I’ve been traveling and working a lot lately around Serbia in the last month, hence my lack of interesting posts, and I am taking off in a few hours for the Visa pour L’Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France. I’ll then be back in the United States (Seattle and New York City) from September 6 through October 24, before returning to Belgrade. If you’re in Perpignan and want to meet up, be sure to send me an email or track me down. Same if you’re in the States.

I also wanted to share a couple of places where my work has been published recently:
The New York Times Lens Blog published a feature about my project in Bosnia “This Time Tomorrow” to coincide with the 15th Anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in July. Please have a look at the nice piece that James Estrin put together.

The Sunday Times Magazine in London also published three pages of my project “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”, about the destruction of a Roma community in Belgrade. The article and web gallery are behind their paywall but you can see clips on my website.

I look forward to getting back to regular posting and sharing some of what I’ve been up to soon. Happy end of summer everyone!

CAMERA, CAMERA – Trailer from malcolm murray on Vimeo.

Malcolm Murray’s documentary, “Camera, Camera,” fascinates and disturbs me. The film explores the increasing phenomenon of travelers with cameras invading remote areas or cultural events. I’ve seen the situation hundreds of times, and been part of it more often than I’d like to say. Those times, the only thing to do is put down the camera and go drink a cup of tea.

This project also reminds me of Jörg Brüggemann’s “Same Same But Different,” which we wrote about previously.

The film is currently on the festival circuit, but hopefully it’ll be coming to a theater or dvd player near you soon.

 

(via NYT Lens blog a while back, but I’ve just gotten to watch it.)

I’m in Busan, South Korea, for a shoot for a couple of days. Can’t share any details about that, but if you’re in the area (I know we have a few readers in South Korea) or need photos from the area, please get in touch by email or my local number: +82 (0)10-6884-1024. I’ll be in Ulsan a bit, and Seoul, though not for long.

My timing is great, I finally find a computer to use while my laptop is out of commission and I end up heading on the road immediately. Sorry again for my absence here over the last while, it has been rough going with internet and computer access since I’ve been back in Serbia. Big thanks to M Scott for keeping excellent thoughts and links going. I promise to work extra hard when I’m back in town with a working computer.

I am on my way to Sarajevo and other locales in Bosnia this weekend to continue my work on a project I began last year, called This Time Tomorrow, looking at the present stagnation and possible futures for Bosnia and Herzegovina. I’ll share the next installment when I am back in Belgrade.

But I’m not leaving you with nothing, as I will unveil the first installment of a long-awaited new section of dvafoto called the Book Club very soon and an interview with photographer Molly Landreth to follow. Stay tuned.

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!