roma

minority report – Manchester’s Roma

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I’m not entirely sure why but this has been the slowest moving and probably the most delicate project I’ve ever worked on as a journalist. I’ve been thinking about doing some work on the Romanian Roma who live near my home in Manchester since last summer and but only started trying to make contact with them in December. Since then it’s been a series of false starts, red herrings and frustrations for all kinds of reasons, not least enormous language and cultural barriers and issues of trust. There are problems with community cohesion in the area so there are sensitivities on all sides. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope and am braced for complaints.  Read the full feature here. Part two – the Roma perspective – will run next week.

Istanbul Roma on The Travel Photographer

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My Istanbul Roma gallery was kindly featured on The Travel Photographer blog this week. Photographer Tewfic El-Sawy – who was an instructor at the Foundry workshop where I shot the work – uses this space to highlight images from around the world which catch his eye. I also enjoy his regular rants. Check him out…

“We are Roma”

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PDF available HERE.

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** I did create a rough audio track to go with his story, but it wouldn’t really work with my pictures.  If anyone’s interested in hearing it in Yuksel’s words – and hearing a little of the amazing live Roma music played at the weddings I attended check it out.

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(this is an assessed photo essay I just submitted for my MA photojournalism & documentary photography course). Thanks to Daniel, David and Rena for their invaluable feedback…

Istanbul Roma – outtakes

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I’m feeling a bit happier about my approach to the current assignment I’m putting together for uni and thought I’d share a few pictures that I like but which don’t make the grade. Now there’s a bit of distance between me and my Istanbul trip, I’m starting to feel more satisfied with my images and to wonder what I could have come out with after knowing this Roma family for more than one week.

Foundry workshop, day 4

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I’m still feeling as though I’m making slow progress with my Gypsy project in Istanbul but a few nice images are starting to emerge.

My portrait repertoire is somewhat limited, I’m learning. I feel I need to start using some different approaches to just standing straight on and sitting down and looking at the camera and to the side, but I don’t really spot the opportunities. Using doorways, windows, steps or anything like that might help.

Taking the time to get prints done every day of the previous day’s shoot has worked a treat in getting the family to open up to me though. It’s a trick I use at home sometimes but in a family with so little the gesture really seems to mean a lot.

Foundry day 3

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I’m still not feeling it hugely with my pictures from the Roma family in Istanbul  – while they’re being great with me I’m struggling to stop them posing, smiling and pulling odd faces in my portraits. I need to start shooing family members on their own and closer up. Hopefully tomorrow there should be someone there for a while who can translate for me.  Two days to go until the end of this workshop so the pressure is kind of on…

Foundry, day 1

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I spent this afternoon taking some pictures at the shanty home of a lovely family of Roma Gypsies who live on the Asian side of Istanbul and whose original house was demolished – with all their belongings inside – by the authorities under an urban renewal scheme. Ahem. Two of my main subjects dovetailing into one there.

I got a few nice frames and am returning tomorrow…I did an audio interview with them – through an local activist who I really owe bigtime – the other day but communication was predictably difficult this afternoon. Embarrassingly they also took it upon themselves to try to feed me all the time i was there – humbling and awkward when you’ve already had lunch and your hosts can so little afford it.

I’m not sure whether they’ll be able to tolerate my presence all week though. I’m in Rena Effendi’s class at the Foundry workshop this week and the focus of our projects is meant to be telling stories through portraiture, something I’m keen to improve on. If you don’t know her work, check it out because it’s quite incredible.