Birds of a Feather
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea’s fantastic cultural heritage has been drawing a steady stream of photographers to its shores for many years now. In fact, I’m pretty sure that my own particular passion for travelling to remote places was substantially inspired by images from this magical island which have been residing quietly in my subconscious since I first laid eyes on them as a youngster within the pages of National Geographic and the like.
The trouble with visiting places like this in 2009 of course, is that the phenomenal cultural changes that our world has seen in the last 30 years are inevitably much more evident and visible within these so called developing nations, and as such, these days a documentary photograph can be rendered journalistically redundant in just a few short years.
Visiting PNG for this first time, I was quite nervous about what I might discover here. It has always struck me as one of those places that would definitely have succumbed to the brute force of western cultural imperialism, especially since, of all the tribal societies in the world, PNG’s surely must possess some of the most visually stunning apparel on the planet, the absence of which would be all the more obvious in these changing times.
Evelyn (centre) and friends from The Huli Tribe at a small gathering in the hills of Papua New Guinea
Well. I can report back that culture in Papua New Guinea is absolutely not dead, in fact it’s authentically thriving, vibrant and still as visually stunning as ever. Sure, don’t expect to see people walking to the local supermarket on a Tuesday morning dressed like this, but then again, when was the last time you donned your poshest outfit to pop out and get your weekly groceries (Paris Hiltons of this world excepted).
We have come here to investigate the significance that the bird of paradise still plays within New Guinean indigenous culture, which has involved spending time in a remote village and following the locals as they prepare for one of the many occasions on which they are required to dress in their tribal fineries. As part of our filming we visited the Mount Hagen Show, a yearly gathering of over 100 tribes that was initially orchestrated in the 1960s by missionaries seeking to calm PNG’s ever present tribal tensions by bringing the people together in one huge cultural event. In its 21st century incarnation, complete with banks of long lens photographers and sponsorship by Coca Cola, it would be very easy to patronize this event, reverting to the seasoned travellers’ mantra of “They’re only doing it for the tourists“. However, I have to say that if you make the effort to dig under the surface a little and spend some quality time with the people who make up this fantastic spectacle, you will soon realize that this is in fact a genuine display of PNG’s cultural heritage done by the people, for the people… which happily includes those of us who don’t have our own tribal heritage back home.
The Hagen Show - One event, one hundred tribes
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Interested in more stories from Papua New Guinea? Try HERE
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Jet Lag
Papua New Guinea
Who's the weird looking guy with the little black box pressed against his face?
Today I can report back categorically that there is definitely no easy way to get to the centre of Papua New Guinea from the UK. At the last count my journey here involved 4 planes and just over 30 hours of flying. Consequently, this week’s post is going to be very short and simple, and I couldn’t help posting this photo that I stumbled across today because I think it sums up perfectly how my mind and body feel right now.
PNG is an incredible place. However… Mix it up with a healthy dose of jet lag and it’s an incredibly surreal place!
Tune in next week folks, by which time I will hopefully have deciphered where I am, and what the hell is actually going on here!
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Interested in more stories from Papua New Guinea? Try HERE
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Taxidermy
The story behind the image
Nikon D1x, 17-35 f2.8 lens @ f8, 1/250 sec, ISO 400, Diffused flash bounced off ceiling
In terms of my photography, the most common question I am asked is “What is your favourite picture that you’ve taken”. It’s a very easy question to ask, but as those of you who shoot pictures regularly will no doubt understand, it’s an incredibly difficult one to answer.
In order to categorize a picture so precisely, I think it’s probably worth mentioning that according to me, ‘favourite picture’ doesn’t necessarily equate with ‘best picture’. The former suggests a degree of sentimental value, whereas the latter would probably best be judged by the objective eye of an experienced stranger and not by that of the image’s originator.
So, after quite a bit of thought, and for many reasons, sentimental and other, I have decided that this image is my favourite from my archive.
For those of you that are familiar with my back catalogue, I’m sure that a few of you reading this may be a little bemused by this choice of image. After all, on surface inspection it is quite a demeaning and derogatory photo – a style in which I am not renowned for shooting. However, for me the beauty in this photo lies in exactly that uneasy predicament that you are confronted with as a viewer, and one that may make more sense after I’ve elaborated a little on the circumstances surrounding its inception.
I shot this photo about 5 years ago for inclusion in the fantastic BAFTA-nominated documentary Taxidermy Stuff the World. The film follows the fortunes of a handful of taxidermists from around the world as they find, ‘stuff’ and eventually show their best work at the fantastically glitzy World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Illinois, USA. The photograph shows taxidermist Jeanette Hall from Spring Creek, Nevada, standing with her pedestal mounted Appaloosa horse outside her hotel room in the corridor of the Crown Plaza hotel in Springfield.
Jeanette ended up playing quite a prominent role in the film, not least because she has such a brilliantly interesting and honest character. Amongst her talents at the time, she was most renowned for her love of diligently mounting the testicles of various animals on small varnished plaques, something that the armchair psychologists amongst our crew identified with her recent status as an embittered divorcee and one that her free-standing freezer choc-a-bloc full of frozen testicles certainly alluded to.
Nevertheless, after spending some time with Jeanette over the course of our filming it soon became apparent that she, like many of her contemporaries in the world of taxidermy whose passion often required them to kill wildlife, was in fact blessed with a strangely genuine love of animals. For me this paradox was a fascinating revelation to discover and one that I feel gives this portrait of her and her cherished horse so much more poignancy. For sure, it’s hard to ignore the brutal symbolism of the severed white horse’s head but it is somehow eclipsed by the delicate intimacy evident in the way she’s holding its reins. Similarly, the Mona Lisa smile of both Jeanette and her treasured horse beguile the tragically large and prominent 3rd place rosette pinned to this carefully manicured nape. Of course, quite a large factor in the initial attraction to this image comes from the simple fact that at a swift glance it is surprisingly easy to overlook the ‘minor’ detail that this beautiful horse is not actually alive and indeed doesn’t even posses any body below its neckline.
A few months after I got back from the shoot this particular image was included in an exhibition of photojournalism and ended up framed in a London gallery sandwiched between photographs from the war in Afghanistan and the Asian Tsunami. In my experience, most people’s initial reaction to the photo is one of either disdain or mockery and this was very much the case at that time. At the private view I remember wondering what Jeanette would think if she knew that people were sniggering at her portrait in a well-to-do London gallery. It was an uncomfortable feeling, so I tracked down her contact details and sent her an email asking for her opinion. Her reply was swift and brilliantly comforting. She wrote that she absolutely loved the picture and that her horse looked beautiful. She said that she had given framed copies to her family and friends and that in fact, her personal copy took pride of place on her mantelpiece at home. She didn’t care what other people thought of her picture.
I think that is why I like this picture so much. To some it’s disgusting, to others beautiful. For me it is deeply ironic… for Jeanette it’s just a lovely picture of her and her beloved Appaloosa horse. It can mean so many different things to different people but most importantly, it does so without actually causing offence to the person who originally posed for the photo in good faith, something that I think about a lot when people allow me the opportunity to photograph them. All in all it’s a picture full of paradox and irony and I like that. Ironic too that the picture I have ended up choosing as my favourite was, out of necessity, shot with flash, something I normally can’t stand and almost never use in my photography.
I suppose that one of the prominent qualities that keeps me enamoured by a picture is whether or not, as I study it more and more, I discover things about that image that I would like to change… things that I feel would improve it somehow. In the case of this image, after quite a few years I am still happy with it just the way it is. Well, almost. I’ve often secretly wished that Springfield’s Crown Plaza Hotel had had a slightly more garish wall paper adorning its corridors. But then again, nothing’s ever perfectly right when you’re a photographer.
As an amusing postscript to this story, I am including the link below to an article about Jeanette that I found in The Telegraph and which I think sums up the complexities of her philosophy on life brilliantly. Absolutely classic!
“Woman who turns pets into pillows faces death threats” The Telegraph, 10 Apr 2005
Man on Wire
Laos
Rush hour on the Mekong
Allow me to introduce you to Samnieng… that’s him in the middle of the picture on his way to work on a typical Monday morning in August. He lives about a kilometre from this spot on the wrong side of the river from his place of work which lies on a small island amid the mighty Mekong river of Laos in the area known locally as Siphandon, or The 4000 Islands. Actually, Samnieng’s walk to work every day is not as unique as you may imagine in this part of Laos despite the obvious severity of the journey. Many of the thousands of uninhabited islands in the area offer a unique habitat in which local fishermen can exercise their skills at catching the fabulous bounty of large fish that frequent these isolated rapids throughout the year. Of course there are obvious drawbacks in this line of work. During the rainy season the river swells horrendously rendering many of the prime fishing spots so dangerously inaccessible as to make them completely unreachable but for the efforts of the few brave and/or foolish fishermen who dare to venture where the majority fear to go.
Brave or foolish? I’ll let you decide… however Samnieng has been working here since he was a small boy and he assured me that as long as the fish keep coming to his part of the Mekong to spawn then he has no plans for a career change.
Extreme fishing... it's a serious matter
Interested in people who work under extreme conditions? Click HERE to meet Mongonjay, a honey gatherer from the Central African Republic.
Backpacking
Thailand
Kaosan Road... the best place in the world to see 'unspoilt' backpacker culture
This particular trip to Laos has begun for me in Thailand. The story I will be covering in a few days was filmed by a Human Planet crew a few weeks ago whilst I was in Mongolia, so I have taken this opportunity for independent travel by choosing to make my way to the destination in Laos overland from Bangkok and in the process treat myself to a little of one of my favourite pastimes… backpacking.
I’ve been backpacking on and off for over 20 years now and have to admit that I still get butterflies in my stomach at the mere thought of roaming around with a bag on my back. For those of you who’ve done it yourselves, you will know exactly what I am talking about because once you have experienced that unique feeling, it never really leaves you… just hides away quietly, resurfacing from time to time throughout your life.
Bangkok has figured quite extensively in my travels over the last 2 decades… it’s just one of those places that is very easy to end up in. On this occasion, as with every other time I find myself here, I am always sure to make my pilgrimage to the now infamous backpacker haunt, the Kaosan Road.
I’ve seen Kaosan change a fair bit over the years. I think it was probably amidst the well worn pages of an early edition of Maureen and Tony Wheeler’s South East Asia on a Shoestring that I first heard of this particular traveller hangout. Back then, backpacking was something that relatively few people did and places like Kaosan Road were a vital meeting point for the exchange of information between travellers. As with all major capital cities in South East Asia at that time, independent travellers could also count on them for the exciting opportunity to indulge in such rare pleasures as visiting a pharmacy, collecting their mail from Post Restante at the central post office, and swapping or selling some possessions (particularly books) before heading off again on the road less travelled.
Tonight somehow, I feel as if I have seen the life cycle of the Kaosan Road come full circle. Earlier, I stood and watched a newly married Thai couple who had chosen to have their wedding photos taken in the middle of the street on Kaosan, formerly the site of a dusty rice market.
Now it seems that backpacker culture itself has become a bonafide tourist attraction. Such a beautifully fantastic irony and one that I’m sure the Wheelers could never have predicted when they first began putting pen to paper writing the Yellow Bible back in the 70s.
