I’ve been waiting for the Georgian Spring site to launch ever since the Magnum Stories rss feed dumped a ton of unexplained short videos into my reader. Turns out it’s an ambitious book project combining the work of 10 Magnum photographers: D’Agata, Bendiksen, Dworzak, Franck, Majoli, Parr, Pellegrin, Pinkhassov, Power, and Soth. Couldn’t ask for a better amalgam of contemporary photography. I haven’t gotten a chance to dive in to all the photos yet, but I’m excited from what little I’ve seen.

Yesterday morning I saw a post on the Magnum Blog by nominee Peter van Agtmael, with some pictures he took out the window of buses in Africa. It immediately brought to mind my endless hours on the roads and rails of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. As it turns out, I’ve taken many more pictures from the train trips I’ve taken than the buses (probably because I was concentrating on sleeping and/or not getting sick while riding the buses), and I thus was inspired to dig through my archive (strange trips down the memory lane) and pull out some of those pictures that otherwise would not have seen the light of day. One of the original goals of the original incarnation of Dvafoto was for Scott and I to have an outlet for the pictures that we wouldn’t publish anywhere else.. the outtakes, the near-misses. So here I present a new set of images from the last couple of years on the rails. And sorry I don’t have, at this moment, any stories to tell from these pictures (like Peter)… I am rather exhausted from hours spent digging through harddrives… hopefully soon.

[caption id="attachment_774" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Between Sarajevo and Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. May 2007."][/caption]








If you pester me, maybe I can tell you about the 28hour trip I took from Moldova to Kiev with gallons of smuggled wine (not mine of course) hidden in the panels above my bunk in the ancient Moldovan train car, with two young Russian-Moldovan minors watching over my car with the bought conductor. It was a good time, actually, sharing dvds and me getting to practice my Russian. Thankfully the Ukrainian customs weren’t too thorough…

One of our next interviews here at DVA will be with Canadian photographer Donald Weber who currently bases himself between Kiev and Moscow. His recent accolades include the PDN 30, a Lange-Taylor Prize, a World Press Photo award and a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in Russia. Before becoming a photographer, he worked with architect Rem Koolhaas in The Netherlands.

As I promised yesterday, I wanted to open up DVA to more collaboration. What are you interested in hearing Don Weber speak about? He is producing very interesting and increasingly noticed work, both on assignment or of his own design, and has received important and prestigious grants to fund his projects (a struggle you see Scott and I writing about regularly). Post your questions in the comments or if you would like to remain anonymous feel free to email me, and we’ll be sure to use some in our interview. Stay tuned, this should be a good one.