After a whirlwind shoot in Shanghai yesterday, I’m leaving today for a few weeks to far western China to pursue some personal projects. Internet connection will be a problem for much of the trip, so please contact me by phone at +86-13770324102. I intend to photograph a few stories including: Tibetan New Year, snow in Xinjiang, development in Xinjiang, a Hui minority wedding, and other subjects. When I return, keep watching dvafoto for pictures. Editors, let me know if you need any pictures.

Hope you met the New Year well and that the hangovers aren’t too bad. Here’s my view from the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, where I’m hanging in a cabin with many of my best friends with great food and even better beer. And lots of snow.

I’ll be in Seattle for another two weeks and before heading back to Belgrade on the 14th of January. Safe travels everyone, I can’t wait to see more work and stories from all of you and continue developing our work here at Dvafoto. We’ve got some great changes and updates coming soon, we can’t wait to show you.

Within the last decade backpacking has literally become a global youth movement. Every year millions of young people from first world countries travel the planet taking with them nothing more then their backpacks. They are hoping to find freedom, cultural exchanges and a lot of fun. It has become a tourist industry on its own that has developed its very own touristic infrastructure. In some places like Ko Pha-Ngan in Thailand, Arambol in Goa or Vang Vieng in Laos individual or alternative travel is no longer existing. It has been transfered into a different kind of packaged tour.”

              -Jörg Brüggemann / Same Same But Different

Jörg Brüggemann’s “Same Same But Different” tackles a subject I’ve never seen photographed before. Sure, Martin Parr’s covered tourism and others have covered the effects of travel in local communities, but this treatment of backpacking and its many idiosyncrasies feels like new ground. The viewer is presented with a world not in its natural state, but instead created, produced, for consumption by wealthy, overwhelmingly white travelers looking to experience the third world or The Orient. Phrases such as “third world” and “The Orient” seem particularly apt, both because of the baggage they entail and the sense of separation they impart. Truly, the travelers in these pictures are entirely out of place, and yet they’re surrounded by all the comforts of home. The “foreign” has been rendered familiar. A guest house in India might as well be one in Thailand or Laos; the experience remains the same.

I won’t lie and say these pictures don’t hit close to home. As an American transplanted to China, the scenes in Brüggemann’s essay are all too familiar. I’d hesitate to condemn the travelers as much as The Spinning Head, or perhaps even Brüggemann, but I understand the queasiness. Travel by itself isn’t necessarily suspect. If it were, there’d be moral concerns with leaving our apartments or houses. Confronting the unfamiliar is a necessary and vital component of daily life, and travel is an extension of that. But, the complete destruction of communities and traditions in order to cater to such a widespread phenomenon of travel as backpacking is deserving of criticism and investigation (especially as most backpackers espouse some variant of a wish for spiritual discovery when traipsing around foreign climes).

A great story confronting difficult questions.

(via Asim Rafiqui)

(And my bet is that the title comes from a particularly common piece of so-called “Tinglish,” which I’ve heard, despite having never been to Thailand.)

I’ll be in New York City for the next week for a full (and getting fuller!) schedule of meetings with editors at a variety of publications and organizations. Editors, fellow photographers, please let me know if you would like to get together between Sept. 7 and Sept. 12. I can be reached at (917) 512-3473.

Finishing a long day of editing, toning and FTPing here in Prishtina. The anniversary last night was fun and I think pictures are alright, not sure what they’re worth though. Time will tell, it always takes some weeks to process, especially with my stuff here in Kosovo. If you’re curious you can go look at Invision Images who will be marketing the work in the coming days and probably will continue to post stuff on their website. There is a small selection of my pictures from Mitrovica over the weekend.

Of course, spending a long day on the computer provides ample time to dig through the RSS reader and find cool things. So here are a few things I recommend strongly: Concientious interviews Mikhail Subotzky, Photo-based Street Art in Seattle posted by SLOG, and two from BAGnews: Smart analysis of Suau’s WPP winning picture (be sure to read the comments) and “I faced the enemy and lived!” a tragic story and photo from a soldier who committed suicide.

More later…

Sunday morning (real early) I left cozy Belgrade in the pretty snow for Kosovo. Spent the first 36 hours in Mitrovica and I am now in Prishtina for a couple of days. The first anniversary of Kosovo’s independence is Tuesday. Will probably be here in Prishtina for the festivities…

Big thanks to Giulio Petrocco who let me crash on his couch last night (honestly, the best place I’ve slept in a month). Giulio’s an Italian photographer who is living in North Mitrovica with the Serbs, and he cooks some great pasta.

Will be very busy next few days but will try to write about what is happening here. Probably not too many pictures since we’re trying to publish them ‘for real’ all around… Ciao!

I’m in Washington DC now hanging in the backroom of my friend Noah Devereaux’s apartment, where he is very generously letting me crash for the few days of this Obama Inauguration. While not on assignment per se I am working with Michael Shaw over at BagNewsNotes to provide some ‘exclusive’ images for his analysis and consumption, be sure to head over there to see what he is up to. As well, I’m feeding my European agents with the work and who knows, maybe a US publication or two will pick something up. Certainly, it is very nice just to be in DC for this event … this is definitely something we’ll all be recounting years from now.

On Saturday, 12 hours after getting into New York, I was in a two-car convoy of photographers heading south on the I95 through New Jersey chasing after the Obama “Freedom Train”.

We first caught him and Vice President-Elect Joe Biden giving a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. I was able to glimpse Obama from a distance (hooray) but the work was ‘on the fringes’ as Alan Chin would say and we all shot in the crowd. The first few images are from there. Then it was a mad rush back to the car and back on the road, trying to beat Obama to Edgewood, Maryland where he would make a ‘whistle-stop’ and roll through a small town’s Amtrak station to wave. Luckily we did make it to the city in time, about an hour south from Wilmington, and were able to shoot some nice scenes of a very diverse crowd waiting in the cold (maybe 15-20* F?) to see the new President roll in to town.

Then it was another rush to get to Baltimore, but here we lost the scent and were only able to photograph a gathering of people watching a Jumbotron of Obama’s speech on the Inner Harbor. After, a leisurely and exhausted drive into DC.

Sunday was the first official inaugural event, a giant star-laden concert at the Lincoln Memorial that had crowds stretched over a mile away past the Washington Monument and onto the national Mall. Lots of pictures here, interesting people crammed into an interesting space. Security prescence has been interesting … sometimes you see lots of police or troops, other times not at all.

More soon I hope .. will be heading out shortly to see what is happening in town on the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. The big stuff will be tomorrow though when Obama is sworn in at 11am. Still don’t have a real plan for how I’ll be covering that..

With the next interview in our ongoing series we’re talking to photographer Donald Weber who is based in Eastern Europe and is with the VII Network. You should quickly see why he and I have connected, given our overlapping interests with a certain part of the world. Many of the questions I asked, frankly, were bent to my own personal interest in what it means to move halfway around the world to photograph stories you’re personally passionate about. I’m sure some of you can relate. But more importantly to most of you, he is producing interesting and important work much on his own terms and is rising his profile, and has had an interesting life so far. And has interesting things to say about what he is doing.

Amongst many accomplishments Weber has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lange-Taylor Prize and a World Press Photo award. He was a 2006 winner of the Photolucida Critical Mass review which just published his book Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl (which I previously mentioned here). Before becoming a photographer, he worked as an architect with the world-renowned Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. For his full biography have a look at the about page on his website.

What is your background, in interests and academics? Where do you come from?
Well, Canadian, from Toronto, downtown, which may have influenced my outlook. Taking the subway at 12 years old to school everyday definitely gives an impression on a youngster, glad I was able to see what I did. Anyway, my academic background is not so academic, I studied at an alternative high school that offered an intensive arts education, from the age of 16 until graduation in grade 13, I studied art all day everyday. We had four hours of life drawing two days a week – that would be nudes, thus lots of people were jealous of us, plus an 8 hour day of art history and then we would major and minor in two artistic practices. I wanted to be artist, not really sure what that was or how I would do it, but initially that was my goal. I then went on to study at art college, the Ontario College of Art & Design, where I majored in – I forget the complex phrasing of the subject, something like Art and the Environment. Basically, making massive intrusions into the public landscape. Great! But I totally wasted my time, as far as I’m concerned, education is wasted on the young! It was a conflict in my youth of what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it. I loved the idea of creating something, anything, I didn’t care how as long as I could. Then I had this interest in photography, and in particular photojournalism, which went against all the grains of an artistic education that I was brought up on.
So it was an interesting education, for almost 10 years I was schooled in very sophisticated forms of visual education that certainly influences me to this day. The practicalities may have changed, but the essence of being visual are always the same. Line, shape, form, colour, mood, tone, conceptual processes, etc., are all linked at the very core, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to have had an education that grounded these roots into my young head.

Tell me about your time with architecture.
Well architecture came about rather haphazardly. in order to understand my time within that field, you have to understand first how I ended up there; it’s a rather convoluted process but one that is inherent as to my position today.

Back to my high schooling. As I stated before, I had an interest in both art and photojournalism. My passion, in my final year, was won out with photojournalism. It was in November of that year before graduation where in Canada we make our applications to post secondary institutions. I wanted to apply to two – Rochester Institute of Technology for PJ, and a smaller college just outside of Toronto for a basic three year photography course. I asked my photography (and I quote verbatim the following conversation):

Me: Robert, which school do you think I should apply to? RIT or Sheridan?
Robert (the teacher): What? Why would you apply to either? You suck as a photographer!

Thus, I literally brought my cameras home and put them in a drawer, not to be touched for about 10 years. It was then I decided to find a different path. I replaced photography with ceramics; my mother was not so pleased. Anyway, while studying at OCAD, I developed an interest in architecture, planning and landscape design and was captured by the writings and designs of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. So, I set my sights on working for him. When I graduated in 1996, I headed overseas to Rotterdam where his practice was based, and promptly got a job, precisely because I was not a trained architect. I worked there for about three years. It was a great experience, but certainly soul crushing. I found architecture to be a rather drab profession and nearly impossible to do anything of interest, save for the exception of Rem Koolhaas and a few others. But I learned about ideas, how to think in a conceptual manner and to find ways to bring those ideas into fruition. It also taught me on more practical levels things about budgeting and planning and just being professional; things I think we take for granted that all go into the realities of being a working photographer.

Anyway, it was not a highlight of my life but I think a necessary step.

What brought you to photography? Was there a specific event that made you say “I am going to be a photographer”?
Yes, very specific event! My whole life has these cascading elements that when all put together certainly illuminate what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I was born in 1973, thus when the events of the late 80’s and early 90’s came around, I was at the ripe age to start taking notice. For me, these were the most historical and important times of my generation. The collapse of communism, the events in Tiananmen Square, the first Iraq War. These were all events that were shaped and played out in magazines and television. I was a teenager and just discovering more than my backyard, it was an awakening physically, mentally, socially, everything, for me. I remember clearly watching hundreds of thousands of Eastern European refugees fleeing their countries for elsewhere, the Wall collapsing, the Ceaucescu’s being executed, Boris Yeltsin on top of a tank. All these events were seared into my mind, and those events shaped what I wanted to do with my life. I had always been aware of news images, but never before did I connect that somebody actually went out there and made those pictures until I was older. It was a massive lightbulb that went off and I wanted to be a part of it.

Anyway, that was event number one. The second event was my diversion to architecture for awhile; I listened to closely what my high school teacher had to say; never again! Anyway, it was while I was living in Europe that I remembered what photography was all about. I wanted to remember living in Europe, so I bought a camera – it was great! I couldn’t put it down, all I did was take photos. Crappy, but they were photos. It was then that I said okay – I’m going to be a photographer – but how was a much more difficult question. It wasn’t until March of 2000, a few days before I was to leave on a year long trip to ride my motorcycle across Africa (something I had previously done in 1998) where the jump was finally made. I had just quit my job as an architect, not really knowing what to do. I was taking the bike out for one last tune up spin when I got hit by a car. I just remember sliding across the hood of some old Chevy, sliding on my back seeing my crumpled bike and thinking, okay, now’s the time to be a photographer. So I never did the bike trip to Africa; I “became” a photographer. That summer I got an internship at the Toronto Sun, a tabloid.

Vorkuta, Russia: Vorkuta, regional centre of one of the largest concentrations of Gulag camps in the USSR. Founded by prisoners, the region is populated by descendants of former zeks and prison authorities.
What were your early interests as a photographer? Influences?
I don’t really know, for me it was such a long battle to finally start taking pictures that influences and interests were a secondary thought! But, as a teenager, photojournalism was a very powerful force in me. I remember Kenneth Jarecke’s burned Iraqi soldier from the first Iraq War, Chris Morris’ Panama photos, Don McCullin – it was important because what they were photographing was important – and that was important to me! So I’d say my interests were in the realm that photography could act as a document; the total opposite of my art education. to me art had become superfluous, something dilettantes dabbled in; it had lost it’s meaning. Photography was the opposite. As I grew, my more literal influences was the photographer Raymond Depardon, still is. To me he has managed to encapsulate perfectly what a photographer is and should be. Bridge influences and ideas from all facets and present them in his own manner. That is something I strive to do, to take what I see but also to take what I feel and make my own story of it.

My interests are always morphing; there was a time when I thought Chris Morris could do no wrong (still do). But my art training definitely influenced me in the way I see; not what I see, but how I interpret that. I used to really enjoy the old masters and specifically religious paintings of the 15 – 17 centuries. So much blood, red, white, gold, colour, pain; totally terrified me.
Read on »

We’re really close to posting the long-awaited Donald Weber interview but do to delays beyond our control we’re going to wait until after Christmas to post. In the meantime here are a couple of pictures from my trip to Florida last week, little consolation I know!

and two of my brother in our neighborhood with the snow that has been falling all week

Happy Holidays, if you’re celebrating any these days

Peter Terzian is writing about his experience in Martin Parr’s School of Life workshop on the Isle of Wight for Slate.com. Three parts have been published so far, and I’m not sure that there will be any more. Click onward to read Learning To Take Photographs the Martin Parr Way, Welcome to Parr-World, and The Importance of Being Earnest, for a bit of background on the School of Life, about which the New York Times has also written.

(via The Click)