September 30, 2008, at 11:32 pm  This Sarajevo cemetery is one of many sprinkled throughout the city. It was freezing. Cold and wet, the kind of chill you just can’t escape. It pried its way through the folds in your jacket, wound its way up your pant legs, and seeped its way into your bones. I have been to the north, I have felt the burn of –45 C. This was a different kind of cold. George and I had rented a room. The entrance was down an alley off the main square and up a crooked flight of stairs. We had two windows, four beds, a space heater, and a shower. It was the closest to home I was going to get. We spread out our gear and the detritus of travel: Mad Magazine comics in Greek, old bus transfers, phone numbers, cameras. George chain smoked, I didn’t care.  A surprise snow blankets Sebilj Square and the Bascarsija Market. The room was a work in progress. The windows were large and curtainless, single pane, uninsulated and poorly fitted. I propped the extra mattresses against the windows at night to keep out the draft. The space heater was a giant monster, a relic from the eighties that sat in the middle of the room. It took three or four hours to get up to speed. The circuits couldn’t run the heater and the shower at the same time. We took turns getting up at six in the morning to turn off the heater and turn on the shower. By eight the room was still cold, but just warm enough to run to the shower. We were a couple of kids, playing photographer in a place we didn’t understand. Our assets were more curiosity than plans, and slightly more guts than brains. Even so, we made a good team. I had done my homework. I had a list of people to call. My Hungarian friend, who worked for and NGO, who was invaluable. George was indefatigable, his commitment to making something of his time was astonishing. Still, we weren’t getting very far. We’d both gone days without photographing anything of substance. Then we met Bego. He was drinking rakija in the bar around the corner. He peered at me through his coke-bottle glasses and said “bonjour.”  Mortar damage — patched and repaired. It was the late afternoon, and he was already a little bit drunk. We got to talking, and everyone made friends. I translated for George. Bego was in his mid-fifties, an engineer. He had trained in Paris. He was unemployed, save for a single student that he tutored in math. He lived alone. He looked incredible in his tweed jacket with his coat on, even though it was warm inside the bar. I couldn’t help setting aside that nervous apprehension that accompanies traveling far from home. We talked for some time, about life, about what it means to be a man, about math and tobacco. It was getting late. Bego sat up, looked around, narrowed his eyes ever so slightly and asked if we would like to come to dinner. He led us up the hill, on the path next to the cemetery. Bego anticipated my question, “they are all from ’93,” he said, “mostly children.” I asked him how he could do it, to get up and walk past every day: “I just do,” he replied “would you like chicken for dinner?” I hadn’t been that cold in a long time. September 11, 2008, at 11:00 pm  My photography will be part of a blockbuster show with The Enriched Bread Artists in the second annual “Festival X” Ottawa photography festival.
I’m very excited to be taking part again this year, and honored to hang my work with some very talented artists. I’d be happy to see you there, and tell you all the stories behind my work. If you can’t make it out, watch this space for the pictures that I’ve put together for the show. For more info: Festival X See you there! add this event to: Facebook 
August 26, 2008, at 4:15 pm  Christmas Eve at Notre-Dame Cathedral “When this is over” I said to George, “I am going to Paris.” We were on the bus to Prishtina, Kosovo. It was a 450 Km trip, what would have been about seven hours in North America. In Balkan Time, this meant fourteen hours of bordom. The bus left at Midnight. Everyone seemed to be eating burek, a lamb filled pastry, and soon the bus, with windows sealed shut, was hot and smelly. They guy behind us, drunk on brandy, was making a futile pass at his young seat mate. He had got on last, somewhere a little outside of Sarajevo in the Republika Srpska. It was going to be a long trip. We had our own bottle of apricot brandy, given to us by our Hungrian friend Josef. It was home made, and smelled potent. George and I debated downing a couple shots each to kill the time, but with no real idea where we were going in Prishtina, and not a word of Albanian between us, we decided against navigating with a hangover. The bus stopped at the border between Bosnia and Serbia, and two burly Bosnian border guards took our passports. A few men were called into the station. Everyone on board smoked by the side of the road in silence. George, who would normally smoke constantly, stayed on the bus with me. An hour passed until the men got back on and our passports were returned. The whole process was then repeated on the Serbian side of the border. Finally we were rolling again. We stopped at a dingy, fluorescent lit, all-night restaurant in a tiny Serbian town. Everything was green from the bare light bulbs, except for the melamine tables and the waitress that were the same weathered orange. There were two filthy latrines. The restaurant seemed to serve only four things: coffee, beer, brandy, and cold hard boiled eggs. Back on the bus, the fresh air that had entered at the border was soon replaced by the dense smell of sulfur. We stopped in the middle of the night at Novi Pazar, a wasteland of Soviet apartment blocks, row upon row. The city is a Kosovar enclave, hours inside Serbia, tense with the atmosphere of isolation and foreboding. We were heading to Kosovo for the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Novi Pazar could not fare well. I finally fell asleep. The border at Kosovo woke me up again. This time it was administered by the UN. I got up to stretch and peered over the side of the very steep cliff below the road. We were in the middle of nowhere. Along the way we stopped to pick up a man in a fur hat; he had appeared out of the fog like an apparition. I remember a tank rolling by on the other side of the road, but maybe like the man it was a ghost too. The road followed a misty river valley, green with a winding grey river. The sun was just coming up. It reminded me of driving home from Lac St-Jean through Mauricie National Park. Every now and then we’d pass a small town, desolate and seemingly half inhabited. I felt tired, but the world was beautiful. Soon we were in Prishtina. In the cab I looked around at the new city. I think George saw it first — the huge sneering face peering down at us; 50 Cent was coming to town. The air was filled with the acrid smell of burning garbage. The power was out. At the hostel we shut the curtains, crawled into our beds, and slept the rest of the day. Paris would have to wait. | 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. Being There by Jackson Couse is very happy to reccommend hosting by Fused Network.  |
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