Philip Jones Griffiths | (c) Alice Smeets | Used with Permission

Tomorrow marks the 3-year anniversary of the passing of Philip Jones Griffiths, one of the leading photojournalists of the 20th Century. Born in the small town of Rhuddlan, in Wales, Philip became a member of Magnum Photos in 1971 and was most famous for his work in Vietnam, most notably for his book Vietnam Inc., a seminal piece of photojournalistic war reporting on the Vietnam War which was credited as helping change the tide of western opinion on the conflict.

Philip was one of my heroes. It’s not often that people get to meet their heroes. It is less often that they ultimately can be able to call them a friend. I am lucky that I can, if only for a short period of time. On this anniversary, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about my time with this inspiring photographer and man.

Vietnam Inc.

I first discovered Philip’s work in 2003, whilst undertaking a 1-month internship at Magnum, in their London office. I spent my brief internship filing slides and cataloguing prints. It wasn’t glamorous but I had fortuitously gotten the job when I rang Magnum by phone to see if they had any internships. I was fresh out of studying a Zoology degree and I was looking for any chance to learn about photojournalism. Another intern had just cancelled and they asked me if I could start two days later. I jumped at the chance.

As I stood there filing slides, I became distracted however by the bookshelves which contained many of the photographers’ books. One of the first books I picked up was Vietnam Inc. The book took my breath away. I had never realised the real power of photojournalism until I picked up this book. Leafing through the pages, every image captivated me. Philip’s witty and intelligent captions intrigued me and brought about another level of relevance and importance to these images. I was entranced.

In 2004, I was invited back to Magnum to undertake their 1-year paid internship. This was a wonderful year, which allowed me to spend time with many of the wonderful staff and great photographers. I was most excited though when the opportunity arose for me to meet and spend time with Philip, whose work I had been pouring over since my first encounter with Vietnam Inc. the previous year.

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Africa Through a Lens | BBC

Came across a very interesting article on the BBC website this morning titled “Africa through a Lens”, that I wanted to share with you and spread the message about. According to the article…

“Thousands of old photographs from across Africa – as seen by British colonial staff stationed there – have been digitised by The NationalArchives and put online, in the hope that the public can help identify some of the people, places and customs captured on film.”

There’s a 4 minute slideshow which runs through the pictures with a commentary by presenters on BBC Radio 4. It’s well worth 4 minutes of your time.

Some of the images reminded me of the work of the great George Rodger, one of the founding members of Magnum (under-rated and overlooked a lot, in my opinion) and his work in Africa. You can view his profile on the Magnum site here.

Inside a Photographer's Notebook | Images (c) Steve McCurry / Magnum Photos

<<Return to the Learning Zone I haven’t done one of these posts for a while, so thought it was about time I shared another page from my notebook. If you haven’t seen the previous posts on this, you can head here and here to see them. The concept is simple. When I was beginning in photography I compiled a notebook of pictures, phrases, poems, sayings etc. that inspired me. I did so that when I was out shooting and I maybe had a down moment, or was lacking inspiration, I could turn to it to help me get going again.

The above page are pictures by the legendary Magnum and National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. I chose them because for me they represented the exoticism of the places he photographs and I wanted to be reminded of the dynamics of a photo that you could create using objects within a frame (see pic on left) and the power of a simple, well-lit portrait (see pic on right).

At the time, I believe I was reading a book by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. I was completely captured by how he wrote about life and losing love in Japan. One small haiku that stuck with me was the following:

“furin ya, koenaki kaze wa, uta wa seru”

The translation, although not literal I believe, was interpreted as:

“alone, the wind has no voice, but when it moves through the wind chimes, it sings”

For me at that time, the photographer became the wind and the camera the wind chimes. I liked that idea very much and wanted to remember it.

A sandstorm in China's central Ningxia Province. 2009

As many followers of my work and my blog will know, much of my work falls within the category of environmental photography. As talks begin in Copenhagen today, on the immediate future plans of our governments to tackling climate change, it seemed appropriate to write a special blog post on photographing climate issues in China. In between the text are some of my favourite images from my work on climate change here in China.

A lone chimney stack on the outskirts of Baoding, China's first carbon-positive city. 2009

It seems that photographing climate issues have become quite a trendy topic recently. Magnum photographer Martin Parr recently described it as “as hip as it gets” in a recent blog post (via/ the excellent Duckrabbit, who do sterling work on Climate issues in Bangladesh, by the way). This is all unsurprising really. Climate change is the story of our generation and it’s a bandwagon that everyone should be jumping on. Our responsibility as photographers comes with truly understanding the issues we are photographing and being clear in the message that we are trying to convey with our pictures.

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Myself (left), Paul Hayward (center) and Alex Yallop (right)

It’s Friday night here in Beijing and rather than being out and about, I have just returned from another busy day since my return from the US last week. It always seems that being away from home for any period of time leads to a serious build up of work that needs to be caught up on upon return. As I was going through my archive tonight, I stumbled upon another photo taken from my time as an intern at Magnum Photos London office during 2004-2005. Readers of this blog in its earlier stages will know I have already posted one photo from my internship, here.

The above photo was more than likely taken on a Friday night, probably around 5 years ago now in what was the old Magnum London Office situated on Old Street in central London. Pictured above are myself (left), Paul Hayward (centre) and Alex Yallop (right) my fellow interns at the time, indulging in a beer in the office after what I am sure was a typically busy week.

Moments like this were a great part in the whole experience of being an intern at Magnum. Chances to stop and digest what we were experiencing, were fairly few and far between but the bonding experiences we felt as interns was something pretty special.

It’s also great to know that we are all still in touch and finding our own paths in photography. If you ever get the opportunity to intern at Magnum, or any other quality photo-agency for that matter, one of my biggest pieces of advise would be to grab every opportunity you are presented with. Paul Hayward (pictured center) for example, is now the head of the digital department at Magnum London after starting as an intern in the same department. Alex Yallop (pictured right) is now a professional freelancer, spending his time flitting between Europe and Asia. I, myself, have been freelancing in China since leaving Magnum and was lucky enough to be awarded Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey’s Emerging Photographer Award last year. Many other interns have gone on to be assistants of the photographers and previous intern Jonas Bendiksen is now even a member of the agency whose photographers he once made coffees for and whose phone calls he answered!

My point is, if you get an opportunity, a chance, a break etc….seize it. You never know where it may take you.

Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London. UK. 2004

A friend of mine reminded me this weekend that it was the Hindu festival of Diwali this week. In case you don’t know, Divali (or the Festival of Light as it is also called) is a celebration held over 5 days by Hindu communities throughout the world. Lights are lit, fireworks are set off and families come together for this important day.

Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London. UK. 2004

This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ comes from Diwali celebrations, not in India, but in London. I took them in 2004, during my one year paid internship at Magnum Photo’s London office. I remember having only been at Magnum for a couple of months when this festival came about. Having been inspired day-in-day-out (as I was for most of the year) I headed out onto the streets to try and capture some of the colour and fervour that surrounded the festival on the streets of the UK’s capital. I’d like to share five of those images with you taken during celebrations in 2004.

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burn.gallery.show

Yesterday and today, or today and tomorrow, depending on your time zone sees the launch of the new burn.gallery.show. This is one of the newest ventures for Burn magazine to raise funds and increase exposure for this new and exciting online photography magazine. If you have been living under a little bit of a rock in photography circles recently, then you may not have heard about Burn, the brainchild of the legendary Magnum and National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey.

I first met David in 2003 when I attended one of his workshops in Lisbon, Portugal. At that time, I was an english teacher in Japan and was experimenting with photography and looking for inspiration, hence I travelled back to Europe to participate in one of his workshops. What I found was a man of incredible passion and enthusiasm for photography that was palpably infectious. Attending his workshop was one of the most important things that happened to me, photographically. On presenting my portfolio to David, he deconstructed it in a way I had never had explained to me before. Critical of many of the photos he saw, only a couple remained the critique that he barely liked. I decided from that moment to prove him, and most importantly myself, that I was able to create good pictures.

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CHINA. Beijing. A young girl plays in the destroyed remains of hutongs (traditional homes) in central Beijing near Tiananmen Square. The hutongs are being destroyed to make way for new developments aimed at modernising the city for the 2008 Olympic Games. 2006.

This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ was taken in 2006 as part of a story that I did on the destruction of the ‘hutongs’ of central Beijing. For those of you who aren’t aware, the hutongs are a maze-like series of homes and dwellings that used to dominate central Beijing. I say used to because many of them were destroyed in the run-up to the Olympic Games as the city strived to modernise in anticipation of all the visiting eyes that would be looking upon the city.

Whilst the hutongs were arguably a backwards way of living and inefficiently used space, they represented an relatively unchanged age of Beijing that dated back hundreds of years, even as far back as when the Mongolians ruled the capital. Controversy arose also during the destruction of the hutongs as reports emerged of forced evictions and residents not being given adequate compensation.

During my first trip to Beijing in 2005 (sponsored by a grant I received after completing my internship at Magnum Photos) and during 2006, I documented the destruction that had been taking place in the center of the city. You can view more of the images here, at the website OpenDemocracy.net.

Inside a Photographer's Notebook #2 - Quotes

<<Return to the Learning Zone “I would stare at the grains of light suspended in silent space, struggling to see in my own heart. What did I want? And what did others want from me? But I could never find the answers. Sometimes I would reach out and try to grasp the grains of light, but my fingers touched nothing.” – Haruki Murakami – Norweigan Wood

“If there is something in a picture that you cannot explain, it’s a sign there is something interesting.” – Luc Delahaye

“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner.” – Alex Webb

Myself and Ileana Athanatos packaging Eve Arnold's Marilyn Monroe Prints during my internship at Magnum Photos. 2005

In 2004, I was lucky enough to to be selected for the prestigious 1-year paid internship at Magnum photos in their London office. This was  an incredibly important year for me and for the development of my knowledge about photography. It is an experience that I shall have to blog more about, as I receive regular emails from people asking me about my time at Magnum and seeking advice about applying for an internship.

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