September 25, 2009, at 11:58 pm “I miss you”, in Trinity-Bellwoods park, Toronto, April 2009
Well, time flies. The MSF show was tonight (and through Sunday) at La Petite Mort and everything went well. Turnout was great, and most of the peices sold — mine was snapped up pretty quick. My favorite peice is a photograph by my friend Pedro Isztin of his father and nephew. Check out the show if you’re bumming around Ottawa this weekend with nothing to do. The photograph above, “I miss you,” was my donation. I was in Toronto last spring for a conference. After the second day, I rode my borrowed bicycle home from the CN Tower, through Trinity-Bellwoods park, up the little hill, and along the path past the tennis courts toward College and Danforth. That is where I saw the letters stitched into the fence. It was spring, still wet, and although the sun was warm it was still a little cold too. I don’t know why the words were there, or what they mean. I found them comforting, in a way, like I had been let into a private conversation between lovers, albeit in one direction. It was a photography conference. Not wanting to look like a big nerd (or at least a bigger one than I already am), I brought my little Minolta pocket camera with me. Maybe that makes me even nerdier. Whatever. In any case, the little no-controls-all-automatic brick of hard plastic and metal did a great job on that trip, and I got a few great photos. Great because they are important to me. It was a heady time, those months that I spent shuttling back and forth to the Big Smoke. I was there three times in six weeks. Each visit brought me a little closer to the possiblity of making something of photography. Every time I went things seemed a little more real. I gained a lot of confidence. Going to Toronto gave me the push I needed to start a series of investments that have resulted in some interesting, exciting, and rewarding work over the past few months. This photo is a product and a symbol of the process of re-investent that has allowed me to grow as an artist. It was long overdue. It’s really nice to see your work hanging in a gallery. September 7, 2009, at 10:47 pm Well, it was late arriving, but this is officially the song of the summer: This little pop gem is on repeat at my house, and I almost have the dance moves nailed. Amazing. Rapture. Once it gets in your head, there’s no turning back. Finally, credit where credit is due: this video was a tip from my friend Catriona Sturton. September 1, 2009, at 10:14 pm  Welcome Home balloons I walked into my father’s bar last week, and was met by a room full of fresh faces, young and tanned. That is the sign, that is how I know summer is soon to be over. Everyone is back from holidays, and school is about to start up again. There were a lot of new backpacks on the bus today. On my ride to work, a teenage girl didn’t know how to get off in front of the high school. She couldn’t find the pressure strip, with all it’s markings worn off by endless fingers. I had my own bus woes to start the day. Standing on the platform, I watched 3 buses pass as I waited for my connection. It was a half hour before I realized that construction had finished on the other side of the station, and that my stop had moved. It’s a confusing and exciting time for everyone, me included. I was late for work. This time last year, I was just getting ready for another new start. Going back to school was exciting. I’d been out for two years. With all the floating around and dropping out I’ve done, I was worried about being older than all the other students. It turned out that I actually liked being older. When you’re one of the few adults in a room of 500 seventeen-year-olds, the other adults have a way of finding you. That in itself was a bit of a revelation. It was the first year I actually felt like an adult. It was a hard year, an adult year. I was working two or three jobs a week, and going to school full time. Things were going alright, until our landlord started to go crazy. My roommate and I were almost illegally evicted in the middle of the winter. It was too much, and life started to fall apart. I showed up to work in ripped jeans once or twice. We relied on my father to bring groceries from Costco, and ate a lot of Chinese pork buns. Somehow, I scraped through the end of school and ended up doing fairly well. I was looking forward to going back this year. I was looking forward to ending the marathon, getting settled, and focusing on my studies. Then the offer came. A good job. A real Job, with a desk, and a salary, benefits. A “bridge in” that I took. This is my fourth week. Technically, my title is “Analyst, Information Transfer and Output” as part of the Policy and Research department of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In reality, I am an online producer and (mostly digital) outreach worker for housing researchers. I pull the strings that support an online community. I do everything from organizing conference calls and social networking to information architecture design and usability measurement. It is an interesting little eddy of the government that I’ve found myself in, and a scary new world out there on the inter-webs. Luckily, the work I do is for a legally distinct non-governmental organization, so we can do some fun stuff.  Discarded clothes under the streetlight And the marathon continues. This time, however, it’s different. This time, it is my choice. It was hard to put down my plans to go to school, hard to switch gears so suddenly. But with the opportunity of steady employment comes the freedom to do what I couldn’t before: personal work. In my opinion, all good photography is personal. I am a feeling photographer, I go by emotion and see by feel. Working lets me pursue personal the projects I could never justify when I was hustling work and scraping by. In the long run, I feel that it is my personal work that will matter most. Christopher Morris once said that the best way to succeed in photography is to quit. I think that this is what I am doing. And I’ve been investing in myself at the same time. I found my voice at the end of a very long year. A conference and a couple of workshops helped. New friends and new perspectives were invaluable. A whole bunch of new gear, with new capabilities, made a big difference too. I’m more focused, more tuned-in, turned on, and aware. I read visual theory, and a bunch of good fiction. My thoughts are more clear. I feel like I am taking the next step towards doing meaningful documentary work on a regular basis. I’m ready, and now I have the resources to make it happen. Summer is almost over, it’s time to get to work. Time for another long year. June 17, 2009, at 1:04 am In the turmoil and confusion of the post-election Iran, strict control of information is a key tool in quashing dissent. Media access is severely restricted, foreign journalists are confined to their hotels, and communications networks are being dismantled. There are even reports of militias confiscating satellite dishes. The curtain has been drawn on Iran. It is, however, already too late. 
A man with a briefcase prepares to throw a peice of concrete during post-election protests in Tehran, Iran
Defining images of the conflict have already been produced. Some of the best come from French photographer Olivier Laban-Mattei, a staff photographer for Agence-France Press. He seems to be everywhere at once in these photos, like some sort of all-seeing super-human. Photos from protests, even violent protests, are often all the same: masked protesters, scary riot police, outraged marchers, hooligans. These photos transmit nothing more than the basic and obvious: some people are upset. Here is an image that operates on a higher level. Laban-Mattei’s photo of a cement-throwing office worker gives us much more than a simple story of anger and violence. In effect, the story of the photograph extends far past the borders of the frame. It raises questions. Why is this man dressed for work? Was he compelled to join on the way home from his job? What is in the briefcase? What would compel a seemingly normal person to engage in public violence? 
There is incredible symbolic content to the photo of the young man covering his face with a blood-soaked kerchief. It appears that he is crying tears. There is also a reflexive quality to this photograph, in the sense that you can feel the presence of the photographer in the situation. I think that this quality, presence, is an integral part of effective photography and honest reporting. The truth and value of photos like these is in the feeling of intimate reality that they provide. Only photography can do this, freezing forever that moment, so that the existence of this fraction of a second cannot be forgotten or refuted. In a sense, this photo is not really about the young man. He is an object, a person without past or future beyond this moment. What is real, and transcendent, about this photograph is the relationship between the photographer and the subject. Viewing this photo, I feel like I am there. 
Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mousavi waves to supporters at a mass protest in Tehran, Iran
Photographs like these will come to define the conflict in Iran. Already, the photograph of the young man covered in blood has been turned into posters carried by marchers. Iranians face an extremely challenging situation. SMS (text messaging) services, cell phone service, radio transmissions, and Internet are being jammed. Still, messages are escaping the filter. An extraordinary number of moving videos and photos have been recorded and uploaded by protesters themselves. For the regime, it is already too late, photographs like these have escaped to expose the conflict to the world, and more importantly, to Iranians. Whatever the outcome of this crisis, it will be impossible in the coming years to deny the violence and injustice of these days. The regime will be changed by the testament of documentary photography. I understand that Olivier Laban-Mattei is now en-route back to France. June 15, 2009, at 12:03 am In 1996, Atlantic contributing editor Robert Kaplan published a whirlwind travelogue named The Ends of the Earth: a Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy.In the chapters covering Iran, Kaplan writes: “The boring truth about the Islamic Revolution is that the rich are still rich, and the poor are still poor. The only real change is that the middle class was largely destroyed. True or not, the poor feel that Iran lost the war with Iraq and the clergy are to blame. What you have left is an alliance between radical mullahs and the security services. Together, these two groups can do things like help terrorists abroad and try to acquire a nuclear bomb– actions which allow them to proclaim that the revolution is still alive. But their support is increasingly thin, and the society at home is headed in a completely opposite direction.” In other Words, the battle between East and West was not being fought between the United States and Iran but inside Iran itself, between Iranians.”
Today, the conflict between radical Islam and reform leaped from the implicit to the internecine and all too real. Kaplan continues: …the issue of “fundamentalism” in Iran, and the West’s preoccupation with it, was about to be overtaken by larger shifts in the political-historical landscape that few could yet fathom.
It took twelve years for Kaplan’s prediction to come true. This change was a long time coming. In fact, some Iran observers were surprised by the swell of support for the Mousavi from young, urban, and middle-class Iranians. We should not be surprised. The movement toward cultural and political moderation has long been brewing. Shortly after The Ends of the Earth was published, reformers under Khatami captured 70% of the vote and a majority in the Iranian parliament. The women and young people who voted for Khatami’S Second of Khordad Movement almost a decade ago are still voters today. Following the disqualification of most progressive candidates, the elections which brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power were largely boycotted. This time around, however, things were different. Although he is more conservative than most Iranian progressives, support coalesced under Mousavi. Like in the United States, new technology energized and engaged progressive Iranians, and played a pivotal role in Mousavi’s campaign. Urban Iranians were ready for change — a smooth, democratic one. But, as Kaplan says, it is not the city that makes a country modern, it is the town. Rural and urban Iranians live in different worlds. Iran is a country of young people, where the cities modernized at an extreme pace under the Shah (eventually contributing to the 1979 revolution), and a disconnect exists between the city and the country. At the same time, the city and the country are increasingly in contact. Migration has swelled Tehran alone to more than 13 million and put strain on natural resources. In the last decade, literacy rates, and the expectations that go with education, have risen. Recently, however, inflation has hit hard. The conditions seem similar to those which lead to the 1979 revolution. The elites of Iran are conservative, country people, who overthrew the Shah. They will not let modernism happen easily. At the time of this posting, a crackdown is underway. It appears all permits to foreign journalists have been revoked and reporters will face jail if they continue to operate, as did one Globe and Mail reporter. Demonstrations are scheduled to take place today, and a general strike tomorrow, with or (likely) without government permission. Young people in Iran will risk their lives to make their voices heard. The world needs to watch, listen, and learn: this is a conflict that will define how humanity negotiates the transition to modernism. Will the regime back down? Will the assembly of experts (the ruling clerics) intervene? How will the needs and desires of the city and the country be balanced? Will East and West meet peacefully? For coverage on the state of affairs in Iran, see Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic. The CBC has two reporters in Tehran. | AboutA blog by photographer Jackson Couse about using photography to understand and talk about the world. I write about images and current events, examine the construction meaning using images, and try to understand the increasingly important role visual culture plays in life. |
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