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The Digital Economy Bill, what's yours is ours

Oh dear... my friend Tony Sleep over at Copyright Action has written up the latest litany on the soon-to-be law on orphan works, also known as the Digital Economy Bill. It does not make for cheerful reading, as the UK government seeks to a) legalise the commercial use of unattributable photographs, and b) ban photography in public places, for reasons of 'data protection'.

It's a dark day for photographers and photojournalists indeed, read the full article here.

Photographer Not Terrorist

Last Saturday about 2000 of us had a ball. The demonstration organised by campaign group I'm a Photographer, not a Terrorist took place in Trafalgar Square, the epicentre of the dispute between professional photographers and increasingly restrictive policies applied by city councils and the police, had more the character of an arthouse happening.

Although the issues at stake are fundamental and important, namely press freedom and the right to take pictures in public spaces, the demo was above all fun. Recent high profile cases of police harassment and the use of anti-terror legislation to stop photographers from going about their perfectly legal business of taking pictures in public spaces have highlighted the need for protest. Luckily we live in a country where this is possible without repercussions, and I damn sure hope it stays that way. It did strike me as odd that the usually overzealous swath of 'heritage wardens' and  community support officers were notably absent during the gathering... I wonder why?

The box under the bed - photographic beginnings

Courtesy of uRetouch, I have finally managed to put up a retouched and edited gallery of my oldest pictures, the very precious black and white collection of daily life imagery from Bangladesh. These are my photographic beginnings, the first frames I ever took with any kind of purpose in mind, the first manifestations of the long and painful process of seeing images in everyday situations. Some are hit and miss, some I still marvel at, incredulous and fascinated with the detail, the light, composition. These pictures are very dear to me, they feel timeless and I can still recollect the smells, noises and moods of the days during which I took them.

This is now more than 16 years ago, and yet it feels like they just happened yesterday. Often, I remember the unparalleled access and availability of time (neary two years) that I enjoyed while making these, way before turning into a professional photographer. Thus I believe these photos would not be possible today, given usually tight deadlines and clearly defined subjects. All the more reason to see the slideshow.

100 today !

A happy birthday to Luise Rainer, a German film actress who was the first woman to win two Academy Awards, and the first person to win them back to back. Born on January 12th, 1910, her career spans nearly 70 years, the cusp of her Hollywood stardom having been in the late 1930s. Rainer later commented that by winning two consecutive Oscars, "nothing worse could have happened to me", as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill.

Well, today the grand dame of the cinema is celebrating her 100th birthday and we visited her the day before. Despite the frailties of old age, she is a mesmerising, energetic and still somewhat theatrical lady who deeply impressed me with her vitality, optimism and sharp view of the world. It's almost impossible to imagine that she has witnessed an entire century, and most of the personalities within it first hand - I was literally speechless in her presence. Thus after photographing her, I feel grateful for the opportunity, kindness and trust with which she met my camera.

 

Don't take my picture whilst I'm talking...

Folks, if this event is an indication of how the rest of my year is gonna go, it certainly promises to be interesting, and dare I say it? Interactive. Yesterday I photographed the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg at an event in the docklands. It's Monday morning, most people (including me) are still a little sleepy and grumbly in the face of a full work week ahead of them.

Clegg enters the stage, alone on the podium talking into his mike while two TV cameras are trained at him. The scene was interesting, and I shot a few frames before an irate producer pulled my arm and motioned me to stop. I was perplexed, as I was asked to shoot the event and put it down to over-inflated busybody egos interfering with my job at hand. So I ignored her and kept shooting though I did turn the flash off.

Later, after the interview was done, Nick Clegg walks over to me and says, feigning incredulity, that 'You don't take pictures during a TV interview'. I mumbled some half-hearted apology but said that it was worth it. Or something to that tune, anyway... We both smiled and left each other alone after that. Here's a few pictures of the encounter.

Tilting and Shifting - Part I

In November, I was blessed with a lush financial shower; Or rather, a whole bunch of late-paying clients decided to finally cough up and there was, for once, money in my account. Of course it didn't stay there for long - I'm a photographer after all, and none the wiser with money than I ever was. So I did what I always do when feeling flush: spend some !

I splashed out on a second-hand, 90mm tilt and shift lens from Canon, courtesy of my friend Adrian Arbib who has kept it in immaculate condition. It completes my set of odd lenses, as I am the proud of owner of the 24mm, 45mm, and now also the 90mm. A great set if you want to experiment with quirky portraits, impossibly shallow (or deep, i.e. shifted) focal planes, straight vertical lines, and landscapes that look like they're from Legoland. I have only started exploring the possibilities, but find the first results worthy of a blog post. What do you think?

Fire on the beach

Perhaps a strange tradition, but a modern tradition nonetheless. After the usual Christmas debauchery of too much turkey, cookies and other delights, a group of people gathers at the south beach in Eckernfoerde on the Baltic Sea coast to light a fire. They drink mould wine and bake 'stockbrot', or twist bread over the open flames. It's a pleasant and delicious affair only marginally thwarted by the cold wind and snowfall that sets in as the night progresses. Nevermind, we all had a good time!

Mr Christmas

This blog post is somewhat apt for the season: a portrait assignment of a somewhat excentric English character, the self-proclaimed Mr Christmas. Andy Park, a 45-year-old divorced electrician, has been celebrating Christmas full time, i.e. every day since July 1994.

Apart from going to work in the morning, he consumes a roast turkey, champagne and toasts to the Queen's speech punctually at 3 pm every day, Sherry in hand. Over the years, he has consumed 5000-odd turkeys, nearly 118,000 brussel sprouts, and about 5000 bottles of Moet champagne. An odd diet, and a bit one-sided for my taste. But nevermind what one might think of the lunacy of daily Christmas celebrations, Mr Park was very open and cooperative and let me photograph him pretty much any way I liked. So here goes a small slideshow of our visit.

Blitzing Sarah Jessica Parker

Yes folks, *that* Sarah Jessica Parker. Y'know, the one a million of girls want to be, the same one a million guys would love to date. Y'know, the one who played Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, and who is in town promoting her latest movie where she plays somebody else I can't remember just now.

Our shoot was - as always with these showbiz interview gigs - sweet and brief. She was tired but talkative, the PR and studio people - as usual - very busy and above all, important. So I got my 60 seconds, perhaps a little more, and my client the pictures. Everybody happy, and that's the main thing - and here a few to make you happy...

Darling cut the crap

Last night I had the pleasure of working for my favourite environmental organisation again. This time, Greenpeace projected a message onto Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London.

At approximately 3am, on the eve of the government's pre-budget report, Greenpeace added to the mounting calls to re-evaluate Trident replacement by sending a 100 foot high message to Chancellor Alistair Darling, projected onto Big Ben. The projection reads 'Darling….Cut the crap' with an image of a Trident missile with its £97 billion life-time price tag.

Back into the corporate world

I've barely returned from far too long in a tiny village in the hills in eastern Europe, and I am ushered into one of the world's largest media companies HQ. The brief: a clean, sympatico portrait of its editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger of ThomsonReuters.

It's a small world. Ten years ago, I worked for the then wire service Reuters News Pictures, and David ran the Americas operations. Now I am freelance, and he is the overall boss and a committed journalist with an open mind set towards the future. We traded some names, I found out about some of my old colleagues' whereabouts and David was kind enough to give me the email address of my former boss. Saying hello cannot hurt, and I must admit that a certain - albeit very slight - nostalgia has crept in somewhere. After all, this is the place where I learned my trade, and I am forever grateful for that opportunity.

So yes, back to the picture. The room was practically dark, but the background of the photo had to be crisp white. So applying a little trickery in the form of a new photoshop layer could not be avoided, no matter how over the top I set the background flash bouncing off the white wall behind David. The shoot was uncomplicated, speed and accuracy was of the essence, just like in the old wire service days.

From autumn to autumn

Believe me, it was necessary to take a break. After the Canada trip, I briefly stopped in London to catch up with some admin and submission work before heading for the hills in Vysocina, Czech Republic. It was a good opportunity for a respite, and a chance to deepen the research for my second book project.

Incidentally, I arrived just as the colours were changing to their autumnal hues, the leaves started falling and cold winds began to chill the country. A perfect time for some quiet landscape work, although I must admit it felt like deja-vu in short succession after the Boreal forest assignment. 

Anyway, I am very pleased with the results - they are by no means exhaustive, and there were far too many opportunities missed during my trip, but a respite means just that: letting it be, at least a little.

Autumn in the Boreal

Folks, life is beautiful sometimes...

After the rather hectic series of actions, I have had the unique opportunity to travel for five days around the Peace River area of northern Alberta. I am accompanied by Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a woman of the Lubicon Cree First Nation as we photograph her homeland. We had already met during my visit in the summer, and this time our mission was far more personal to her: documenting parts of the Boreal forest that are threatened by the encroaching tarsands developments. In essence, our aim is to show what is here and worth protecting.

The Peace River region holds significant tarsands deposits and large tracts of land have assigned (oil company) owners who hold exploration rights to their respective 'blocks'. Thus the gradual destruction of the forest is a fait accompli, however it has yet to happen. So this was a good chance to roam around, venture off the main roads and see for ourselves what sights the forest had in store for us. Our hope is that by showing its beauty, we may help persuade people to help preserve it.

The weather was not being too favourable with us: most days, it snowed, skies were overcast and sunlight only maked rare appearances. As a result, the moments during which it all came together were even more magical, as the beauty and richness of tones and colours sprang to full view only during those few sunlit moments. Here is a selection of images...

Tarsands actions

Hey folks, apologies for the long silence - I've been to Alberta again ! Not that this actually explains very much, but things were a little hectic there, and now I've had some time to upload a small selection of images from recent Greenpeace actions on the tarsands industry. Most of them were shot by either hanging out of a wobbly helicopter, or from the perimeter shooting with a Very Long Lens. A slideshow should run underneath this text...

Alberta Tarsands - story update

A major update to the Alberta Oilsands story is now online.

I revisited the tarsands during an assignment in July 2009 and have updated the story with fresh pictures and a wider scope of the story. Full edits are available in the archive sets underneath the slideshow. See here.

Oyster dredging

Yes, it does get glamorous sometimes. Welcome to the annual Oyster Dredge Match in West Mersea, Essex; or rather, off the coast of Essex, obviously. Oysters live in the water, and that's where it's at when it comes to harvesting these slippery delicacies.

For good measure, I went twice: once to shoot the smacks sailing during the dredge match, which is the way business has been done traditionally over here. It is proper seamanship navigating these fast sailing boats up and down a one-mile stretch of ground while dredging the bottom for oysters. In the modern world, things are done by diesel engine and hydraulic power on modern dredge boats, similar to small trawlers and fishing boats. Anyway, here's the pictures.

Oyster Dredging - Images by Jiri Rezac

Return to Sender

Picture the young man's misfortune: he's worked very hard, achieved some of the best academic results and has climbed that greasy pole of corporate banking with determination. Straight out of management school, he gets hired by Lehman Brothers who relocate him to London. Trainee position, first step on the career ladder. Two months into his job, the bank collapses in the world's largest bankruptcy case, sending shockwaves through the financial world.

Ashish Kumar, young and determined, has not given up. He has had little luck since his former employer vanished in a puff of smoke, yet every day he commutes into the city to his hired workspace, sends job applications out, keeps in touch with former colleagues and hopes for his chance. For our photo shoot, he even agrees to step into a cardboard box, a symbol of the bank's collapse last year. Wearing a fine suit, perfectly groomed, Kumar squats in the box and patiently endures my comments and flashlights. The result is good, on several counts: a week after the article's publication, he receives a job offer from Barclays Bank.

Airports

Folks, I have been on several planes, sat in a few departure lounges and don't know if it's night or day anymore. Jetlag is the professional term for the frequent traveller, but I don't care.

I am stuck at Edmonton airport, courtesy of a massive storm blowing just outside my window. Needless to say, my next plane hasn't arrived yet, or sits on the tarmac, or something. Anyway, thought I'd use my time productively and share this spectacular cloud picture with y'all.

The early bird catches the worm

Some days you have to get up extremely early to make your day worthwhile. In this case, it involved a 3 a.m. start to drive down to Hampshire. Subject of today's assignment: the River Itchen, a classic and rather beautiful chalk stream running from the South Downs to Southampton. I had done my research, geotagged various locations and flew around it on Google Earth before setting off. What could possibly go wrong?

The weather was gracious with me, and the mild, misty morning light worked very well for portraying one of England's beauty spots. See the collection here:

Occupying a Chimney

Life can be exciting sometimes. My latest assignment was to document the occupation by Greenpeace activists of the smoke stack of the Enel-owned power plant in Brindisi, southern Italy. We spent three days camping on the top, and my job included abseiling off the 200-metre structure to photograph the climbers painting a slogan on its side. Beats going to the office, I can tell you...

There are plenty of things which would be worth saying about those rather intense three days which just finished yesterday, but I prefer to keep those words for anecdotes to be shared in person at a later date. However, one thing surprised all of us upon being arrested by the Italian authorities. Their head of Police congratulated us for the action and gave us a bottle of Grappa as a souvenir ;-)

Occupying a Chimney - Images by Jiri Rezac

The Charles Parsons

We were waiting for several weeks before the coal freighter Charles Parsons appeared in our sights. Greenpeace had decided to up the ante and protest against fresh coal being delivered to the infamous power station Kingsnorth where various protests had taken place in the past.

Covering this event involved not only a lot of patience, but also strength and persistence as we spent nearly 30 hours in an inflatable from beginning to end. Encountering rough waves, cold, sleep deprivation and also police keen to arrest us, this job was out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, the boys in blue did confiscate a sizeable amount of the photos I produced that night, and here are some of those they didn't get their lawful hands on. I hope this gives you an idea...

Charles Parsons - Images by Jiri Rezac

Those interview jobs

Sometimes they all come at once: interview portraits, for different clients, with different briefs, in (naturally) different locations. The selected pictures are not necessarily the first choice of my editors, but they are mine. So here they are. All these (and many more) were taken in the space of several days in early June, apologies for late posting. Life has been rather hectic at Rezac towers.

First, we have Michel Parmigiani, president of Parmigiani Watches, Geneva, Switzerland photographed during an interview in a London black cab.

Then we have Reza Aslan, a scholar on Islamic religion and author, photographed during a rather brief intermezzo at Russel Square before he was due to give a speech.

And lastly, the eminent historian Timothy Garton-Ash, photographed for a lead story on European politics following the UK's EU election results.

Guerrilla Gardening

We are back in Sipson, Harlington and Harmondsworth - the three villages threatened with extinction should the controversial plans to build Heathrow's third runway go ahead. After Airplot, it was now time for the locals to get creative and participate in some creative gardening schemes. Greenpeace teamed up with top garden designer Tom Hoblyn, Guerrilla Gardener Richard Reynolds, a bunch of activists of all kinds of persuasions and many local residents to give some of the plants from the Chelsea Flower Show a second lease of life...

Empty Docklands

As the layout stage of my first book, the Empty London project draws to a close, I heeded some advice and went and shot the docklands whilst I had a chance: between 3 and 5 am on a Sunday morning, the only time that nobody seems to be around. It is private property and therefore I had to get a permit. Kindly issued by the Canary Wharf press office, my permission to take pictures was granted for a whole of 30 minutes, between 4 and 4:30 am. Guess who showed up at 4:33 a.m.?

Yep, you guessed it - a bored security guard. In less than friendly terms, he asked for my piece of paper granting me permission and promptly proceeded to tell me that my 'time is up'. Would you believe it? I mean - picture the scene - the place is deserted, nobody anywhere, zip, nada, niente, except for this guy ushering me on because of a misprint on a piece of paper. As if taking a picture after 4:30 a.m. would serve a different purpose than one taken during the time allowed... No doubt I have malevolent intentions.

I realise he's only doing his job, but I thought that this sort of moronic, mechanic acting had only been possible in Nazi Germany. Anyway, it all ended amiably, and here's the results - some of these will find their way into my first book, to be published shortly.