I spent a good part of last week with Dr Shahidul Alam from Drik and shared ideas with this wonderful man.

He was busy going around meeting old friends like Shyam Tekwani and others. I was lucky....I was his de facto driver during this time. Having him trapped in my car I had plenty of time getting his views on certain things. I know, he wished he had a non-photographer driver at times who'd allow him a couple minutes of catnap in between appointments!

The gems of wisdom and focused thinking opened my eyes to the world. I thought I had traveled far and wide?..he showed me how much farther I need to go both as a photographer and as a person.

Actually, amongst the many things he touched on he taught me one lesson that amazed me.....he managed to quieten down my usually noisy 2 year old girl with his story of an angry turtle he had named "Kapa" (or was that "Cappa"?)....something that I have failed in for more than 2 years.


The following are Shahidul's thoughts as Chairman of the Jury for the World Press Photo which he wrote on 21 Feb this year while at Oldham, England.

?Much is made of the figures, but this is not a numbers game. While the sheer volume of photographs is daunting, it is still in the end a qualitative choice. How does one weigh one photograph against another? What makes one compelling image more special than another? What criteria do juries use to determine which one is best?

The parameters for the World Press Photo of the year are known; a photograph showing outstanding visual qualities and representing a news situation of global importance. News photographs are often taken on the run, in situations of extreme stress, often in situations of danger. Only outstanding photographers are able to create powerful, moving, beautifully constructed images even under such conditions. But their qualities need to combine with outstanding news-value to create the most talked about press image of the year.

2002 was a year of waiting. Waiting for UN resolutions to be applied equally to all. Waiting for aggressors to be punished. Waiting for a war that the world abhorred but seemed unable to stop. Missing were the moments that news networks paid millions to cover. Disasters in western countries lacked significant death tolls. Nothing significant had happened in the countries that mattered.

That is not to say that nothing had happened, or that the world was at peace. In a world where all lives are not equal, some lives are easily forgotten. Their daily plight does not count. Their struggles are insignificant. No war machines come to their rescue. Unless material interests intervene.

But riots, earthquakes and indiscriminate bombings have taken place, and occupation continues. And there have been photographers who have been there. At a time when defence pools, restricted access, and editorial policy define the perimeters of journalism, some photographers have gone against the grain and covered stories which should have been news but weren?t, about people who should have mattered but didn?t.

Clinging to the trousers of his dead father, a young boy cries for a loss that is as universal as it is personal. The image talks of humankind?s eternal struggle against nature, and a community?s ability to stand by the afflicted. Yet, amidst all these people, the young man is alone in his misery. The death he mourns might not matter to a world that doesn?t care, but to him, the world might well have stopped. And one photograph preserved that moment, a silent witness of an emptiness that speaks to us all. One photographer takes on the challenge of questioning our definitions of news.

As for the judging itself, it was a complex, passionate, fervent affair. Time and time again, we were humbled by someone?s insight into a moment, that had completely passed us by. Again and again, our zone of comfort was invaded. We were shaken into responding to an argument that questioned the values that we had always considered unshakeable. Our tools of measurement were cast aside. We stood naked, our prejudices exposed.

The photographers too stretched us. Images that explored the gaps in our visual spaces, played with our sense of balance. War was presented through lingering traces. Political systems presented through emptiness and solid structures. Consumerism and decadence exposed through garish images, unashamedly rejecting the classical norms of
image construction. Tender moments rendered without sentimentality. And of course those stark images, where the photojournalist, at the right place at the right time, but hopefully for not too long, returned with the horrors of what man does to man.

When the credibility of our media, shrouded in propaganda, struggles for survival, a few brave women and men continue to report the news that is no longer newsworthy. This contest salutes their courage.?

End Quote: Credit Shahidul Alam, 21st February. Oldham.
Chairman of the Jury 2003

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I'll be speaking to a group of 200+ high school kids at an Inter-school photography seminar tomorrow. I'll be speaking on "Environmental Awareness (in Photography". I'm now desperate for an opening joke.

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The post mortem for Migrant Workers exhibition will take place informally tonight and formally next Thursday when we meet with the director of the Singpaore History Museum.

The prints for the July exhibition will go the direction of traditional handprints. Desmond our printer, who in the past worked with no less than 10 of the region's top photographers has been an unfortunate victim of digital imaging. Trained in London, he would not even consider accepting jobs before examining a photographer's portfolio then. Fame and fortune seemed imminent......until a bulk of his most valued clients switched to digital.

In his 60s, he remains highly passionate with the art of hand-printing. "You need and artist to bring out the best of another artist's work" was his summary statement.

Greg, myself and a few others are working hard to keep Desmond going.....not just as a person but as an effort to keep the highest levels of a dying art alive and to have this trade passed on to younger hands before Desmond packs away his darkroom for good.

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I see more and more mobile phones with cameras built into them. That is an interesting evolution ......phones that take pictures. With image quality and storage medium still issues that technology will address in future, when will the day come when we have cameras that can be used as phones? We're seeing this in the PDAs..... PDAs that can be used as phones and phones that double up as PDAs.

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Work at the office continues to pile up from this week's trip out to Jakarta. The mood in Indonesia seems one of relief at the relative peace in the capital. Our flights to and from Jakarta were full of businessmen eager to resume trade after Singapore got lifted off the WHO list of SARS infected countries.

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I will be in Bangkok 11 June for 4 days. Hope to complete the story on the Thai-Burmese border and also the other story on the Burmese Mon reguees who've camped themselves on the Thai side for the last 20 years.


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