Monday, 12 September 2011

Angela Catlin


Click on the picture to see it properly.
This picture shows young children working in a stone quarry in Nepal. They start working in the quarry at 5am, go to school between 9am and 4pm, and then work in the quarry until 8pm. They do this six days a week. Each day they crush about 10 cubic feet of stone, and get paid about 40 cents for their efforts.
This information came from Angela Catlin's website, where there are many photographs from all over the world, with detailed information and stories about the photographs.
Angela, I think, is quite modest. She doesn't tell us too much about herself because, like many photo journalists, she is more interested in the people in her photographs. She is also very interested, concerned, for their well being and the very hard work they have to do to simply stay alive.
She  used to work for the newspaper, the Glasgow Herald, and she teams up with the writer Billy Briggs - http://www.billybriggs.co.uk/photography.html who describes her as one of the most gifted photographers in the world, and lists some of her awards.
I think she would be happier if she didn't have subjects like this to photograph - her work is used by organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch - and I am sure she would be happier photographing these children leading an easier, less punishing life.
This style of photography - photojournalism - is about treating the people with dignity and respect, and the photographs show their living and working conditions without interfering or setting things up very much - Photoshop manipulations are not used, because we have to believe that these pictures show the reality.
The most famous group of photographers who work in this way are called Magnum .
This is a long way from celebrity or fashion photography...

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