I've been cranking up the miles recently and, staggering towards my hotel on the Newcastle Quayside, was too tired to get an SLR out of my back-pack so snapped this on my iPhone:

I was in Newcastle on a consulting gig and looking forward to staying in a room with a view over the river.  The hotel was perfect - right on the waterside.  

The view?

Ah well.  

Actually, I did like the massive structure of the bridge.  Of course, my iPhone snap (still too knackered to reach for a Nikon) doesn't do the majesty of the engineering much justice but as someone who spends as much time as possible in the countryside I felt a real sense of awe towards its presence.

I'm in Newcastle again tomorrow but rolling down to London for the book launch of  'I Wish I Worked There' by Kursty Groves. The workplace photos, by Edward Denison, look superb. 

Finally, I've been caught by a curiously dialogic photo on Jez Coulson's blog - the mixture of urban photographer, covered subject, religious context, indirect approach.... take a look, there's a lot going on in a deceptively straightforward street picture. 

You'll spot my comment on what I was seeing and Jez's response of "You've chilled me to the bone dude.... "

Mmmm... we're on to something, then...?

But now there is a new revolution.

Our communication itself is changing; text is losing its grip.  Digital technology means that the image is achieving stratospheric ascendancy.

Jesse Thomas, on Vimeo, shows us some incredible statistics.  There are are now 234 million websites and 126 million blogs and within those:

• 2.5 billion photographs are uploaded to Facebook each month
• 4 billion photographs are hosted by Flickr
• At the current rate, 30 billion photographs are uploaded to Facebook each year
• YouTube serves 1 billion videos per day
• 12.2 Billion videos are viewed on YouTube each month

It seems that our future is changing; the future is visual...

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

I was in conversation last week when I was reminded that family photographs usually only show celebration - not many divorces or funerals in the family album. Similarly, it's equally rare for family fights and tantrums to be documented. But not for my unfortunate family...

Susan Sontag, in 'On Photography', says that a failure to take pictures of one's children, especially when they are small, is a sign of indifference.  I wonder what she would have made of this picture.  I took it after my daughter fell off the back of a boat we had hired - she barely got wet before she was snatched back on board.

But this picture isn't about fear or shock. This is absolute rage! At full volume. As loud as possible... Needless to say, my taking pictures didn't do much to calm matters. Rage met with the potential for ridicule - and the volume went up even further. That's my (very beautiful) girl! Don't mess with her!

Meanwhile, Jez C, Jess Hurd and others have alerted the Twitterati on the risks of taking pictures of our kids. A shopper in Sunderland was cautioned by mall guards and then the police. Eventually, he had to delete pictures of his son riding on a coin operated train from his phone.  Here is the full blurb...

The PC claimed the photographer was 'creating a public disturbance'.  Yeah, right.

Good job he wasn't passing by when my little girl kicked off...!

When I'm consulting to groups I get obsessive about the quality of the space in which I'm expected to work; I'm convinced that the space directly affects the quality of conversation and, in turn, the potential for breaking patterns and making organisational change.

Over the years I've been invited to work in strange spaces ranging from underground rooms with fluorescent light and pneumatic drills reverberating through the walls and in class rooms where the seats ONLY face forward. When the space isn't up to the quality of interaction that I need, I always decline. Tricky... people get so used to their dysfunctional environment that they stop seeing it. And these days, even when companies spend a fortune on the technology to link people over vast distances I still find that they seem to care little for the quality our experience when the message arrives. 

This is madness. Work takes place in relationship. With neach other and with the world. If we disregard the quality of the space in which those relationships function we are in trouble.

Anne Marie McEwan of The Smart Work Company pointed me to Euan Semple's blog, 'The Obvious?' where he says, 'Buildings are a bugger.' Euan notes that as he flits from one corporate HQ to another he finds these expensive buildings to be restrictive and depressing.

When I photographed the Global Mobility Network, featured here on P-D, we crammed into a smallish meeting room which served our purposes well.  Enough space (just), curious air-con, good light, good technology, excellent conversation and learning. That day Frank Duffy of DEGW presented on how 'Taylorist Buildings', which house people as though they were mindless machines, have had their day.

We rolled out of our meeting into the bar at One Alfred Place; all felt good, a great day, good company, inspiring conversation. The building had worked well.

But as I made my way back to street level I saw this guy. You don't need to ask him to know his day wasn't so good. The photo tells you immediately that architecture and job design have clashed badly. There is a curious aesthetic mix here; the building evokes power, the reception guy shows us the lack of humanity that this aesthetic requires. This is a space that speaks to alienation rather than relationship.

I guess that I am fortunate enough to fall into the category of 'creative knowledge worker' and, within reason, I get to choose when/where/if I work.

Many of us aren't so fortunate.

In amongst the juggle of of consulting, coaching, photos and PhD I've been catching up with Anna who is trying to gain some insights into the beauty problem.  Now (perhaps always) an artist and illustrator, Anna is reflecting back on her career as a model and attempting to understand the impact of beauty on her life.

We are using photography as our method of inquiry - and this is a problem in itself because as we try to uncover some of the the less superficial aspects of Anna and her world she still looks conventionally, well, great...  All of the fashion stereotypes begin to surface - a beautiful women with no make up...  grungy girl with messy hair... scruffy chic... I'm sure you are starting to get the picture!

You might be curious about how beauty could be a problem at all. Anna describes how, from an early age, she was treated as different, special, and then how men would be (predictably) interested her as a sex object and women would take the unsympathetic stance of 'What's your problem? Just look at you....'

Of course, the sort of beauty that fuelled Anna's previous career is usually temporary; youth doesn't last forever and even models begin to change with age. So I guess that this transition, perhaps a fall from grace, might become the subject of our work. But at this stage we are simply improvising our way through the inquiry figuring out how photos might help understand some aspects of the issue and blind us to others.

The improv theme brings me back nicely to the Ian Sanders book Juggle which I've been enjoying as I have been tearing around the country.  With short chapters like 'Enjoy living a blur' and 'Celebrate your multi-dimensional talents' it could have been written for me.  But there are more challenging sections too such as 'Managing your identity' and Don't be a workaholic'..... Ah, yes... oops.  

It's an easy, uplifting read which celebrates multi-dimensional careers - on that basis alone, it's worth a link in the resources section! 

A couple of great looking consultancy projects are coming to life, the coaching is busy, people need more pictures and....

I've been back to Schumacher, partly to co-facilitate an Ashridge master's degree module but also to get a few shots of Charlie McConnell, the college director. Our schedules barely met and so I only had a few minutes to work with Charlie early in the morning before the day got going.

We chatted over photos and cups of tea and here are a couple of images from the shoot.

I like Charlie.  He's an amicable, likeable guy, you would warm to him... but I think what really attracted me was a curious sense of energising anger that he carries within him.  Charlie, I found out, has worked in some difficult, challenging situations all around the globe and has seen a few things....  

So now he turns his anger into commitment into activity, adressing environmental issues in his role as director - committed to doing stuff to change things - I admire that.

My favourite picture is one that might not appear on the PR material, but it has an intensity that brings a beauty with it.  

So maybe this picture below is the one that captures the essence I see in Charlie. I'm not going to try to describe it with words...  

And so over to you. I wonder what you are seeing...?  Who are you seeing?

And... just for a moment... back to 'Juggling'.  Ian Sanders sent me a copy of his new book titled appropriately enough, 'Juggle'.  I'm getting on quite nicely with its bite-size chunks - more in the next post!

An update for you on the crazy world of Jez Coulson for you... 

When I caught Jez in London for a few words on Photo-Dialogue last October, I knew that Lynda Ward, a friend and regular commentator on P-D,  also had him in her sights.  Her work has been rather more thorough than my brief chat over a coffee -  she intercepted Jez by phone, skype and e-mail as he worked in London, Paris, NYC, Atlanta, Belize and her article (22 pages no less...!) has just been published in the latest edition of The Main Street Rag.

Lynda tells some of the backstory to her article:

'When I first met Jez Coulson in Boston, I was captivated by his passion for photojournalism and photography as well as his "Inscape," to borrow a term from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins which means "the unified complex of characteristics that give a thing its uniqueness and that differentiates it from other things" (or in this case that gives a person his uniqueness and differentiates him from other people).'

'Inscape' is an interesting term.... how might it translate into visual language?

'In photographer's terms, someone with Inscape is multi-dimensional, meaning that they cannot be captured in a single frame, and not even in a panorama shot. To truly capture someone with a "complex of characteristics" takes patience, great care, and time.'

Lynda was struck by one of the fundamental drives behind Jez's reportage photography.  She notes: 'Jez says, "You can look for horror or you can look for humanity. I prefer images that capture the pathos, the humanity. I'm looking for humanity in all circumstances."'

But how does a photographer actually capture 'humanity'? 

'Jez has the wonderful ability to "hang," with people', says Lynda, 'Everyone from homeless people (his photo of a New York City homeless man is featured in the magazine) to presidents and movie stars (his photo of George Clooney with President Obama is featured in the magazine as well). Jez's willingness to truly listen to people and to treat them with respect just because they are people — whether or not he agrees with them or their lifestyle — is what gives Jez such amazing access to all sorts of folks in order to photograph them. And his interest in people and his passion for getting to know them is genuine: not driven by a particular agenda or by the desire to simply take their picture. Jez truly loves people, and he has had this passion for people and for photography since he was a little boy.'

'I am grateful to have had the opportunity to interview Jez, an artist with such singular focus, as we worked our way through the ups and downs of his fascinating life and his over 20 year career. Years ago when I was in seminary, one of my professors had a favorite saying: "To be a Jack of all trades is to be a master of none." Jez with his singular vision and focus is, indeed, a master photographer.'

I'm waiting to read the full text of Lynda's article and my copy of the magazine is winging its way to me.  Well, it's been winging for a few days now - I guess I'll be hassling the post-man again tomorrow!

@Dg28com and @selinamitreya have both spotted cases of images being captioned differently and so supporting different interpretations of events.  

Have a look here to see an image from Haiti showing people salvaging what is left from the ruins and here, the same image, showing a 'looting spree.'

In this piece, we see the NY Times cast the same image three different ways as 'evidence' of events in the Middle East.

The way we frame, crop and edit is part of every photographers process and we have become familiar with conversations about content and the way we represent what is 'out there'.  But this is a long way from a true 'dialogue.'

Dialogue is what happens when we become critically aware of our own process.  Not just in the creative act of how we work as photographers, but in exposing the assumptions behind our seeing. And the way we habitually frame the world actually happens way before we reach for the camera bag.

So there is another step we can take.  We can roll photography back beyond the, 'You 'see' salvage and I 'see' looting - which is right?' argument.  

If we rewind further as we talk about images, expose more of the way we add meaning and significance, we uncover our hidden values. Values that often lead to conflict or, indeed, innovation and change. 

Any of which could be worth a conversation.

Saccharine Perch: Tom Chambers

Tom Chambers' mysterious, spiritual photomontages, which first appeared on Photo-Dialogue back in September 2009, gained a number of plaudits and awards last year.  This image, 'Saccharine Perch', won First Place in Fine Arts during Fotoweek DC 2009 and a Gold Award in the International Aperture Awards. 

Meanwhile, 'The Goatherd' took First Place in the Digital Enhanced category of the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards. 

The Goatherd; Tom Chambers

This weekend, Tom has a second show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles.

In a note from Tom, he says that "Modernbook Gallery will present my photography at Art LA from Thursday, January 21st to Sunday, January 24th. If you are in the area, please stop by to see my work."

I wish I could.... I'll have to wait for the UK show.

If a trip to LA would be a bit of a stretch then check out Tom's work at:

http://www.tomchambersphoto.com

http://www.facebook.com/tom.chambers.photography

Photo-essays on Burn are always of a high standard but Erica's multimedia presentation, 'The dark light of this nothing' simply blew me away. I return to it again and again and...  

Erica says that the work is "meant as a tribute to those long term residents who have sustained the Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York neighborhood for generations and are now in an increasing minority. The old guard is losing their sense of community. A new, affluent population, drawn by Park Slope’s popularity as one of America’s best neighborhoods, is swiftly overshadowing the working class."

The presentation juxtaposes harsh urban street photography with searching formal portraits that locate our humanity and evoke enormous passion for the residents.  We see faces and memories that drift away as we watch the images change.

But for me, the surprising and magical element of Erica's show is the voices.  Heard over the haunting piano of 'Spiegel Im Spiegel' we hear the voices of the residents:

Anthony: What the hell is this? you gotta talk to this thing?

EM: It’s a microphone.

Janet: Dad, just talk about..

Anthony: What am I gonna tell? I was born over on 3rd street. And the place was beautiful at that time, we had a nice time, not too much traffic, I’m old, that’s why. We used to play stickball in the middle of the street, there was no traffic, you could play stickball. right? Today you can’t even walk in the friggin street, too many cars.

The sound locates the images; it adds a dimension that allows us to more fully experience the visuals; to more fully walk in the footsteps of Erica's subjects.  Even the most challenging photos become real people; vulnerable, concerned, uncertain, trying to get by. Just like the rest of us.

 "I know that every day... somebody staring.... look at that dude..."

When Erica agreed for me to use her work on Photo-Dialogue she mentioned that she had previously studied linguistics (and artificial intelligence...) and has an interest in learning in systems so I wonder if this is at the root of her interest in the mixture of sound and vision.

Her web site includes some  'scribbling in the dark'; records of talks and interviews with other photographers. She notes that they are, "a group of personal reflection writings on photography gatherings and slideshows as well as interviews.

Unfortunately, there is not much that directly references Erica in the scribbles and I found myself wanting to understand much more about her and the way she approaches her work. But on her site she quotes Ami Vitale's introduction to the Photojournale book Connections Across A Human Planet: "These images give us a glimpse into lives we might not otherwise see and emphasize not how different we are but rather our similarities. The intentions seem to be to get past mere headlines to try to get a truer sense of who we all are. Perhaps now, more than ever, the need to get beyond the stereotypes and dramatic images and instead allow people to tell their own stories in a humanistic way.”

I tentatively wonder if Erica is telling us just as much about her own work here.  Whatever, I will be keenly following her progress.  And have already resolved to buy a voice recorder...