I shot Margaret Thatchers funeral for Danish newspaper Information. Here’s my view of the day…
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Polaroids
These Polaroids are shot during my travels in Syria in 2012/2013. This is an ongoing project.
The Sichuan Quake
As we are coming up to the five year mark of one of the worst natural catastrophes in our time, I thought I would revisit my work from the 2008 earthquake that hit the Sichuan province in China.
I was visiting China with journalist Lisa Ioannou as we were working on a story about industrial pollution and it’s impact on newly born babies.
We were in the middle of checking in to a hotel many hundred kilometres away from the epicentre when the highrise began to sway. It only lasted for a few minutes and afterwards we were laughing with the locals in the street, relieved that it was over and there were no harm done.
Little did we know of the horror and incredible tragedies that were playing out simultaneously in the neighbouring region.
An estimated 68.000 lives were lost.
In the mountainous landscape, the damage done to the infrastructure is lethal in the days after the quake. Here a man gathers whatever gasoline he can from a collapsed petrol station
Massive camps housing thousands of families are erected by the Chinese military.
A group of relief workers are having a short rest. They have been digging out bodies non stop since the earthquake. Sometimes they find someone still alive, but as the hours passes and the days go by, hope diminishes.
Almost everybody in the worst hit areas insists on sleeping in the street even if their homes are still standing. People are afraid that there will be another earthquake and the many aftershocks confirm their suspicions.
Many schools collapsed during the quake while other buildings next to them survived. There’s a growing suspicion that the schools were build out of cheap and unstable materials to save money. Here, a group of parents are carrying a banner asking who is to blame for the death of their children.
The view of Beichuan city. Before the quake this was a thriving city with 20.000 inhabitants. Now it’s a graveyard for the 12.000 people that lost their lives here. Most of them are still buried under the rubble.
The premier of China, Wen Jiabao has become the face of the Chinese government during the catastrophe. “Grandpa” as he is called is here seen visiting a group of factory workers that survived the quake.
Tens of thousands have fled the mountains and are now living in makeshift tents in the cities where they are closer to emergency relief and medical attention.
A victim of the quake is being treated by medical personnel.
The Chinese army are flying in excavators to help dig channels to ease some of the pressure off a nearby dam that are threatening to flood local villages.
A young girl and her father have returned to the ruins of their home to see if there’s anything left to save. The mother seen in the wedding portrait is in hospital, wounded but alive.
Help is flooding in from all over the world and in all major cities across China people are queuing for hours to donate blood.
Another shot for Danish Daily Information
I was commissioned to shoot another series of images for Danish newspaper Information recently.
This story is about young, well educated southern Europeans emigrating to northern Europe in the search for jobs. Me and journalist Mette Rodgers had a chat with Sofía Vieira, Roberto Cacabelos Bote, Tamara Guerrero Feijóo and Raquel Vazquez Santos, a group of friends that have left Spain to try their luck in London.
Here’s a selection.
Sofía Vieira, Roberto Cacabelos Bote, Tamara Guerrero Feijóo and Raquel Vazquez Santos have all left Spain for London and the northern European jobmarket.
Sofía Vieira, Roberto Cacabelos Bote, Tamara Guerrero Feijóo and Raquel Vazquez Santos have all left Spain for London and the northern European job market.
Sofía Vieira, Roberto Cacabelos Bote, Tamara Guerrero Feijóo and Raquel Vazquez Santos have all left Spain for London and the northern European job market.
Sofía Vieira, Roberto Cacabelos Bote, Tamara Guerrero Feijóo and Raquel Vazquez Santos have all left Spain for London and the northern European job market.
Pope Benedict XVI Resigns
Not a big fan but remember the day that Joseph Ratzinger and his circus visited London. It was the same day that a low-flying pigeon hit me right in the chest. Very weird day.
Back In Syria
I’ve been back in Syria since Saturday, doing a so-called ‘NGO-run’ with a Danish charity. We’ve been at a few refugee camps and also visited a string of hospitals. Mostly we’ve been in meetings trying to arrange the next batch of emergency relief.
Now I’m back in the country, this time on my own. I am travelling the Idlib province with a group of rebels called the Tawheed Brigade. I am gathering photos as we go along and working on a range of different projects but as I’ve been feeling a little like a photojournalistic cliché lately (that not necessarily meant as a bad thing) I’ve decided to do an old school black and white series for the first blog.
Hope to have some more time soon to get the different pieces together, but right now it’s all loose strings tying them selves together here and there and not always in the right order, so bear with me while I find myself in this mess of a conflict…
Sikh Wedding
I’ve been working with my good friend and talented photographer Esther Sabetpour on a few of her wedding jobs lately. Esther specializes in Asian weddings and has an amazing technique that especially comes out in her portraits.
These pictures are some of my contribution to the latest Sikh wedding that I helped with. Such a big experience!
Portrait Session in Westminster
Danish Daily Information commissioned me to shoot a portrait of Tory MP William (Bill) Cash. It was one of those jobs that started out with an interview and normally I welcome that as I find it interesting as well as a good way of warming the subject as well as my self up for the shoot itself.
This time it didn’t go quite that way.
Westminster where the interview took place have very strict rules on photography so I were only allowed to shoot in Westminster Hall after the interview. I’ve looked through the EXIF data and I had less than two minutes for this shoot before Cash decided that time was up. Luckily I’ve been in this situation quite a few times by now and as so often before, preparation is the key.
I knew what image I wanted walking into the hall (the first one) and the two others are simple backup shots. I found myself lucky when shooting the horizontal portrait as a flash from a tourists camera bounced off my subject as I hit the shutter, giving the image that little extra edge that I like.
Sometimes you use three hours on getting that one good shot, sometimes you get it in two minutes.
Conservative MP William (Bill) Cash
Conservative MP William (Bill) Cash
Conservative MP William (Bill) Cash
Drinking Tea with the Rebels
I’m back in Turkey. Hotel. Bed. Facebook. A friend request pops up, name written in Arabic. It turns out it’s a captain in the Free Syrian Army that I met earlier in the day. He’s stationed in Aleppo but has one night off to see his wife and four kids that are in Gaziatep, a large city just 20 kilometers from Kilis, Turkey.
He tells me that I should get to the Syrian city of Azaz tomorrow by 8 a.m. as there should be a funeral for an FSA soldier.
At 6 a.m. I wake up the receptionist to check out of my hotel and at 7 I wake up the Turkish border official to check out of Turkey.
Inside Syria I decide to go straight through the border area and find a car that can take me to town. I negotiate a price of 10 Turkish Lira (£3) and am about to jump in the car as a man in army fatigues carrying a Kalashnikov stops me. I need permission to leave the area and there’s no way around the media center.
While we wait for the media center to wake up the soldiers manning the control post invite me in for breakfast consisting of flat bread with spicy pickles and hot Arab tea cooked on a large gas burner standing between the two beds and a television that frames the room. The sweet tea cheers us all up and I start feeling less grumpy about being withheld. They don’t speak any English and I’ve soon used up my one Arabic word saying “Shukran” (thank you) every time I can get away with it. We still have a good time though and after a while I start playing around with my camera to see what reaction that will bring. As I hoped it doesn’t take long before they are posing and I’m snapping away freely.
It starts to pour. Again. It has been raining almost every single day since I arrived at the border. I curse my suede shoes for the tenth time on this trip, and stop. Realizing that all my worries have a warm bed, a bankcard, wireless Internet and a Christmas full of food and presents waiting just a few hours away. In the meantime a large queue has gathered outside in the rain. Men, women and children are getting drenched as they wait for the weekly handout of diapers…
I meet with my media “escort” from the day before and he tells me that the body of the captain is still in Turkey. They don’t know when he’ll be buried as his mother is on her way to the hospital to say her final goodbyes. Not much to argue about there, so I fold out my umbrella and go exploring in the camp.
Soldiers in the Free Syrian Army manning a control post on the Azaz border to Turkey.
Syrian children shows the sign for victory as a NGO employee takes their picture.
The many Muslims in the camp prays in the local mosque.
Two women are crossing the border into Syria from Turkey with a van full of supplies.
A Syrian doctor sits in the improvised medical clinic in the refugee camp waiting for patients. He was contacted by the rebels and asked if he would come to the camp to assist the many refugees. Before the war he worked with plastic surgery. The trip to the camp would normally take a little less than a day. This time he spend four days on the road getting here due to the fear of the government army.
Soldiers in the Free Syrian Army are watching Arabic television in one of the control posts.
Laser printed A4 copies showing ‘martyrs’, soldiers from the FSA who has died fighting.
A NGO worker stands in one of two tents acting as storage for the supplies that comes in through Turkey.
Young boys watches as a demonstration is being organized.
Mattresses waiting to be distributed in the camp.
Barbed wire and the threat of mines divide the two countries.
A soldier in the Free Syrian Army
Shoes are lined up and being prepared for distribution amongst the children in the camp.
An old Syrian lady watches as the refugees organize a demonstration that marches to the Turkish border and demands to be let in to Turkey. The people in this camp doesn’t have any passports so Turkey will not let them in to the country.
The demonstration marches the three kilometers to the Turkish border.
Soldiers have written in Arabic on the walls of the control post.
Soldiers in the Free Syrian Army manning a control post on the Azaz border to Turkey are checking cars coming from Syria trying to reach Turkey.
Life Changes in an Instant
I spend the day organizing. First of all I need to change hotels. The one I’ve been staying in for the last two nights costs 90 Turkish Lira, about £30. My previous one was only £13. I’m here on my own budget so money matters every single step of the way.
People here are always offering to take me to Aleppo. I’m tempted but at a price of 300 American dollars each way for the 40km drive, it’s simply not possible for me. The steep price also indicates the level of danger. I met an Italian photographer that had been there. While I share a beer with Michele he tells me of his eight hours trip. The way that he grasps his head and looks down while he explains how a bomb landed just two blocks away says it all. It’s not worth going. From his eyes I can see that he is right.
After changing hotels I work for a few hours. The organizational side of things takes up a lot of my time and with the sun setting around four I have to be economical with the hours. When done I grab my camera and head out to locate a NGO run medical clinic for Syrians injured by the war.
On my way there I collect imagery not directly connected to the Syrian conflict. These pictures are meant for another project in my diary build on a scientific exploration of the so-called ‘Arab Felix’ that was sent by Danish king Frederick V in 1776 to explore the Arabian Peninsula.
I come across sheepherders and men blowing out the engines on their Yahama 4-gears. For these people this is just everyday life. But for me as a foreigner this is something absolutely stunning. It’s the power of looking, catching a glimpse and trying to comprehend.
A man in an impeccable suit stops on his motorbike. He talks to me in Turkish. I smile and say ‘hospital’ and he gestures me to get on. He speeds up and the wind in my face feels great.
We get to a three-storage house looking stranded. The wall is crumbling and Syrian number plates identify the cars parked outside. Inside is another world. Four small rooms are packed with hospital beds. In each bed lies someone wounded in one way or the other by the Syrian conflict. Some are FSA soldiers, some aren’t. Some are civilians and others are not. One thing that almost all of them share is that they’re just kids…
While I talk to patients that have lost arms and legs in the constant Aleppo bombing, a guy sees me and starts to yell. He’s angry and aggressive. I’m guessing that he is not Syrian, as he looks different from everybody else here. He shakes one of his crutches at me and I walk away.
“Don’t mind him, he’s just al-Qaeda” the other patients explains.
It’s clear that they don’t like him much. I ask if there are many al-Qaeda warriors in Syria and they tell me that there’s quite a few. Right now they are all fighting Bashar al-Assad, so it’s okay. But when the fighting is over and the winner has to be found they will become a problem.
“I’m Syrian and a Muslim and I am scared of them” one of the wounded tells me.
Daily life is lived outside the clinic
When I ask the doctor if they have enough medicine to treat the many patients he starts to laugh.
One patient giving another a haircut.
Medical supplies are provided by relief organizations as this clinic is privately run
Khalid is six years old. He was hit by one of the many bombs falling on Aleppo these days. He lost his left arm and half his foot and is itching all over. The doctor thinks it might be due to an infection in his blood.
Ahmed is the leader of a small group of soldiers in the Free Syrian Army. He lost his leg in Aleppo as a fighter jet hit their position in the crumbling city.
