Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
…and very expensive riot inciting cereal.
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
short version (for those in a hurry): Internet outrage is soooo 2013.
long version (for those with more time): There was a internet furore a while back over some Facebook page called Women Who Eat on Tubes. It was basically photos of exactly that and for some reason loads of people got their knickers in a twist over it and accusations of sexism and so forth were bandied around in the usual indignant manner. Lets get it into perspective. It was just pictures of women eating on the tube. That was it. No-one died. No was abused. Sometimes a packet of McCoy’s is just a packet of McCoy’s.
We live in The Era of Outrage ™. It now seems a daily occurrence for everyone to get a beef in their bonnet about some evil deed or something terrible someone said. Cue instant declarations of outrage from all and sundry across whatever social media platforms they occupy. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of things going on all the time to be genuinely irate about but this Cult of Indignation ™ is out of hand. It seems that people just enjoy laying into people who have apparently offended them and be righteous whilst doing so. Its sanctimonious sadism. Wait for someone to fuck up then put the boot in.
Maybe people just need an outlet for their own pent up anger or are just bored and have nothing better to do but its all getting a bit boring isn’t it? Hasn’t outrage fatigue set in yet? Do we all have to get onto our high horses every time the Internet spoonfeeds us the latest outrage? Do we all need to jump every time the media says so? They have advertising space to sell, what’s our excuse?
For me the worst thing is there is no follow up. What people are spitting peas about one minute is utterly forgotten the next. The Nigerian girls abducted by Boko Harum initiated a week of every celeb and joe shmoe hashtagging the shit out of #bringourgirlshome and then that was it. They never came back and no-one bothered to notice or care as they were already onto the next thing.
The week before last the mob turned on the Evil lion killing dentist and rightfully so but again to put in perspective, we are officially in the midst of the 6th great extinction of Planet Earth, caused primarily by humans. Including the livestock bred for people to eat, we now account for 95% of all species currently in existence. This is something everyone suitably ignores but one lion gets it and there’s a feeding frenzy. (pun intended-ish) 2 days of outrage later its over and we all move on.
Take the clock clock-making terror suspect pupil, Ahmed. The world got behind him for like one day. It was maybe even just a couple of hours. #Isupportahmedforthelengthoftimeittakesmetoclickshare would have been a more appropriate hashtag.
This week we have the magnificent story of Cameron apparently sticking his cock and/or balls in a dead pig’s head’ – cue suitable massive outrage. I mean, yes, that’s pretty messed up but it is by far and away NOT the worst thing he has done. Not by a long shot. And it will only be the object of focus until the next twitter storm emerges. And so it goes on.
People’s outrage only lasts as long as it’s in the news, which isn’t very long these days. The refugee crisis is current No.1 outrage and again, rightfully so but soon it will fade from the news because something will inevitably replace it but the misery for those caught up in it will still exist. That problem is not going away anytime soon but the coverage of it will.
It seems people really don’t care about the subject, they just want to be outraged about it but more importantly, they want people to see they are outraged. Its like some badge of honour to be displayed. Look how much I care. Well if you actually did, you would probably continue caring for maybe slightly longer than it takes the A.D.D Internet to chew it up and spit it out.
So if I have offended anyone with either photos of people eating or this impassioned (posh word for outraged) diatribe please turn your scorn on me and outrage away…just don’t use up all your vitriol, you might need it for the next thing, or the one after that, or the one after..zzzzz
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
a proper random selection this week…well..ish. In some ways the only thing the subject’s have in common is me. I noticed them amongst the crowd. My eye is often drawn towards the unusual, something that stands out, something that compels me to take their photograph. Something I can’t quite let go. It could be their face, their outfit, the pose they are in but when I look closely into their eyes I always see more.
Something under the surface. A story they are trying to hide. I couldn’t possibly have noticed it at first glance but our brains absorb so much on an unconscious level it is possible I felt some underlying emotion emanate from them that made me want to capture them, more than what initially saw on the surface. Something deep, guarded from the world yet which somehow is revealed by the camera.
When you look at a photograph you stop time. It allows you to see what people spend their whole lives trying to disguise…their feelings. This for me is the beauty and power of photography. Selfies not included.
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
Despacio Jungle Roundhouse
Me and my camera in the greatest party on earth, my Despacio, my happiness
Despacio returned to The Roundhouse at the weekend for three more nights of magnificence. I have probably banged on about how amazing it is enough already on this blog but if you were there, you will not need to hear my words. For those of you who weren’t I really can’t begin to describe or do justice to the incredible atmosphere of positivity, happiness and love it generates in everyone who experiences it so I will just shut up and you can just look at the pretty pictures.
To see the full gallery please click here
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
To see the full Notting Hill Carnival gallery please click here
There were two things at this year’s Carnival that have significantly increased on previous years and that is the mass indulgence of balloons (nitrous oxide) and selfies. It seemed everywhere you looked someone was doing a balloon or a selfie and on some occasions, as in the instance above, both at the same time. I was going to name them ‘belfies’ but that’s already been taken (bottom shots apparently) so I think I will have to go with “ballofies”. (yes I am slightly trying to make #ballofies happen)
It is quite staggering how much both activities have increased in the last year alone but especially selfies. As I looked back through the crowd shots I had taken there was barely a single picture where someone wasn’t taking a selfie of themselves or their group, often repeatedly. I then looked back at the crowd shots from just last year’s Carnival and it was markedly less which just shows how its presence in our lives is spreading.
There was a time, not that long ago, when it would have been considered really naff, narcissistic and very uncool to stand there and take multiple shots of yourself. Why it is no longer considered so I really do not know. Its out of hand. Its happening way way too much. It needs to stop.
As for the balloons. their use is also slightly out of hand. Its only being done because its legal and even though its mostly harmless it can actually kill you as it works by pushing all the oxygen out of your lungs which apparently you need to breathe which apparently is quite useful for staying alive. This means it is technically more dangerous than most of the illegal recreational drugs the youth are being “protected” from.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Well, actually the same news. BBC future just published an article yesterday about people’s obsession with taking their own picture and commissioned several of my photographs to accompany it. Here it is if you want to see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150901-are-you-taking-too-many-pictures
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera back in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera back in my home town, my capital city, my london
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Me and my camera back in my home town, my capital city, my london
I can’t help but feel that this entire situation might be dealt with differently if the migrants who are in Calais were a sea of white faces from a European country instead. Would they have been treated the same? It seems doubtful.
I would also question the use of the word ‘migrant’ and its implications. The term would suggest that they are defined by their transitory nature and that they are of a ‘type’. The only thing they have in common is that they are displaced from their country of origin through events beyond their control.
The dictionary defines migrant as “a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions.”
This sounds like they have a choice. They don’t. If they’d had a choice they would have stayed where they were. Would you leave your home with nothing unless you absolutely had to? They only move from one place to another because no-one wants them. They are not travelling for fun. They’re not inter-railing around Europe. They are looking for a home.
I think by calling them ‘migrants’ it allows us to think of them as permanently in motion and therefore it is easier to move them on. They can just ‘migrate’ somewhere else. The terminology allows us to absolve ourselves. But this situation will not go away. It will not ‘migrate’. It will just keep coming back. It will need to be considered with genuine understanding and compassion to find the correct solution. The ‘crisis’ is our lack of empathy. They are not migrants. They are people.
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Me and my camera back in my home town, my capital city, my london
David Cameron described the migrants as a “swarm”. This is designed intentionally to dehumanise them. So that their plight does not stir our emotions. But they are not one big problem. They are individuals, each one with their own personal story of human misery. They are not faceless multiples to be dealt with en masse. Each one has a different tale that led them to this horrific situation. Only by seeing each and every one of them as unique will we find the humanity that is necessary to deal with this ‘problem’.
And for the record, it is not our problem. It is theirs. They are the ones without a home, without a country, without anything other than what they could carry with them. They are the ones who left behind loved ones. They are the ones that no-one wants. They are the ones with the problem. The crisis is theirs. Not ours.
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Me and my camera back in my home town, my capital city, my london
A barrel bomb is an improvised unguided bomb made from a large barrel-shaped metal container that has been filled with high explosives, with possibly shrapnel, oil or chemicals, and then dropped from a helicopter or airplane. It is estimated that, as of mid-March 2014, between 5,000 to 6,000 barrel bombs have been dropped during the Syrian conflict and 99% of casualities have been civilian. Barrel bomb attacks throughout Syria have killed more than 20,000 people since the conflict began.
If reading the stats doesn’t affect you imagine they were being dropped on your city at this rate with such a death toll…would you stick around?