Independence Day (cont’d)

More hastily scribbled notes on my recent trip to Kosovo plus further thoughts on mobile phones in one vast paragraph

While surfing the BBC News website last Friday it became increasingly clear to me that Kosovo was almost certainly going to declare independence from Serbia within the next 48 hours. It’s not every day a country declares independence, especially in such a controversial manner, and the idea of dropping everything and travelling there to take photographs was a gamble more than worth taking. With my mobile phone fully charged and my dSLR in my bag as backup, I boarded a bus the following morning at the start of a two-day journey that would take me through northern Greece (Macedonia) and FYROM (also known by the local population as well as most of the rest of the world as Macedonia, a particularly Balkan-style problem), where I’d have to spend the night in Skopje, and finally over the UNMIK-controlled border and into the centre of the action in Kosovo’s tiny capital city, Pristina. The ultimate aim of the trip was to start putting into practice a combination of my own theories and ideas about using a mobile phone as a serious tool for photojournalism and documentary photography alongside the things I’ve learnt so far on the course. Most importantly I wanted to put myself inside a significantly important news story the whole world was talking about, to benefit from working on the factory floor as it were, in an authentic news environment. As I remain neither trained as a photographer nor have any desire (to date) to concentrate on specialising in any one type of photographic style or technique, I thought it’d be both fun and instructive to mix the discipline I’ve so far learnt on the course with an open mind about the events unfolding around me and how to react to them photographically. I had the advantage of knowing Pristina fairly well, and knew more than the average person in the street about the issues that had sparked the revolution. Thus comfortably armed with the appropriate tools and knowledge, the following morning I bought a ticket in the bus station in Skopje after a pleasant evening with friends who live in the city the night before and started the two-hour journey to where the action was taking place. During the course of the day I took what I believe to be a personal record of 692 photographs on my phone, from the moment I boarded the bus in Skopje until myself and my Kosovar-Albanian friend Vullnet had downed our final beers in one of Pristina’s heaving bars at the end of an extremely long, enjoyable, moving, extraordinarily unforgettable and unique day. The contentious recipient of the positive rewards of doing something a little out of the ordinary, I believe I was compensated for my efforts with some fairly interesting work, some of which I can say I’m extremely proud of (although everything now needs some serious post-production work, something I know even less about than taking the photographs themselves). Despite the fact that the day was clearly one of the most photogenic Pristina had ever known, I was still grateful for the things I’ve so far learnt during our online course sessions and the limited number of accompanying assignments. Of the multitude of unforgettable photographic moments during the day, particularly poignant highlights included arriving at the bus station in Pristina at the same time the bus station staff were having their independence party, being surrounded by hordes of brightly decorated, horn-beeping vehicles covered in jumping, dancing Kosovar-Albanians, trying to frame shots taken into the blazing sun of screaming-shouting-flag-waving revellers as I walked backwards trying not to fall over things, finding by complete accident the special cake made for 35,000 people as it was being cut and eaten by hundreds of hungry partygoers, taking the time to snatch candid pictures of the press, ruling elite and gatecrashers inside the Grand Hotel, likewise stumbling on what appeared to be a UCK bigwig giving it large through the open roof of a car complete with a huge poster of Ibrahim Rugova on the wall in the background, catching the Prime Minister getting out of his car as he arrived at the Grand Hotel to start his public affairs for the evening, and, finally, taking a handful of pictures in an almost pitch black bar as the night wore on and the party broke up into smaller, more personal, local events. Almost every photograph I took involved me being more aware of what was going on in within the frame, not just compositionally but also in what the things in the picture meant and/or conveyed. As mentioned before, a large part of what I wanted to do was to simply get out into the crowd as it were and play with my camera, but at the same time equipped with the additional knowledge I’ve been learning feeding into the pictures I was taking. It was frightening, interesting and fun to be confronted with a new kind of discipline, but looking through the pictures (through the ones that worked anyway), I can see that the course is already having a positive effect on my work. Why exactly I chose to use a mobile phone and will continue to use it more and more in my work still remains a partial mystery to me. One thing I do know for certain is that what I’m attempting to find with the mophone is far from just a gimmick. The reasons for using a mobile phone instead of a more professional camera are many. The freedom it allows both in terms of how it can be used in a large crowd without having your dSLR lens thrust up your nose every few seconds as well as how it can at times make you feel invisible, especially during times when a certain sensitivity towards the subject is required, is truly amazing. As a discreet tool in the service of the experimental gathering of visual information at a large international news event I really don’t think a mophone can be beaten. My interest lies in using images intelligently and to interact with the people in my pictures with as much dignity as can be expected during what can always be seen as an invasion of the press. I’m tempted to declare that the often cheap, blurred, wobbly, burnt and generally bruised pictures my mobile phone produces say something about the nature of the world I’m capturing, but that would be rubbish to say the least. Neither am I particularly interested in the growing popularity of the so-called citizen journalists on hand to capture everything from the July 7 bombings in London to the hanging of Saddam Hussein. If anything I’m more a convert to people such as Bert Hardy, the self-taught Leica user who once wrote an article for amateur photographers showing them how to take professional pictures using a Box Brownie. It’s all about finding my own voice with the help of the course and everyone on it. Sometimes I get tired and frustrated at my lack of academic ability as well as the pressure of doing this course whilst trying to run a business. But I’m not complaining. Really. Just as I was finishing scribbling this blog entry I got a nice comment on a previous blog from Antrim, offering to help edit some of the pictures I took in Kosovo. This is the best news I’ve had all day. Now I just need some help with the post-production, although I doubt anyone reading this has managed to make it down this far. It really would be nice to do something with these photographs, and to work with other people to produce something would make it even better. Back to the future, and I’m planning to do my street assignments with my mobile, whilst sticking with the dSLR as much as I can for most of the other work. I love and enjoy my dSLR, and would hate to see it not getting used. It too needs its roles in my photographic life. Watch this space!