Along the lines of Ed Ou’s project we just posted about, photographer Chien Chi-Chang recently has published a Magnum in Motion presentation of his project “Escape from North Korea”, on assignment for National Geographic. He followed the paths and stories of men and women escaping from North Korea into China, Laos, Thailand and eventually South Korea. This is the project we’ve been waiting to see on this topic. You should have a look.

You should also visit Chang’s photos on the Magnum site if you haven’t seen his work before. He’s a special one, and he even came out of Seattle.

Magnum’s Georgian Spring is an incredibly interesting project, and possibly a turning point in photojournalism and agency work. This book, print, web and ‘multimedia’ project is a collaboration with the Georgian state itself, funded by the Ministry of Culture and arranged by photographer Thomas Dworzak with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and independently curated by publisher Chris Boot.
As Scott mentioned when this project first went live, 10 Magnum photographers are involved and are a very interesting cross section of what is being done in photojournalism today. Jörg Colberg, of Conscientious and photojournalism criticism fame, agrees in his review of the book. To quote him, “So there are ten photographic voices, all from the same photojournalistic agency – how could there be a crisis in photojournalism when there is such variety? Or asked in a different way: What kind of crisis?”

I see Georgian Spring as the latest in a series of interesting photographer and agency-driven productions where people are “doing it themselves” with alternative funding methods. I think of two other Magnum projects directly that I’ve always respected: Euro Visions, about the ten new EU states in 2004 in collaboration with Centre Pompidou and Magnum Off-Broadway (a project that deserves a post in itself, definitely coming soon).
Beyond being a necessary development to continue doing the work we’re out in the world to do, these agency and photographer-led projects almost invariably produce more interesting and personal work. (But maybe this is because I’m a photographer? Wonder if there is a breakdown between publication-designed and producer-designed projects with the public?).
There has been some hubbub around VII’s recent efforts (especially on the public relations front) to get ahead of new funding opportunities, such as working directly with NGOs and then maneuvering to have the work published. In an era where the number of assignments is shrinking and our archives are our pensions, finding any way to photograph important stories prior to selling them is intelligent. So likewise getting countries to pay for portrayals of themselves is an interesting idea that just brings this idea to a new level, and shows impressive lateral thinking. The multifaceted distribution is terrific too, from podcasts to an impressive book (so says Colberg, I haven’t seen it in person yet), to an exhibition and interactive website (with maps and breakdown by region in Georgia, which is nice to see). All around, from ideas to photographs to presentation, extremely well done and I think (at this early moment, juries will tell in time) a new landmark in photojournalism.

Thomas Dworzak has a long personal history of working in Georgia, having been (or continuing to be, as the website suggests) based in Tblisi. And maybe because of his close relationship with the country, and the president, his photographs in this project are the most contentious to me. Dworzak presents a love letter to Saakashvili, which is a curious choice given the mix of other work by his colleagues and the nature of the project itself. By all means I’ll defend his right to publish what he feels like but in such a project it is so strange to see this photo-profile of the president traveling the world, wooing its leaders and his domestic successes. The video presentation is especially strange, with lighthearted music, rapid pictures of the smiling president and running tourism-board commentary by Saakashvili himself. As PDN brought up in its piece Magnum on Georgia, For Georgia a “photojournalistic” project about a State funded by that State on the surface is begging for careful scrutiny of its objectivity. There seems to be ample distance between the creative and journalistic freedom of the photographers and their curator Chris Boot from the state itself, and many of the essays and their subject matter probably would not be picked up in tourist literature by Georgia.
Also enlivening from the PDN article is this quote:

According to Dworzak, the project set off some debate within Magnum. “It’s nothing extraordinary, Magnum has done it and other agencies have done it for many other countries, it’s just usually done in a very shitty way,” Dworzak says. That the Georgian government agreed to a completely hands-off approach “made it really easy to accept,” Dworzak relates.

On the other hand, I was blown away by many of the other projects. In some sense this was a narrow assignment, to bring photographers into one country and have them all cover it in their own way, perhaps putting photographers in positions they are not suited for in an obvious time crunch (the book was published roughly a year after the conflict with Russia). But just the opposite has happened, it opened each to do what they do best and it really compounds the impression of contemporary Georgia. As I said above, this project brings together ten unique voices and gives them freedom to search out their own stories and it is a treat to see it come together. I haven’t had a chance to watch through all ten ‘Magnum in Motion’ video presentations but two really have stuck with me, perhaps for obvious reasons.

Alex Majoli has long been an important photographer for me but his work in Georgia, both here and in the recent war, has taken my respect for him to a new level. Please have a look at his piece for this project on Magnum in Motion. From two stark black and white title cards that tie his personal experience (and relationship to music, which is dear to my heart) to his early photography and then straight to the emotions and people he was photographing in Georgia. The soundtrack, from Italian punk band CCCP, provides stark cohesion with the best of movie scores. The images are raw, beautiful and confounding.

Russian photographer Gueorgui Pinkhassov provides a similarly personal dispatch from Georgia, with terrific commentary (I believe his words, read by another person). Most of this piece is short video clips, fitting for a man who began his career as a cinematographer and working with Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. And they are ridiculously beautiful, absolutely in Pinkhassov’s ’style’ but in motion. Indeed some of the videos are from scenes that became final photographs for his contribution to the book, such as the one posted alongside here. It is a moving and unique vision, and I can’t recommend strongly enough seeing his work on Magnum in Motion.

And have a look at the Jonas Bendiksen video, you just might spot him having a drink with the people at the party (in another short video clip, again used nicely). Glad to see the photographers getting involved personally!

Another question, which I admit not giving much thought to yet, is the new “Hollywood” film about the war tentatively titled “Georgia”. Wired’s terrific Danger Room blog riffs on an AP story in a post titled One Year Later, Hollywood Re-Fights Georgia-Russia War. What does this other project Georgia-supported project mean for this Magnum work? The film isn’t funded by Georgia it seems but it has gotten state support, and Wired is framing it as pro-Georgia. Does this paint the Magnum Georgia a different hue?

In the end, I think it is a wonderful thing to have such a portrait about a nation in an interesting point of its history, and I of course want to see more projects of this sort of subject matter as well as innovative funding strategies like this. But the final product of Georgian Spring does still leave me with some caution, particularly with Dworzak’s piece included. Maybe it is the newness of this idea, having the subject fund the project themselves, or having potential conflicts of interest so close to the surface (that’s a good thing, but still something new to deal with), but I’m a touch uneasy still. A bold approach, ingenious in many regards, and its bound to ruffle feathers, and I’m happy that it has affected me that way too. Can’t wait to see what is next, and I’m inspired to think about all of these issues anew.

The twenty finalists of the first Magnum Expression Award were just announced. This year’s theme was “Communities” and received submissions from over 170 countries and territories, and few of the finalists are ‘usual suspects’. There is a lot of interesting and fresh work in here by a lot of photographers I haven’t heard or seen work from before, which is always terrific. I think this is a great start for a very promising award. Tune in on October 23 when they announce the winner of the $10,000 grant and other prizes.

Though I like much of the work selected, I’m particularly enthralled with Andy Spyra’s work from Kashmir. I met Andy a couple of weeks ago as he traveled through Belgrade on assignment and he had interesting stories of how this work came together, his motivations and the process of making the story. The pictures will probably be divisive for many people, they’re full of motion and ambiguity, harsh shadows and exploited light, but they’re undeniably powerful.

Great to see a photographer taking huge chances and doing it his or her own way, something I’m really inspired by. These are risky photographs, an experimentation, and most work very well. Now to see how he can push it further, and where it’ll take his pictures and stories. Maybe soon we can get a little conversation up here with him.

A year ago, word spread of the International Center of Photography’s receipt of three weather cardboard boxes, the so-called “Mexican Suitcase,” filled with heretofore unseen negatives by Robert Capa, David “Chim” Seymour, and Gerda Taro. Magnum’s been hard at work digitizing the pictures, and the New York Times has a first glimpse of the pictures, mostly from the Spanish Civil War. While new Robert Capa pictures may be what draws the headlines, the real goldmine here is Seymour’s lost negatives, especially in how they frame the whole of the three’s previously known work from the time.

We’ve talked some about ‘alternative publishing’ here on Dva but this might be more outside the box than you’ve heard before, but hopefully will be intriguing to some of you. Matt Mallams, and a few others I know of, are getting their photos out into the world in innovative ways that bring a much different reaction from viewers. To sound foolishly ‘arty’, the photograph is taken from its normal context, or the context it was created in, and morphed into a new kind of object. It is intriguing to me, messing with the often-stodgy limitations of ‘where photographs belong’ (on websites, on newsprint, on walls).

In addition to lots of great work that falls into more traditional realms of photography/photojournalism Matt Mallams is pushing some boundaries and developing his own way of bringing his pictures back into the streets. I’ve been idly thinking about how to make ‘photos as street art’ for years, but haven’t done the first thing about it, so it is great to see a talented photographer trying it out.

He is also producing t-shirts with a cool image of his (if I were back in the States, I’d definitely be picking one of these up):

If you want one, follow the link for info. Printed on whatever color tshirt you like, $15.

That image has made some earlier street appearances, and was actually my first sight of Mallams’ push to get images out in this new way. Be sure to catch his journals too (unfortunately I can’t give you a direct link because of how his site is set up), which show a different side to Mallams’ vision.

I love it, congrats Matt… can’t wait to see what is next, I’ll let you know if I ever get something started myself. And can’t wait to do our rogue street exhibition some day.

I know of a couple of other instances of this kind of photo street art, including this random post that came along a couple of months ago on (what other than) the Slog: “Currently Hanging on the Tennis Court at Cal Anderson”. Someone tied a collection of photographs to the chain-link fence at a popular park in the center of the active Capitol Hill neighborhood, and a writer for the Stranger newspaper (who produces the Slog) saw, photographed and commented. Simply, they were impressed with the expression of the exhibition, not knowing who did it, why, or really what it was all about. Perfect, provocative, fresh. I love it. And if you read the comments on the blog post some people figured out that it was probably a highschool photo student from a nearby school, which is great.

M. Scott awhile ago pointed me toward Zoe Strauss’ ‘under-highway exhibition’. I haven’t found anything better to show it than Flickr set. Again, great idea (though from the looks of these pictures, not quite right to my taste).

Also, Magnum did something a bit unusual when it had exhibitions on kiosks in Paris, or even on a video screen in the center of Manhattan. I can’t find a picture for that, but as the NY Daily News said, they were “operating on the notion that New York deserves art where it least expects it…”. Cool, but a bit too close to an organized exhibition with state approval than the vibe I like in these other examples!

Mallams also reminded me about the work of JR who recently completed an opus in the Nigerian slum of Kibera. See more of the impressive and inventive work here at the online bible of street art (as far as I know) The Wooster Collective. While you’re at it, look at some of the beautiful self-published books they’ve produced.

As for me, I’m starting work on a project about a Roma slum here in Belgrade that is soon to be torn down. Its a complicated thing, and if I can continue to get access (there were complications this week) I’ll be sure to tell more soon. But I’m thinking of the ripe possibilities of turning pictures of ‘the invisible’ (most in Belgrade have no idea what life is like in there) into something that confronts the public more directly. Mm, I’m excited about this.

Please, if you’ve experimented with this or seen other work that has, send it my way!

Let’s have a look at an interesting monologue, in the form of a letter to a friend of his, from the always engaging Asim Rafiqui on his wonderful young blog The Spinning Head about What Ails Photojournalism.

Photos are not journalism. Journalism is an endeavor with a commitment to communal and social responsibility. It is a public service with the objective of keeping check on abuses of power, the rights of the individual, the protection of the well fare of the community, the exposure of the illegal, the tracking down of the downright unjust. I said this before in a lightstalker post, journalism will rely on amateurs the day it itself become amateurish. It is not multimedia that will save journalism or photojournalism, but a commitment to quality and a commitment back to the public service. We are far from this realization.

There is a lot in here, and while he admits that it “was written in a single breath and hence carries within it errors of insight and judgment” I definitely agree that it “remains interesting enough”. He calls to task the whole culture and ‘machine’ of publishing and photojournalism. “There is another underlying reason why photojournalism is dying, and that we are still not prepared to confront. The reason is that most photographers and photojournalists are purveyors of cliches and repetitive, predictable stories.”; he calls for innovation in both our stories and our way of storytelling. Culture all around us is moving forward and evolving through new media and at new speed. What has been good (W Eugene Smith-type) remains so, but it is not enough … innovation must take place, the same in any field.

Not to quote too much (just go read the whole thing, it is worth your time and I’d love to hear the different reactions it is sure to bring up in our diverse readership), but this seems to me to hit directly on the point. As a photographer banging his head against walls trying to get stories produced I’ve gotten to the point where I really am taking into consideration what kind of story each publication would want to see by looking at what they’ve done before and exporting it. In some sense I’m honestly trying to find the cliche that will mesh with an editor’s preconceived notions of what is happening here, just to sell a picture. Its not what I want or why I became a photographer, but somehow it is becoming ingrained as ‘how its done’:

We have lost our love of the story. We are no longer telling interesting stories. In fact it could be argued that photojournalism today is basically middle class voyuerism. It carries with it the stifling and infantile morality of a middle brow suburban family and attempts to deliver ’shock’ stories to titilate them into watching. Or it just reduces to historical and charter-tour cliches stories that could be rich, complex and eye-opening.

Just look at National Geographic – if its Iran, its Persipolis. if its Bolivia, its the Antiplano. if its Pakistan, its the Taliban. Tiresome, boring, repetitive, predictable, uncreative, uninteresting stories about some of the most interesting and evolving countries in the world! Even the formulas and mechanics of photojournalism are boring and predictable. This magazine refuses to go and explore places in new ways, to produce angles that are creative and interesting, and that challenge our thinking and ideas about a place. Is Persipolis really all that one has to stay about Iran today? This incredibly complex and incredibly interesting country is left silenced! (sic)

As someone who just recently moved to Belgrade in part to put a lot of my time and focus on the Balkans it kills be to be told again and again, by editors and photographers alike, that this “story is over”, that I missed my chance to photograph here now that the wars are over. Are you kidding me? There is so much happening here, worthwhile stories around almost every single corner that I’m convinced would be engaging and interesting for audiences if there were presented to them. But I’m told that people aren’t interested, that they’ve moved on. Or is that the editor’s inference? I honestly think that if you make an interesting story with interesting photographs, the readers and viewers will come. The disconnect is that access to viewers, and while plenty of us are trying to publish our work ourselves (see below) there is a realistic gap in time and technology to gaining a critical mass of viewers. It will take time, yes, but we’re not being helped very much. I think Rafiqui would agree that our community itself is stifling these possible stories, forcing us to look for the exotic or sensational (or worse, “newsworthy”), in other words, the cliche. Yes there is news, and sensational exotic moments and places in our world. But that is so very far removed from most anyone’s daily life and I really don’t think our interest is limited to this. A ‘day in the life’, no, but a creative look at something we’ve never seen before is worth much more of our time, and I think our audience would agree with their own attention span, than another look at something we’ve seen time and again. I’d ask what came first, the audience for celebrity-based, false-exotic ‘journalism’ or the publications that provided it? I think there must be some element of the top-down here, something must have started with the publications and their editorial decisions.

Not all of Rafiqui’s arguments are new, but I give him credit for putting this all together into an essay and not being afraid to really call out the mainstream institutions (publishers, festivals, editors and photographers) for their assumed wisdom and conservatism toward moving beyond antiquated traditions and conventions of storytelling and of what is an ‘acceptable’ story in the first place (see Part II/III especially). They and our peers don’t understand what is happening (not that I, Scott or Asim necessarily do either, as Rafiqui rightly admits at the end of his piece: no one knows the future. But I think we can agree with some thought that there are wrong paths and bad ideas to be following right now). Conventional wisdom and the most popular outlets and photographers are doing us wrong; that is the problem. It is up to individuals and small teams to push new models forward, and we’re all on our own for now.

And people are doing it. I’ll start from this old post of mine titled Doing It Yourself where I look at Alec Soth’s observation about Magnum needing to become its own producer to survive. A precursor to this discussion and Rafiqui’s piece I think. Along these lines look at the Luceo Images crew who are pulling things in tight and developing their own systems for distribution, promotion and funding. Of course Magnum Photos is actually the best example in my mind of attacking these issues head-on with their growing social networking (Facebook, Twitter, blogging) and the development of their Educational arm alongside their existing Cultural wing to expand their brand and marketing opportunities with partnerships with media-related companies like HP, Photoshelter and Blurb to create a series of Grants (Burn) and Awards (Expression Award) for photographers outside of Magnum while retaining some funding for parallel opportunities with their own photographers. Old school business tactics I’m sure (I’d have to ask my brother the business major…) but innovative all the same in this market.

Good pictures are not enough. We all need to be smarter and more creative in how we do stories. From the very idea to the approach to funding, distributing and publishing the pictures. If we want to keep doing work that matters to us we are being forced to find a way around the current logjam. Left out on our own (M Scott and I are perfect living examples of this) we must adapt and survive somehow. There aren’t many scraps to be had from the MSM at the moment so we look elsewhere. Where to is the question, and I think Rafiqui’s astute pressure for elevated and evolved stories and storytelling is part of the answer.

And so he ends with a positive look at the coming opportunities, which is somewhat similar to Vincent LaForet’s much ballyhooed essay on Sportsshooter titled The Cloud is Falling (which I think Rafiqui calls out earlier in his piece). This is not a contradiction though: we agree that in this time of shrinking budgets we must see that there are other markets and outlets beyond the ‘old guard’ of magazines that will have potential for growth, profit and excellent work that are just now developing or are yet to. We’re thinking too narrowly. A lot of people are talking about this point right now (and Colberg follows up with another interesting post citing examples), and no one either knows or is willing to share exactly how to exploit it (with the exception of LaForet who is essentially flaunting his recent successes on his blog, especially around the ridiculously fawned over film “Reverie” that debuted last year as an example of the ‘next big thing’.. DLSRs with HD Video capability. Personally, this falls right into the sights of Rafiqui’s quote about multimedia). Scott is quite correct in pointing out that LaForet’s latest successes are not in photojournalism. There’s nothing wrong with this work, but there’s little use advocating it as a savior model for real photography. $10,000 budgets for a 5 minute video don’t come from nowhere, no matter what ridiculous music you put in it. They’re based on advertising calculations and in LaForet’s case they’re directed toward photographers themselves (is that sustainable?). These budgets don’t, and probably won’t, materialize for the stories we need to see; It is great for LaForet to be able to pursue his interests with these sponsored videos but I dare say they’re not “a public service” nor apropos to our society’s needs of finding a sustainable source of photojournalism in the future. We need to produce work that engages on its own merit.

And on multimedia not being a savior (a cry both M. Scott and I have been shouting for ages): “multimedia is merely a mechanism that can never hide the banality or predictability of a subject. It is a means to an end, but if the end if poor, no amount of flash and dash will save anything.” Scott has always said something to the effect of, ‘unless a multimedia piece has a perfect photo story coupled with perfect audio (think This American Life) the sum will be less than its parts’ and thus the multimedia would be less important, useful and worthwhile than doing just pictures or just audio.

I say this as I sit here and stare into the void – confident that I have strong new ideas, scared that no one will value them, determined that i have no choice but to step into the void itself. Your second reference about ‘tenacity’ was right on the mark. Like any field where you pursue a passion a love and a need to be free of the machinery of the capitalist, you must be prepared to pay a heavy price. Our societies do not value those who do not serve the interests of others, but merely their own whims, curiousities, loves and fears.

Amen. And good luck to us all. I know we will succeed but it will be a rough road. I am scared too that no one will value the pictures, ideas and vision I have and that I know seriously talented friends and colleagues, all of us underemployed and struggling, possess. Rough going now and for some future, but the good ideas and great stories and images will rise. I hope this is just the start of a dialogue, I know my thoughts are not fully reasoned out, and that we need to keep thinking and talking about this. Let it rip in the comments please!

Be sure to follow up with some of Asim Rafiqui’s own work. He is the 2009 winner of the Aftermath Project grant for his innovative project The Idea of India that I think is a great example of this new storytelling and distribution that he is preaching in this essay. Have a look, tell us what you think.

(And lastly, sorry if there was any funny business with double-postings or with the RSS as this went up, I was having some backside publishing problems)

Getty Images has (finally) announced the winners of the February 2009 prizes. The two big winners of the $20,000 professional grants are dvafoto favorites Alex Majoli and Paolo Pellegrin, both Italian photographers from Magnum. They are continuing large projects of theirs that we have seen previously: Majoli produced a terrific ‘Magnum in Motion’ piece of his project Requiem in Samba a year or two ago and Pellegrin’s project “Iraqi Refugees” was shown in an exhibition at Visa Pour l’Image this past year as ‘The Iraqi Diaspora’ to rave reviews. Deep congratulations to both for extremely worthy projects (be sure to read their proposals on the Getty site), I cannot wait to see more work from both.

Also announced were the first in a series of Student Grants of $5,000, to Bolivian photographer (by way of the US) Maximiliano Braun for his project “Stay With Me”. He writes, “The Getty Images grant will allow me to continue a project I began in South Africa, looking into the lives of families caring for a relative living in a vegetative state due to brain damage.” The other winner is German photographer Andy Spyra for his ongoing work in Kashmir documenting the results of the long-simmering war there. Terrific pictures.

On a side note, I’m so excited to see that Alex Majoli is shooting more editorial work again. (And that picture I posted above has long been a favorite of mine). For example, see his coverage of Pakistan, to the Russo-Georgian Conflict and most recently the latest Israel-Gaza Conflict on the Magnum site.

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

New York Look is an adjunct bi-yearly magazine from the people who bring us the (wonderful) New York magazine. They have been doing something pretty unique and cool, hiring one photographer to shoot all of the work for each issue. It started with Paolo Pellegrin in Spring 2008 and followed with Christopher Anderson in Fall 2008. The latest issue seems to be out now, and features a portfolio by Benjamin Lowy: Spring 2009.

I’ve been fascinated by this idea of taking photographers from one ‘genre’ and dropping them in to a different world since I first saw the New York Fashion Week pictures from Paolo Pellegrin and Alex Majoli from 2005 (links are to their fashion work). I actually remember hearing from a New York Magazine photo editor who said they, of course, do this very deliberately .. to get a new take on things. (Probably wouldn’t work sending a fashion-only guy to Kabul, though). These are still some of my favorite pictures by either of these photographers. I’ve always described it as something like, “you take a photographer who is used to making beautiful and challenging pictures of terrible things, and then you throw them into a situation where beautiful things are all around, you’re going to get some incredibly pretty pictures”. I think the editors at New York magazine got this entirely (hell, they introduced it to me..) and I’m very excited to see these portfolios in Look.

These two pictures from Lowy aren’t exactly representative of whole of his work for Look (go have a look to see what I mean), but they’re my favorite, and the most different from the work I had seen before. One of my complaints about all of this is.. more than most projects, I see so much overlap in the vision and feel of these three photographers covering these same fashion shows. In 2005, Pellegrin and Majoli had very similar looking work (and used very strange but nearly identical techniques of lighting). And Anderson’s (and, now, Lowy’s to a lesser extent) seem to draw direct influence from the pictures that had come from their colleagues before them. An interesting debate.. maybe they all see alike, but maybe there is now a defined style of how you shoot these things. I don’t know, I’ve never shot fashion shows..

Also, here is a link to Alec Soth on the Magnum Blog asking “Should Magnum do fashion?. It generated over a hundred responses.. and probably no answers.

And my apologies, this was a bit of a melodramatic and misleading title… I know these guys do much more than ‘war’.. in fact their most interesting and important stuff isn’t from war.

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…