I should point out however

I should point out however as come to think of it I haven’t actually mentioned it anywhere, that the main theme of the project is to photograph, initially, the remaining members of the Trakai Karaite community, then, if things go well, to work on the rest of them in Lithuania. Other cultural issues such as food, religion, language etc, and how to go about looking into them photographically, remain side issues that I may or may not explore depending on how the project progresses.

More thoughts about the Karaite

Searching the internet for Karaite-related information today I came across the BBC Who Do You Think You Are site. For those who aren’t familiar with it it’s a documentary series that’s hitched a ride on the back of the current obsession with tracing family history that follows celebrities as they attempt to unravel the mysteries of their ancestral past. I’ve seen a few of them, but not the one that came up in my search, namely the programme that focused on the English actor David Suchet. The two things I find of particular note about the series are the importance of family history as a way of telling historical stories in a personal way and the fact that we don’t really know much about our ancestors, and are quite often astonished when we start to look into them. Suchet knew his family history less than a hundred years back, namely that of his grandfather who came to the UK from South Africa. He knew that he had Eastern European Jewish roots, but no more than that. Using a Russianised version of his family name he managed to work his way back to of all places Lithuania, or rather modern-day Lithuania that at the time he was interested in knowing more about was, after exhaustive research both part of tsarist Russia and the Prussian Empire. Dipping into old records he soon discovered that far from being descended from Eastern European Jewry he was in fact the descendent of Turks (thus the connection with the Karaite, who incidentally weren’t mentioned in the programme but who came up in the comments left on the series website by its readers). Anyhow, the thing that really struck me in relation to the project I’m embarking on with the Karaite is that it’s particularly important to create this series of portraits for the benefit of future generations. Photographic evidence on its own is powerful enough (eg. the slow cultural changes in Karaite clothing from their traditional costumes in the late 19th century through to the now uniform (no pun intended) adoption of Western clothing. With the addition of some writing, I firmly believe the project will make a significant addition to the history of the Karaite, not least because from all the research I’ve do far uncovered, nobody has made any serious or otherwise photographic record of the Karaite community. Ethnically, the Lithuanian Karaite are utterly unique, despite sharing some common heritage with their neighbours over the border in Poland. This is most evident in their language, which contains many instances of Lithuanian alongside the Polish and Russian influences as seen in the language of the Polish Karaite (of which I should point out there are less than the population of the Lithuanian Karaite). The last head count of the Lithuanian Karaite population took place in 1997, of which it was found that there were 252 left in the country, 60 or so of them in Trakai, the spiritual home of the Turkic offshoot of the world Karaite movement. Alongside the language, I’m particularly interested in recording somehow their religious practices (the Karaite are unusual in that they remove their shoes before entering a kenesa, or Karaite synagogue), which must surely betray their Turkic (Islamic?) origins. Their folk art also looks entirely Islamic, and their food is also very non-Jewish. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, most remaining Lithuanian Karaite are busy integrating within modern Lithuanian society, with only a handful attempting to hang on to their original culture. This was brought home to me when I made my test picture of Artūras, who when asked if he was going to marry a Karaite woman said it depended entirely on his heart. Following ones heart may be the best way to live life, but under certain circumstances it can mean whether an entire ethnic group survives or is wiped off the face of the planet. Unfortunately, yesterday I couldn’t attend the session with John, and this weekend I’m busy with other things, so there’s not much to report on the Karaite project beyond my usual trains of thought. I have however emailed representatives of the Karaite community (on the recommendation of Artūras) but don’t hold out much hope for a response. As in most things, it’s the personal touch that’s going to move things along. More research has uncovered the fact that nobody really knows who the Lithuanian Karaite are. There’s no doubt that they came from the Crimea at the end of the 14th century, but how this ethnically Turkic group ended up converting to Karaite Judaism, and exactly who they were when they did, remains a total mystery. Just how I’m going to go about this project visually also remains at least in part a mystery. I decided before I made my first trip to Trakai last weekend that I was going to do the project in black and white, but beyond that I don’t have much idea about style. Most important is a visual record accompanied by an underlying documentary/journalistic approach to the work. I’ve been looking at portraits today, and although I find the more interesting and dramatic examples visually exciting, I do wonder if sometimes this style of over-romanticising photography takes more away from the very essence of the subject than it adds. I suppose only time can tell where all of this is going to lead me.

The Karaite

Artūras Lavrinovičius
23, Trakai
Single
Business studies student and administrator in Karaite restaurant in Vilnius

Dear John

Not much in the way of new things to show this week, more a quick update including where I’m and where I hope this is going to take me. I’ll be brief.



Borders
Have abandoned the history of Vilnius idea because I can’t see it fitting with the Nokumentary postcard approach. Instead, firstly for aesthetic reasons I took the borders idea literally and have started putting white borders on my mobile phone street pictures. On a black background they look superb. Second, I’m churning this new material out at a ridiculously low size. As the global economy crumbles around our ears I think it’s time to think small. Paul Klee took a line for a walk and created small masterpieces. I take my phone for a walk and try to do the same. About the pictures I take with my phone on the street, I’m trying to capture the essence of what I see in front of me. Unlike the current trend in street photography (no time to quote anyone) that’s more about showing how clever the photographer is (people going up ladders into the sky, people who look like people in posters behind them etc), I’m really charmed with the idea of truly documenting the briefest of moments that somehow show more. I try hard to make my pictures look good of course, but not clever. Never clever. I’m going to keep moving forwards with this and see where it takes me. No plans as yet to abandon the idea as the Borders project. I’m treading the borders of acceptable documentary photography already, so that’s ok with me. Sometimes I despair at this work, but general I see an interesting and worthwhile body of work coming together.


Mobile Nation
As I start to write this sitting in a temporary office I realise Dainius’ new photographs are on my laptop back at the flat. Never mind. Dainius has just split with his girlfriend, and is trying to get his client, Daniel, the guy in the wheelchair, a girlfriend. He’s been photographing some of it. The project remains chaotic because as far as I know there’s no precedent plus until Dainius finishes and sends back the questionnaire I sent him I can’t really start putting ideas together. I’m still young, and this is such a great idea, that I’m in no hurry. To up the ante a little, I’m working on adding my second person to the project, my friend Douglas in Greece. Douglas had a massive stroke four years ago, which has severely affected the left side of his body (his arm is totally useless and his leg is so bad he has to go everywhere with a stick) and his mind, which has gone from an arrogant, outspoken, sharp tool into something that would belong better inside the head of a shy four-year-old girl. For a few months earlier this year I started a photographic project with Douglas, filming his life on my dSLR. My lifestyle means I find this difficult to keep up with, so have thought about getting Douglas to start taking photographs with his phone and to work on a project with me. He’s already started writing his life story. Damn this job thing gets in the way of the things I really should be doing!


DJ portraits
A co-project with an English designer living here in Vilnius. He wants a series of portraits of the best DJs in Vilnius and wants me to photograph it. The project will be shot on dSLR and co-edited. I want and need to do more portraits.

The Karaite
Tomorrow I go to Trakai for the weekend for work. Trakai, 28km west of here, was the ancient capital of Lithuania. In the 14th century the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas brought members of the Karaite community back to work as his personal bodyguards as well as the guards of Trakai itself. Vytautas (Polish, Witold) brought them from the Crimea where he’d been fighting the Golden Horde, but Karaite history goes back further than that. They originate from Mesopotamia, were originally Jews (some say the lost tribe) and they split in two several hundred years ago. What little there remains of the Karaite community in the world still adhere to their Old Testament beliefs. The Lithuanian Karaite on the other hand (of which there are around only 300 left) acknowledge both Jesus and Mohamed and are a strange bunch indeed. I recently met one of them, a restaurant owner, and he’s agreed to be photographed. Wouldn’t it be great to make a record of the entire community? I can follow this up next week when I return.

In short then, plenty of ideas but not much photography. I feel ashamed. There’s only about 10 minutes of fucking daylight here in the winter anyway. It’s going to snow all weekend. I’ll be taking lots of photographs.

Oh, and I got the page proofs back from the book we’re doing about Albania, complete with my photographs. They look good.

Ignore this post

Find more photos like this on mapjd08online

More interesting things at Flickr

Bloody bored stupid with people poking fun at Flickr but I'll continue to lend it some plaudits from time to time as and when needed as it's better than all of you put together. Now then, a nice Pool somebody set up here called the Chinese Restaurant Worldwide Documentation Project, of which one of my photographs (above) has been added. It's an interesting idea for a Pool, and is quite active and serious on one level (read some of the Discussions for example). What I particularly like about it (and this can be said for Flickr in general) is that one's free to get involved on any level they want. An admin from the group was trawling the pages and found my picture. It was invited to the Pool. I could then decline or accept and instantly become part of a international group of people showing photographs. I was then free to get more involved (having decided to add my picture to the Pool) or not, the latter in this case being what I did. As I keep showing you, Flickr is extraordinary. I'm not sure what the problem is that so many people have with it. Actually I don't really care any more.

Other work

Well then, there is a bit. Not much for my sins though. I did take my dSLR out of his little bag the other day and shoot some pictures with it. This was partly inspired by the previously mentioned Antanas Sutkus exhibition I saw, who reminded me that photographs don't necessarily have to be bad to be good. The DJ portraits project is still in the taking-about-it-over-yet-another-beer stage, although we are now sending things backwards and forwards to each other, which feels like a start anyway. One of the aforementioned things was this portrait of Marius the piercer I took earlier in the year in Greece, which Mark has Photoshopped a bit. Today I was thinking to do the whole project in black and white, and to dress the DJs in dinner jackets for obvious and rather droll reasons. The guidebook I'm doing in Vilnius should go to the printers tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning, so a bit more time to do things. Today (Sunday) I had scores of noble ideas and have so far watched a film and cleaned the shower.

Thomas Cook Travellers Albania

It's always nice getting page proofs back from the publisher, especially so when the pages include one's photographs as well as one's writing. The Travellers Albania guide isn't published until March 2009, which is why these pictures are published he so small.

Borders

Lost again

I promised everyone on this course months and months and months ago that I’d introduce them to some Soviet-era Lithuanian documentary photographers. It’s taken forever to do, not least because the books that I had on the subject vanished, and to be honest I really couldn’t remember any of the photographers’ names. Today I saw a poster advertising a photographic exhibition in the Vilnius Picture Gallery. I liked the look if the poster, so I went. The show runs until December 18, and features the work of two Lithuanian photographers, Antanas Sutkus, who was born in 1939 and who’s generally considered to be the greatest Lithuanian photographer alive or otherwise, Ugnius Gelguda, the younger of the two who despite having the more interesting name failed to interest me at all. Antanas Sutkus on the other hand, whose work hangs permanently all over the world including in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, studied journalism under the Soviets in the late 1950s, a course that at the time took six years to complete. He specialised in photography, and it’s to him that we owe a hug debt. His philosophy goes deeper than simply recording he people of a particular time, but this is what he’s done like no other. He’s been likened to Cartier-Bresson, and you can see the similarities in their work, but he really is much more besides. I’m excited because I haven’t been inspired for so long. As eagle-eyed readers of this blog will already know, next year is the 1,000th anniversary of the first written mention of Lithuania and as such is a big year, a year I’m very keen to collect in photographs, even if it means becoming a tramp for nine months. I’m waffling as usual. Sutkus’ pictures are all black and white, and for the first time in I can’t remember how long I was inspired to work in the medium. I’m still desperately trying to kick-start the Vilnius Borders project, but am absolutely at a loss. Today I spent spare moments in the street and on public transport trying to capture the natural beauty of the people around me with my James Bond cameraphone, but really couldn’t get inside the work. I’m like a ship without a rudder, fuelled on too many ideas and heading for a philosophical iceberg. Among Sutkus’ photographs on show were several taken of children, who he has a natural affinity with, which he also explains most eloquently. One of his most famous photographs is of a tight(ish) head shot of a young Pioneer, which although is worthy of much plaudits doesn’t do half as much for me as the photograph in the show on the opposite wall (above) of a boy of more or less the same age as the Pioneer, who just so happens to also be a pioneer, but who is blind. The emotions locked up inside that photograph brought a lump to my throat. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about photographic young people recently as the project I believe I’ve mentioned before, of the portraits of the Lithuanian DJs, is slowly moving forwards. My partner in crime, another Englishman stuck here in Vilnius and enjoying every minute of it, commissioned the work from me as a fan, and we’re now working on how to present it. I’ll almost certainly shoot everything on the dSLR, and we’ll almost certainly present them as a series of cards (I can’t keep away from them), in this instance in the style of Top Trumps. The idea is to do a series and ‘release’ them one at a time in clubs in Vilnius. Fans can them collect, swap them etc in the style of the original. Mark, the gentleman I’m working with on the project, wants to add some text, something along the lines of a short biography and marks out of 10 for things like Originality and Mixing. I’ll leave that up to him. The Top Trumps idea came from brainstorming, which in turn came from my own musings into what the hell it is I’m doing with a camera in the first place. I recently noticed a similarity between my mobile phone photography and 16th-century Flemish tapestries. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting myself in the same league (they were the best in the world in the time and highly sought after by the richest people), I just see a similarity between the Nokia noise, especially in low light, and the weave of a tapestry. This got me thinking about all sorts of other related (pre-photographic) art forms including miniature portraits, which I’m a fan of but know almost nothing about. I hate my mobile phone this week and have started calling it Nancy. It plays up all the time, failing to capture the image when I want it and producing the most ridiculous exposures. I thought this was why I liked it, but today I have my doubts. I know that intense periods of work with it produce beautiful results, but the style of working, which essentially leaves me isolated from the subjects, feels like a depressing one at the moment. Weeks and weeks ago I bought a pad of huge sheets of paper with the idea of plotting thoughts, maps etc on them to help move the Borders project along. I really do need to do this. We go to the printers next Wednesday too, so I’m really distracted, especially as I haven’t worked on this particular in this particular office for five years. Blah blah blah, Dainius, my first Mobile Nation guinea pig, split up with his girlfriend last week and my first reaction was to get him to take pictures. What a strange world we live in. He’s just as I write this finishing (at least he says he’s finishing) the questionnaire I sent him. Armed with this we can move the project to the next level. Have I written enough? Probably (almost 1,000 words). But did I say anything?

Shopping

I went to of all things the press conference pre-opening of yet another ghastly shopping mall in Vilnius last week. What a strange life getting paid to drink champagne first thing in the morning and pretend to take notes whilst three businessmen (in the local sense of the word) struggle to tell 50 unimaginative journalists what makes their new shopping mall different from all others (answer, nothing). This was all taking place in the mall itself, which if all went to plan opened a couple of hours ago. I say if all went to plan because when I was there it was chaos, with the toilets barlely plumbed in and thousands of shopgirls running around fitting out their new stores. The clothes shop immediately behind the press conference caught my attention, or rather these three creatures did. To be honest the reason I went was because the mall's got the first electric go-kart track in Lithuania, and we assembled hacks were all promised a ride. Instead I got bored and went and looked around a couple of churches.

Geert van Kesteren

Heaven knows where to post anything these days. I'm tempted to bang everybody's heads together and start a dictatorship. Whatever. I had a good session with John yesterday, doing what I do best and playing the voyeur as Kate and Lizzie laid their souls on the table. I was involved really, and among the topics up for discussion was the work of a photographer who used a mobile phone in Iraq. John couldn't remember the chap's name. It's Geert van Kesteren, and it turns out he doesn't actually take the photographs himself, rather he uses the mobile phone photography of Irqais who can get the kind of access denied to a Western photographer. Funny, as I'm doing something similar with my Dainius project. Anyways, for those interested, his work is currently showing in Brighton, in of all places Lighthouse, where I worked on and off for years. Small world.

Here's da link.

The Great War Archive

Excuse my grammar...

Whilst having a quick look around at things connected to WWI due to my own personal interest in the subject thanks to my grandfather who fought in it and whose photographs and other personal bits and pieces I recently scanned, I came across The Great War Archive. What I find particularly interesting about it (beyond that is my joy at knowing how useful the internet has become to people working in many different areas of historical research and publishing, and how this will all one day be of immense importance to the world) is that the project, run by Oxford University, has limited funds (and therefore time), so has created a Flickr group for people to keep adding to the project in an interesting way. There's also a blog. None of this is truly spectacular, but it's all part of what's clearly the nascent gurglings of a future electronic publishing phenomenom. Bedtime here so I'll have to get involved another day. Power to the people.

1964

The 13 main historic Vilnius languages

Belarusian
German
Karaite/Karaim
Latin
Lithuanian
Po Prostu
Polish
Proto-Lithuanian
Roma
Russian
Tartar
Ukrainian
Yiddish

Vilnius ethnicity since 1897

City of Vilna 1897
Jews (40.0%)
Poles (30.1%)
Russians (20.9%)
Belarusians (4.3%)
Lithuanians (2.1%)
Germans (1.4%)
Tatars (0.5%)
Ukrainians (0.3%)
Other (0.4%)
Source: 1897 Russian census

City of Wilna 1916
Poles (50.2%)
Jews (43.5%)
Lithuanians (2.6%)
Russians (1.5%)
Other (2.2%)
Source: 1916 German census

City of Wilno 1931
Poles (65.9%)
Jews (28.0%)
Russians (3.8%)
Belarusians (0.9%)
Lithuanians (0.8%)
Germans (0.3%)
Ukrainians (0.1%)
Others (0.2%)
Source: 1931 Polish census

City of Wilna 1942
Poles (41.89%)
Jews (27.78%)
Russians (1.95%)
Belarusians (2.55%)
Lithuanians (24.37%)
Germans (0.25%)
Other (1.21%)
Source: 1942 German census

City of Vilnius 1959
Lithuanians (33.6%)
Russians (29.4%)
Poles (20.0%)
Jews (7.0%)
Belarusians (6.2%)
Ukrainians (2.8%)
Other (1.0%)
Source: 1959 Soviet census

Vilnius city municipality 2001
Lithuanians (59.16%)
Poles (19.40%)
Russians (14.43%)
Belarusians (4.19%)
Source: 2001 Lithuanian census

Coincidences and side projects

As usual I’ve been thinking about completely changing the Borders project again. Over the last few days I’ve noticed that well over half of the photographs I take in Vilnius that ever get to see the light of day (ie. that get posted on a website somewhere) are taken at Kalvarijų Turgus (Kalvarijai Market). I’m still toying with the idea of moving the whole photographic show here, and will report back on the subject shortly. In the mean time, I just wanted to put this down on the subject. Proof once again if ever it was needed again that research is king. In 2002 I wrote about all of the different markets in Vilnius, including Kalvarijų Turgus. As luck would have it, I still have a copy of what I wrote, and using that as a starting point I was soon on a bizarre rollercoaster ride. During the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Kalvarijų Turgus was named Dzeržinskio Turgus after the Belarusian-born Polish Jew, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926), who went to school in Vilnius and who’s best remembered as being the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka. Lenin idolised Dzerzhinsky and considered him a true revolutionary hero. As such, all manner of things got named in his honour including a commune in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which in 1932 started an innovative programme using young homeless people to produce a replica of our old friend the Leica, the FED (as in Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky). I became particular interested in Kalvarijų Turgus when I discovered that the back section of it features an impromptu set of stalls selling second-hand goods including the occasional Soviet-era camera. I thought this was really interesting and because I’d like to shoot film again I’ve come up with an idea for shooting a series of portraits of market stallholders. What would be perfect would be portraits of stallholders who once had a run-in with what the Cheka eventually became, the KGB. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

On a different note I’ve been approached by an English friend living in Vilnius who wants me to work with him on a project about Vilnius DJs. Part of the Vilnius City of Culture 2009 thing (see earlier posts), we’re currently talking about how to do it. I’m keen to use the Nokia, which I’ve been busy developing a philosophy for. Small is beautiful. Today I’ve been reading about miniature portrait painting, of whom the Flemish during the 16th century were arguably the best. My dad’s family came to England from that part of the world during the same century. More coincidences. Anyway, a formal project with a mobile phone is a challenge. Watch this space.