< Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry >

Rough Days in Co-Op City and the 2nd day of the VII Seminar

While I am looking out of my window, observing about seven police cars encircling and stopping a MTA bus down on Bartow Avenue I am transfering the interview I did with Joachim Ladefoged onto my computer. Man, Co-Op City is getting rough these days. In an earlier post from May I already mentioned that I heared a shooting out of my window one night. And last Friday night there was another shooting again. This time it seemed to be a couple of shots out of a pistol, more shots, a break and shots again. It again only took about a minute until four police cars arrived. Today I heared that it was a alleged gun fight between two gangs... Not sure if that's true. I never experienced any gang activity in or around Co-Op City and I feel very safe here. More likely there was somebody just shooting out of the window again. Still not the best thing to do since the bullets have to go down somewhere... Mom - I am alright, I am safe and there is no danger waiting for me! :-)

Anyway, so while those police cars are still standing around this public transport bus (can't really figure out what's going on) I am going to report on the second day of the VII seminar held at Parsons The New School Of Design.

As I mentioned I haven't been totally happy with yesterdays afternoon panel. Today was different. There where no panels to certain topics but one huge, filled auditorium with the photographers presenting their work for about 40 minutes each. And that was really nice and relaxing. Somtimes I felt as if I would sit in a cinema, watching these kind of multimedia essays we produce at Magnum In Motion. It's just viewing great photographs and listening to the photographers voice talking about the photographs and their work.
Truly interesting to hear some of the worlds best photographers talking about their work and although I am familiar with the work of the VII Photo Agency I have to admit that I of course never had such an intense dose of VII photography on a single day. And it was great. It was really inspiring. I liked most of the presentations a lot. There have been so many perfectly composed images and I even saw some art in a couple of them... By now you might already know that I wouldn't necessarily call photography an art. Please don't stone me. That's just my personal point of view. And as I said I even found some art in the photographs I have seen today. Especially in those of Antonin Kratochvil. But there was so much great photography that it's unfair to name only one.

But let me pick out one other photographer I also interviewed today. Danish photographer Joachim Ladefoged who became a Magnum nominee in 2000 and who was voted out of Magnum in 2002. He became a member of VII in 2004. I was aware of his work for a couple of years already and I really liked it. But last night I was preparing the interview with him and therefore sunk into his work completely. Man, let me tell you... This guy is a great, great, great photographer. What I like is that you can't really wrap his work up into one kind of photography. He has photographed wars, crises, street and commercial assignements. And looking at his work throughout the years shows that he is developing further and further. For a couple of reasons I guess he was the one photographer who inspired me most.
Check out his website and wait for the interview with him. You'll hear why he made a conscious decision not to photograph wars anymore, why photography saved his life and a lot more.

Posted by Martin Fuchs on October 16, 2005 11:20 PM