I think of what could happen if we ran into each other in a crowded train station or during a walk in the park, I get uneasy imagining her say, “I used to be you.”—Kyoko Hamada
These images were taken by American photographer Steven Brahms, for his project titled “The Evasion Studies”. Simply put they are dramatic run-for-your-life style portraits in rather unfavourable everyday places. A very simple idea and beautifully executed. In recent news Steven was one of the 2012 recipients of the Aaron Siskind Foundation — Individual Photographer’s Fellowship. Check out his work, it’s all gold.
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"En France, retoucher une photographie est devenue un tabou voire un sacrilège. En ce qui me concerne, sachant que la photo ne sera jamais garante de la transparence du réel, je considère ces controverses sacralisante un peu vaine. Explications(...)"
"(...) Les chiens de garde de la photographie pure, de la photographie objective existait déjà. Parlons-en de ces pourfendeurs de la photographie dite objective. Une certaine caste de photographes a pour dogme que retoucher une photo nuit à l’objectivité. Allons bons ! Et que les photographes qui retravaillent les clichés sont considérés comme des escamoteurs du réel. Si j’en observe l’histoire de la photographie, force est de croire que la polémique sur le sujet n’a pas désenflé puisque le travail quotidien allait et va toujours à l’encontre de ce débat immuable. En effet, dès l’introduction de la photographie dans la presse, au XIXe siècle, les journalistes ont toujours travaillé l’image. L’intervention a posteriori sur le document photographique est attestée dès les débuts de la photographie.(...)
"(...)Je soupçonne ces chiens de garde de la photographie « sans retouche » de souffrir du complexe du bon photographe qui ne rate jamais sa photo. Combien de fois, n’ai-je pas lu dans certains magazines français cette expression “photo sans retouche” comme d’un label de qualité indiscutable. Pour moi, cela vise essentiellement à garantir un certain niveau de qualité technique, en signifiant une maîtrise absolu de l’outil pour éviter le recours à des expédients comme Photoshop ou Lightroom. Il laisse par ailleurs sous entendre l’existence d’un photographe parfait, d’un démiurge absolu de l’image reproduite. Allez dire ça à Steve Mc Curry ou Ami Vitale pour qui la post-production, la retouche sont essentielles.(...)" - Serge Bouvet
Only a hundred miles from Kolkata, but immersed in a jungle in which time seems to stand still, a Jesuit missionary group has expanded the meaning of being called “parents”. In its mission “Jisu Ashram” hosts over a hundred children from families of agriculturists of lower castes. There are a thousand children and parents to represent the only hope for the future of a new generation of young Indians who are suffering, with concealed virulence, an abrupt transition to the modern era, the era of big cities, which work in the field and differ little from slavery.
Photographer Kari Medig grew up in a cabin in northern British Columbia. He is drawn to acts of photography that involve a physical element. The tougher and more remote the environment, the happier he is. His series is an ongoing project that examines the intersection between humans and nature. Kari is particularly comfy in snowy places, steep or flat. He has a penchant for 120 film, drinks at least two coffees a day and relates well to folks with beards.
As a member of Magnum for almost 20 years, Belgian photographer Carl de Keyzer has published several books, shooting projects across the globe in Europe, Russia, Asia, and the U.S. His strength lies in his ability to consistently capture pointed, expressive moments within daily life. For the photographs in Congo, he took five trips over two years to document the life of a post-colonial nation. “I decided to use a 1954 tourist guide for the Congo – at that time still a Belgian colony. Visiting all kinds of colonial backgrounds – mines, factories, schools, monasteries, churches, prisons. In fact it’s more a project about Belgium itself. A small European country (80 times smaller) being arrogant enough to export their own surrealism to the heart of Africa.” The photographs were made into a series of two books in 2009 and 2010,Congo (Belge) and Congo Belge en images. The first book consisted of his contemporary photographs (tour guide) and the second included a selection of remastered glass negatives of the birth of the colony (1890 – 1920). Each photograph implies a story or carries a message—all focus on the people in the situation, all cross the line between straightforward photojournalism and a richer, more artful documentary style. “I tend to engage in long-term projects. I prefer to stay in a country for a longish period in order to get a better feeling of what is going on there. I prefer complex images because they reflect the complexity of life itself. There is a conflict between the utilitarian aspect of certain images taken for a precise purpose and photographs expressing a more personal viewpoint. I am always somewhere in the middle. Can you really grasp a situation through a picture? Yes, perhaps. You try, even if you stay a stranger looking in from the outside. What you are aiming at is photographs showing situations that have repercussions on people’s lives. That is why I am a photographer.”
The lights go down and the projector whirs into action as Sher Mohammad, 35, begins his routine, bouncing back and forth between two projectors, winding reels, and adjusting the carbon arc lamps inside the projectors. Below him in the gallery of the Temorshahee Cinema, men sit in their Shalwar Kameez (the loose fitting pants and knee length shirts that are common in Central Asia), sipping mango juice, smoking cigarettes, clapping and sometimes even dancing together on the theater stage as Pakistani women sing and gyrate across the screen.
Only ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable in Kabul – the Taliban had banned, among other things, going to the movies. Theaters sat idle for years and fell into disrepair. But with the fall of the Taliban, projectionists like Rahmatullah Amane, 36, who had fled to Pakistan during the civil war and worked in a matchstick factory in Kashmir, put the cinemas back together in Kabul, piece by piece.
“The place was destroyed,” said Mr. Amane, describing Temorshahee Cinema in the Old City of Kabul after the Taliban fled. “We had to pick up parts and put things back together, taking pieces from all theaters.” After seeing the transformation, the new Afghan government asked him to restore a second classic Kabul theater, Park Cinema. He headed there right away. “We worked 24 hours a day to get it running. Everyone could feel the freedom and was happy,” Mr. Amane said. “It was like being born again.”
For Mr. Amane, the draw of cinema started early. “When I was 13 years old, I saw a James Bond movie, the one with Jaws. I knew then that I wanted to be in the movie business.” While at Park Cinema in Kabul's Shawr-e-Naw neighborhood, Mr. Amane began apprenticing under a projectionist. Twenty-years later he works 12-hours a day, seven days a week at the most technically advanced theater in the city, Ariana Cinema.
Today there are about a half dozen movie theaters that operate around Kabul, some of which are publicly funded, others restored by international donors. Older Pakistani and Indian films dominate the repertoire, but there are occasional American films and the rare Afghan one. Only matinees are shown and during the week attendance is low. Most moviegoers come from the large ranks of the unemployed. Young children are rarely seen at the movies, and women, while technically allowed to go, never attend. Mr. Amane blames this on the constant threat of bombings, "If security improves, they will come again."??
Until that happens though, Mr. Amane generally sees a bleak outlook for the cinema business: "The future looks dark." He says that the availability of DVD players, which allow families the convenience and safety of watching movies at home, are also hurting the business. He is even reluctant to encourage his eight-year-old son, who is eager to learn about the movie business: "I don't want my kids to go into the business."??
In most of the theaters, two behemoth Indian projectors, generally 30 to 40 years old, sit in dimly lit rooms where their servants must switch between the two, constantly changing the 20-minute-reels to prevent interrupting the film. Almost all of the machines in Kabul use carbon arc lamps to produce the light that projects the film, a technology that was mostly replaced in the west during the 1960s. Two sticks of carbon are aimed at each other and an electric current is run through them creating an arc that produces light. The distance between the rods must be constantly adjusted by the projectionists to maintain the electric arc. The rods themselves must also be changed several times during a movie. In short, projectionists in Kabul are rarely sitting still. The one exception is Mr. Amane's Ariana Cinema, which uses more modern Italian machines, thanks to a French cultural grant.??
On a recent Friday afternoon at Pamir Cinema in the Old City of Kabul, the busiest day of the week, a standing room only crowd of several hundred young men in a smoke-filled room cheer on the hero of a Pakistani film as he seeks revenge against the villain. Match-heads flicker constantly, throwing flashes of light across the darkened theater as the men chain-smoke throughout the film. Cellphones ring, and men occasionally yell across the crowded room to locate friends. On stage a young boy dances with his hands raised in the air, illuminated by the projector, as his friends in the front of the audience cheer him on. Perhaps the only other place one sees such public jubilation by Afghan men is at weddings.afghanistan israel west bank bangladesh - Jonathan Saruk
Sumedha and Sapan is a present day story, but tied to tradition.
Sumedha Sood, 30, is an Indian woman from New Delhi. Sapan Basnett, 29, is an Indian man born in Gangtok, the Indian state of Sikkim. Sumedha and Sapan graduated from the same school: the National Institute of Fashion Technology, in New Delhi.
This is where they met for the first time, through mutual friends. After completing his studies, Sapan moved to Bangalore to work as a fashion designer. In February of 2008, Sumedha moved to Milan to study for her Masters at the European Institute of Design. One evening in October 2010, surfing on facebook, Sumedha found Sapan through "People You May Know", and sent him a friend request.
Sapan accepted the invitation and they started a chat online. In the following days they were constantly chatting, and then they started talking on Skype. Shortly after, Sapan sent Sumedha an airline ticket from Delhi to Bangalore for her next trip to India. A few days after their meeting in Bangalore, Sapan was presented to Sumedha's family.
In January 2011, they celebrated their marriage. - Isabella De Maddalena
On a thin mattress by the wall sits Rana Alkassem Alkhaled with her children. She lost her husband in the deadly conflict in Syria, and fled to safer grounds accross the border in Lebanon. She is not alone. According to the UNHCR, of the more than 30,000 Syrians who have fled to neighbouring Lebanon, 80 percent are women and children. "The future is dark", says Rana, with her three children Maisaa (9), Bassema (8) and Omar (3) around her. The storage room they are renting is extremly hot, around 40 degrees celcius. The owner made two small holes in the concrete walls to let some fresh air in.
Dream Mumbai is a project born out of a survival instinct. When I first arrived to Mumbai my senses were on overload. Even the simplest of tasks – crossing the street or buying a piece of fruit – struck me with a tinge of terror. In order to acclimate myself to the city I began taking long walks with a camera. The walks made me familiar with her neighboring geography. The images helped me understand the people living in the neighborhoods. Collectively the images create a visual diary – pixel moments, but also a statement on the complexities of a developing dreamland. Mumbai is a city with constant contradictions; it can fill and crush your soul in the very same moment. These images offer a glimpse into the variety of daily emotions and landscapes one can witness whilst walking the streets of Mumbai.
"From 1975 to 2002, war was a part of daily life for the people living in the rich African country of Angola. The beaten orange paths that zigzagged across the territory represented the displacement of more than twenty-percent of the population who had to leave their villages for government-controlled towns. Much of the population was unable to feed themselves while those that lived from the rich oil resources experienced a very different life. They were two worlds living uneasily side by side."- Ami Vitale
“FOUND is a curated collection of photography from the National Geographic archives. In honor of our 125th anniversary, we are showcasing photographs that reveal cultures and moments of the past. Many of these photos have never been published and are rarely seen by the public. We hope to bring new life to these images by sharing them with audiences far and wide. Their beauty has been lost to the outside world for years and many of the images are missing their original date or location. This is just the beginning of a great adventure. We will be adding new voices, stories, and artifacts as we go. We look forward to sharing this experience with everyone, and hope you make FOUND your home for inspiration and wonder.”
"Christ’s Hospital is one of the oldest schools in the country, they still wear Tudor uniforms and yellow socks. They also have the biggest number of free/subsidised places, which are given to kids from London, as the school was originallyunder the juristrisction of the City of London."- Martin Parr
The Asian presence in Catalonia goes back to the last third of the 19thcentury when a small group of Filipinos lived in Barcelona. Apart from a few isolated incidents, the Asian presence was not really visible to the general society until the second half of the 90s when, on par with the global trend of foreign immigrants, their number increased significantly. F rom the end of 1996 until June 2004, for example, the Asian population in Catalonia increased threefold. However, if you count those actually coming from Asia there are only 99.454 people out of a total of 1.097.966 immigrants living in Catalonia, almost 10 per cent of the whole (IDESCAT, 2008). Even with these figures, it is not easy to determine the exact number of immigrants in Catalonia as the statistics published by the official sources do not take into account the anomalous situation of many immigrants. The Chinese, the Pakistani, the Indian and the Philippine (in this order) are the most numerous communities and those that have significant establishments.- Mikel Aristregi
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Enri was born in Tirana, Albania in 1980. In 2003 he graduated from Leica Photographic Academy. He worked as an advertising photography assistant while pursuing his own projects .