I’ve been trying for the last two weeks to put together some sort of introduction to my ongoing project about the destruction of a large Roma camp here in Belgrade, and words have really failed me. I can’t even come up with an original title (this one is hopefully temporary). I have a lot to say about the community I’ve been photographing for four months and how the destruction of their camps was handled, and hopefully I’ll have something coherent to share soon. But I’ve been teasing and working the project too long not to share some of the images here, especially as this first chapter has ended. So you’ll have to wait for some more of the back story and future plans for the project, though I can point you to this news article for some sad details about the exodus, which I am continuing to photograph. Click on any of the images to go to my website which has a small edit of the project.

So, I was not in Perpignan last week like I said and planned to be. A story that I have been working on since April about the displacement of significant and entrenched Roma settlements here in Belgrade hit its climax last Monday and I decided to stay here to photograph. I look forward to sharing part of this important story soon.
But first I wanted to share some new images that I mentioned a few weeks ago from my Kosovo New Born project, which I began in 2007.

I returned to the youngest country in the world again in early August to get further into the periphery of issues and locations that are at the heart of Kosovo’s political and economic stability and viability. While it was a difficult trip, with some closed doors and unproductive scheduling, I am pleased that many pictures are contributing new visions and perspectives on the broader sentiments I am hoping to capture with this project.

The next step for me is to (frighteningly enough) prepare a book dummy for this admittedly unfinished body of work. I started my degree at the University of Washington six years ago and I’ve decided that it is high time to finally graduate. So I endeavor to finish my last requirement: a thesis. As a multidisciplinary exercise for my degree in the Comparative History of Ideas program I am attempting to create a historical, documentary and scholarly approach to Kosovo in the form of a more permanent contemporary photographic document. Hence my interest in Peter van Agtmael’s new book 2nd Tour, Hope I don’t Die, which I think works on much the same level. As this project comes together I’ll have more to share, though I’m sure it will take more time than I’ve budgeted in my head.

Also in Balkan news, I’ve seen (and have been sent) a number of increasingly alarmist articles about the dire state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In my opinion, and that of many smart colleagues here, while it is not a happy or stable place Bosnia isn’t about to explode either. As a western writer friend here opined, this is as much a cry for relevance by Balkan commentators in this short-attention span world as anything else (and as someone with interest in keeping eyes on the important stories here, I’m not exactly against this). So that said, the continuing slow decline of Bosnia’s political foundations is worth paying attention to. I’m continuing to photograph some of these ideas with my project This Time Tomorrow: Post-War Bosnia at the Crossroads and will try to provide updates from my perspective here in Belgrade.

Sorry for the absence of posts here.  Haven’t had reliable internet access for the better part of a month.  Here are a few pictures from the past couple of weeks along with a promise to return to regular posting on dvafoto. I’m currently in northern Montana, and I can be reached by phone at +1-917-512-3473.

July 11, 2009 was the fourteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it was marked by another mass funeral for some 520 souls whose remains were identified in the last year. Estimates of the total deaths in this genocide are around 8000 Muslim men and boys. I previously visited the town of Srebrenica and the memorial in the nearby village of Potocari in 2007 as a student traveler in Bosnia, and this past Saturday was my first return to the site since then. I rode one of dozens of free buses from around Bosnia to the memorial service with scores of pilgrims and family members of the victims. Of course a sad, powerful day but more than a decade on from the event an attitude of solidarity and keeping the memory alive sweeps through the crowd. There is still grief, and fear, amongst those who experienced this horrible event but we are entering a time where the future, not the past, is what must be called in to question. Next year will be the fifteenth anniversary of Srebrenica, and there will again be a burial of many more victims along with speeches from many honorable guests, and we will still ask why. But now too we must face the fact that politics and social development are reaching the stagnated limits of the Dayton Accords and some sort of break with this peace treaty must happen. Slowly or suddenly, Bosnia and Herzegovina must avert itself from its current dead-end path towards some polity that is equitable, sustainable and promising. This country today displays hardly any reflection of those attributes, a harsh reality in this worsening economic climate along a steep path towards European integration.

These are a few pictures from the ride and memorial. A memorable day, not least for the incredible effort amongst all the people to make it out to the remote town. The buses were to leave Sarajevo at 5am but were delayed by the crowds of citizens who could not fit into the allotted amount of buses, who demanded transportation to the memorial before they would clear the road. Hours late my bus, filled with somber but enthusiastic pilgrims, arrived at the field and grave site before a humbling prayer and burial service. After, on the ride home, everyone was in a good, warm mood filled with pride for being able to honor the memorial with their presence. This was a fascinating experience and I was honored to visit with the Bosnians who worked hard to pay their respects.

I’ve recently completed a body of work on China’s domestic consumer market. Long dormant, recent years have shown the billion or so potential consumers make an attractive target for the companies throughout the world. Coca-Cola knew this early on, but now companies such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Mercedes-Benz, H&M, Louis Vitton, Pizza Hut, and any other brand you know have opened shops in major urban centers in China.

Politicians in Beijing have been downplaying the severity of China’s share of the global economic crisis. Outlooks remain optimistic and, thanks in part to half-trillion-dollar stimulus plans, the country’s economic growth has not declined as rapidly as some had predicted. Through tax incentives, government-provided shopping vouchers, a lowering Consumer Price Index, and a nationwide “Buy China” movement, consumer spending in China has remained strong throughout recent months and is expected to grow in the near future. While many doubt that the country’s domestic market will bring swift respite to the world’s economies, evidence suggests it has done much to soften the blow to China’s bottom line.

More work from the series can be seen on my website, “Hao shaoxi, hao shaoxi: China’s domestic consumer market”.

Sorry for my lack of posting over the last month or so, I’ve been kept very busy with a roadtrip, an assignment in Albania and work on a personal project or two. But I have a lot of little things saved up to post, and will catch up on a few today.

But first I thought I’d share a couple of things from what I’ve been up to. The first of three stories I shot in Albania for the New York Times / International Herald Tribune with Dan Bilefsky, having to do with Sunday’s elections in Albania, has been published: “Albanians, Cut Off, Get Set to Vote”. We have two more stories to go to print in the coming weeks, and I’ll share those and more pictures when I can.

Last, a little peek at a project I’m working on here in Belgrade about Roma communities who are in danger of losing their homes when the city/state redevelops the land that they are squatting on. A lot of issues going on here, and I’ve been trying to unpack it over the last month or so and there is much more to do, this really is in its beginning stages. A little bit further down the line I’ll be able to share more pictures and more of the story. For now, a couple of frames:

Next up are another couple of short trips back to Kosovo and to Bosnia to continue my stories there. I look forward to having more to show you all soon, thanks for having a look!

A tiger skeleton stands in a vat of tiger wine at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, China. The wine is said to imbue drinkers with various health benefits such as strength and virility. The wine sells for 780 renminbi (about US$110.00) per half kilogram of liquid.

I realized the other day just how long it’s been since I shared some of my own work on dva. I’ve been shooting a lot over the past few months, some on assignment, some on personal projects. Here’s a small piece from the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. These pictures fit in with my work on China’s deplorable zoos.

Tourists gather around tiger sculptures outside the entrance to the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.

It’s no wonder that Harbin’s Siberian Tiger Park is as well-known as it is. The park houses more than 100 of of the endangered Manchurian Tiger, also known as the Siberian Tiger, in a large grassland enclosure, and, most famously, allows visitors to ride in buses among the tigers and feed live chickens, cows, and other meat to the tigers. The park is partially funded by private donations and may serve a role in the preservation of the species, which numbers at less than 400 animals in the wild. One of the oddest features of the park is the visitors’ center. Shops there sell toys, stuffed animals, hats, and other items made from tiger fur, and various displays provide information about the species’ history. Additionally, one room is dominated by a large aquarium filled with wine and a whole tiger skeleton. The wine sells for 780 renminbi (about US$110.00) per half kilogram of liquid. People who drink the wine believe it is beneficial to one’s health, increasing one’s power, virility, and strength. The wine and other tiger products created from tigers at the park draw much criticism from animal rights activists and conservationists, and with good reason. While the park claims to preserve the species, little is apparently being done to rehabilitate the tigers, ready them for the wild, or, really, do anything other than entertain tourists and provide fodder for traditional Chinese medicine products and souvenir trinkets.

Tigers jump to grab pieces of chicken thrown by a zookeeper during feeding time at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.”

A woman burns ceremonial paper to mark the Lantern Festival, the end of the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival holiday, in a souvenir shop at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.

Large tiger sculptures decorate the entrance to the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.

Stuffed animals and masks made with real tiger fur hang in a display for sale at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.

Visitors to the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China, ride a tourbus through a tiger enclosure to catch a glimpse of the endangered animal.

Visitors to the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China, ride a tourbus through a tiger enclosure to catch a glimpse of the endangered animal.

Souvenir vendors stand outside a kiosk selling stuffed tigers and other toys at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.

Visitors hold small pieces of beef, purchased for about US$1.50, through a protective cage to feed to tigers at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.” alt=”Visitors hold small pieces of beef, purchased for about US$1.50, through a protective cage to feed to tigers at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.

Tigers run to cages after feeding time at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.

A zookeeper plays with a tiger after feeding time at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.

Photographs of tigers decorate the entrance road to the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.

A tourist leans past the first fence of a tiger enclosure to get a picture at the Siberian Tiger Park in Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China.

More work from the park available at my Photoshelter archive or through the embedded gallery below:

Harbin Tiger Park – Images by M. Scott Brauer

I wanted to share my latest project which I shot over two weeks in March, which I probably hinted at in some earlier posts. This Time Tomorrow: Post-War Bosnia at the Crossroads is my attempt to describe a complex feeling that is settling in around Bosnia about its hopes for a prosperous future.

I have been introducing these pictures with this text:

Bosnia is facing a growing challenge to efficient and prosperous survival as time advances with a peace treaty functioning as a constitution. We read more and more often news stories about Bosnia’s instability and ill-prospects for a unified future with two ‘entities’ – the Federation and Republika Srbska – butting heads amongst entrenched political and ethnic divides. Citizens and the economy are inching toward a precipice prepared by political interest and ineffectual international oversight. War is not going to be the answer, but innocent people will suffer just the same.

But here is the longer version (with informative links!) that I hope will more fully explain the situation in Bosnia today:

For almost fifteen years since the Dayton Agreement the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina has stayed together through one of the world’s most complex political arrangements. Bosnia’s constitution, which mandates two ‘entities’ (consisting of the Federation of Bosniaks and Croats and the Republika Srbska of Bosnian Serbs), is an annex to a peace treaty. Further, the EU’s High Representative gives the international community final veto power over the country’s tripartite presidency. It is obvious to most observers that this inefficient and corruption-rich system cannot exist indefinitely. In recent months politicians from all sides are protesting frequently about the untenability of the current arrangement as a challenge to their sovereignty (as an ethnic group, an entity or, rarely, as the whole nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). Old tensions remain, there are divided cities where one ethnic group doesn’t cross an invisible line for lingering fears, real or imagined, of conflict.

I hope these images can communicate the tensions that remain in Bosnia with high unemployment, political stagnation, a looming economic catastrophe and a pessimistic outlook on the future. Old interests and battles, frozen in 1995, remain relevant for much of the population and distrust is high. How will this nation, and the international community, reform and reconstitute one of the world’s more clumsy attempts at nation building?

This is a strange project for me, and of course I’m thankful for all the positive reviews so far, but I can’t quite wrap my head around these pictures. Maybe its the ephemeral thesis, trying to capture this feeling I was talking about, and I’m not convinced the pictures are successful in that vein. Of course they’re also a bit too focused on the Muslim portions of Bosnia, where I was living and where most of my friends are, but the ‘idea’ remains. I look forward to your feedback, questions or suggestions.. I’d love a conversation here on Dva.

Many thanks are due to my friend Jasmin Brutus for hosting me in Sarajevo and Dado Ruvic (who I just wrote about here on Dva) for showing me around Zenica. Two wonderful men and photographers, thank you both!

First, the bad news: one of my hometown’s two daily papers, and employer to many friends and colleagues, has closed its print edition this week and is now online only in a venture to create a new model. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer as we knew it was 146 years old.
Best of luck, I really hope you get it right… both for Seattle’s sake but also because it will be a testing ground for what will probably come in many more cities (around the world). But as slate.com’s Jack Shafer points out here they’re not exactly off to a great start, and have a lot to overcome. Also notable: some of the best coverage I’ve read has been from The Stranger’s (Seattle alt-weekly) Eli Sanders at their lively blog The Slog (link to his piece from inside the newsroom on the last day). Really worth checking out this and all his other stories (you’ll have to dig a bit sorry).

Two, my favorite blog (Foreign Policy’s Passport) posted an interesting little photo-related piece about an alleged meeting between Vladimir Putin and Ronald Reagan in 1988, which has a quote/confirmation from new White House chief photographer Pete Souza in his January interview with NPR, who was along on the trip.

Next, to steal M. Scott’s thunder (he sent me the link) the New York Times Sunday Magazine from this past weekend had some pictures from the seemingly missing in action Joachim Ladefoged with an interesting-seeming article about Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and his role in current Russian nationalism. Or so I think, I haven’t had a chance to read the piece yet but I look forward to. I quite like the picture, and neither of us can remember seeing anything new from him since a piece on Iraqi refugees in Syria in the same publication awhile ago. Looks like
his website has been updated too … so have a look (I will as soon as I find a decent internet connection..)

Also I was sent a link to a new piece in the New York Times international section from Moises Saman about Peru’s Cocaine War. The pictures are terrific, especially this one above which closes the story.

Someone just posted about this but thought I’d also share: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Canada) now has a picture blog. Some interesting things to see on my quick glance, including work by Donald Weber.

Lastly, I’ll share a few of my new Bosnia pictures … nothing concrete is together yet, just loosely connected random pictures for now.

I’ve been hanging out in Sarajevo this week as a bit of a respite from Belgrade and to get some reading and research done for a few new projects I’m trying to get off the ground. So, sorry for the lack of posting . Luckily we have M. Scott who keeps the great stuff coming…

I’ve got a couple of quick things to offer before my battery dies (for all its charms Sarajevo lacks decent internet places where I can take the time to actually look at stuff and post). First, for quick-hits of things I’m reading or finding interesting, that aren’t just related to photo (and thus don’t get much play on dva) I recommend subscribing to this rss feed of my postings to facebook. Yea, oldschool .. I should be using twitter .. but this is an easy way for me to share with friends stories and things that I’m digging.

Second, congrats are in order (again) to friend and inspiration Jonas Bendiksen who picked up another great prize this week. You’ll probably have to use Google Translate for that page unless you speak Norwegian… Also, I found this news out via Magnum’s new Twitter page, which features news, links and (it appears) interviews with Magnum photographers who are in the office. Very energetic.

all for now thanks