Quick update

Greetings from England, where I’ve been more or less stuck in bed since I arrived with the most horrid attack of a virus that’s rendered me full of pain and coughs. Accordingly I haven’t felt like doing anything, including keeping this blog up to date. And so, as much as I’m not in the mood for doing it, I really do need to get some stuff on paper, metaphorically speaking. The Karaite project is going nowhere. The community aren’t interested in working with me, and having played with the idea of a photographic project about the places and people around them but that doesn’t include them (which works nicely in my head, and that if done could serve as a wake-up call in the sense that what I really wanted to convey was to see the world without the Lithuanian Karaite in it) to the point of actually making another trip to Trakai to explore how I might go about this, I don’t feel particularly inspired to pursue it. I do however believe that there are things about the Lithuanian Karaite that are truly extraordinary (they are after all both Jewish and Muslim), and will keep them on the backburner. What I really need to do is physically meet the woman who makes the decisions, but as I think I’ve already mentioned, she’s away working in Western Europe. So, that leaves me with Mindaugas Rutkauskas, who unlike the Lithuanian Karaite is wildly enthusiastic about what I’m doing and very relaxed about me working with him. A quick technical point I should make is that I was right originally to do the project in black and white. Having shot him again, it was clear that the light in Lithuania in winter is simply too bad for colour (I’d actually read something to that affect written by a Lithuanian photographer a few days before I made the decision), and thinking about the documentary photography I like… most of it is black and white. Maybe it’s something to do with my age? Who cares? I love the magic simplicity of the black and white image. At this moment in time, I’d have to say the work that strikes the most chords inside me and that I can identify with is the work of Cartier-Bresson (God I hate saying this, but it’s true), Bert Hardy and O Winston Link. Anyway, during my first quick shoot with Mindaugas in his workshop I was intrigued to find out how he got to work. It turns out he walks, so there was my second shoot. Just before I left for the UK last week I met him on a bridge as planned and walked into work with him, getting to know him more and taking a few pictures. A crude edit of the two shoots can be seen here. To add a little more information before I crawl back under the duvet, Mindaugas is married with three children and studied history at Vilnius University. His story is like that of any other person, which is sort of what attracts me to it, and his reason for becoming a ceramic artist was that he didn’t want to work in an office. When I met him on the bridge he’d just been to one of Vilnius’ most popular folk restaurants for whom he’s just made new salt and pepper pots. I want to go them are take pictures of people eating and using his pots. This is exactly the kind of ordinary magic that inspires me. Anyway, back to bed.

Pah

Like a deafening silence, the Lithuanian Karaite are conspicuous by their absence in Trakai. It was only when I saw two young Karaite women in a car as I was walking back to the bus station today after failing to take one single photograph worth posting (maybe a fresh look tomorrow will change the situation) that I realised I hadn’t seen any at all in the three hours I was there. Lithuanian Karaite Visibility comes courtesy of many things in Trakai, not least the two restaurants (three actually, at least when the other one at the Karaite Community centre is open, which it never is) selling the classic Lithuanian Karaite dish kibinai. Will kibinai be the only thing left to remember them by in 20 years I wonder? Even the spelling’s been Lithuanianised, the Karaite word for it being kybyn. I’m suddenly reminded of the Lithuanian dish kugelis, which is transformed when spelt differently into the old Jewish favourite, kugel. I even know Lithuanians who’ve been to university who are convinced is a Lithuanian invention. Trakai (total population less than 5,000) is a hugely popular tourist destination for Lithuanians and foreigners alike, a town that draws on its Karaite heritage to the point of dependence. I went there today, a horribly sunny affair that promised little in the way of emotive photography, with nothing in the way of an agenda and to be honest not a little pissed off with the cold reception I’ve so far received from the Lithuanian Karaite movement themselves, who remain stubborn to say the least with regards to me invading their lives. In the back of my mind I was interested in exploring the idea of photographing the very lack of the Karaite in the town as mentioned in the first paragraph, which could possibly yield an interesting photographic essay of a culture that refuses to play ball. Like some demented African explorer I wandered about the town, photographing empty playgrounds, benches with nobody sitting on them, broken pleasure boats on the shore of the lake with the Karaite cemetery in the background across the water, waiting for the vanished tribe to materialise. I was kind of interested by my earlier photographs of the Polish gentleman, Henryk, who lives next to the Karaite cemetery and who expressed indifference to the culture he shares the town with. In fact, just about the only word I wrote down when I was there was indifference. Whilst taking a photograph of a parking meter I was accosted by an elderly chap who told me his name was Vytautas, the very name of the Lithuanian Grand Duke responsible for bringing the Karaite to Lithuania in the first place. My Vytautas, a native of Trakai, had nothing to say about the Karaite. Indifference. I farted around on the island named after the Karaite, took pictures of the bridge named in their honour (the last thing they cross before being lowered into the Trakai soil for all eternity at the ends of their lives) and even knocked on the doors of the houses on either side of the Kenesa to see if I could start some kind of dialogue with somebody. Everybody was out, and I felt like a total idiot. Now I just feel angry, not least because I’m flying to the UK in a couple of days and feel like I’ve achieved nothing. On a rosier note, I called my blind ceramics man earlier and he’s agreed to let me take photographs of him walking to work. At least something’s moving in the right direction, although it does feel a bit like a case of the blind leading the blind. Next up, find a subject to work on in the UK.

More Mindaugas

Welcome to the Lithuanian spa resort of Druskininkai, ironically the first destination of my first abandoned Borders project. I’m sitting in my hotel, in a ridiculously posh suite complete with two flat screen televisions and all the trimmings on a two-night work trip re-writing a lacklustre guide to the town for my current employers. Despite the fact that work has once again gone into overdrive I do at least have the evening off, leaving me some time to update here. Following on from my last post, I’d arranged to meet the blind ceramic artist Mindaugas Rutkauskas in his workshop this Tuesday. Like a twit I went out on Monday night and drank too much badly looked-after Guinness, leaving me with an already overstretched workload plus a photographic assignment on top of a shitty hangover. I dropped by Mindaugas’ place on the way to the office to see if I could arrange another day to photograph him, but ended up taking a few pictures anyway, of which you can see a few edited samples here. I’d decided to shoot at 800ASA due to the lack of light, which have me just enough to work with if I kept to a wide lens with the aperture wide open. After deciding the colour was too good to lose and do this work in black and white I sat down this afternoon and enhanced the pictures in Lightroom. I’m still not sure whether I’ve got the right look, but I like them all the same. Having realised that even if I could find a Pentax-dedicated flashgun in Lithuania (I couldn’t), Mindaugas’ workshop has no light surfaces anyway, so I found myself forced to work using available light anyway, which I must say I do prefer. Mindaugas has a window that would’ve allowed a little more light in, but I liked the look of it when it was closed so relied only on one striplight and two angle-poise lamps. I found him hard at work making these little musical animals, which are essentially whistles and that he was adding glaze to. After 20 minutes or so I had to dash but have agreed to do one more shoot with him before I leave for the UK next Wednesday. I’m now in touch with one of the main people in the Lithuanian Karaite community, who replied to my email in a fairly negative way. I’m sure I can win them around (more on the subject later), but have now got another subject if I need it. Comments and suggestions always welcome.

Mindaugas Rutkauskas

The first serious film I ever made, in 1990, was called A Short Film about Ken and the Universe. The Ken of the title was Ken Revis, a blind ex-serviceman who lost his sight removing Allied mines on Brighton’s West Pier in 1943 in preparation for D-Day (you can read his obituary in the Telegraph here). The film was co-directed by my friend Jamie Allen, who at the time was working on a building site in Ovingdean, close to the large St Dunstan’s building a mile or so away overlooking the English Channel. St Dunstan’s is a large UK charity working with blind and partially sighted ex-service men and women from all three UK services, and Ken was very actively involved with them. Ken would take a walk on his own every day past where Jamie was working, and Jamie became intrigued by Ken so decided to strike up a conversation. To cut a long story short, Ken was, somewhat ironically, involved in the West Pier Trust, an organisation that tried to save (and as anyone who’s ever been to Brighton will know, failed) the Pier from rotting away. Ken never could explain his attraction to the pier beyond saying that it was the last thing he ever saw. Anyway, the film showed Ken talking about his life, cut together with footage of him making small sculptures from bits of the West Pier Jamie had found lying on the beach. We tried to raise money to make a longer version of the film by way of some screenings, at which one was attended by a local television production company who liked the idea so much they stole it and made their own film. Let that be a lesson to you. Fast forward almost 20 years and I’m in Vilnius working on a feature piece for the magazine I’m currently editing. One of the museums, that to the best of my knowledge has never featured in any guidebook about Vilnius, is a little place tucked away in a Vilnius backstreet that’s dedicated to the history of the Lithuanian Association for the Blind. Anyway, to cut another long story short, among the museum’s displays was a collection of ceramics made by local blind people, among them a man by the name of Mindaugas Rutkauskas, who has a workshop close to where I’m currently living. I visited Mindaugas today in his workshop on my way to meet another Karaite (more of that later) to talk to him, see his work, and to ask him if I could take some photographs of him next week. We’ve set a date for Tuesday, and so I’ve got a nice little project to work on. Mindaugas is completely blind in his right eye and has 0.08 percent vision in his left. His work includes vases, large ceramic stoves and some surprisingly intricate little statues. His workshop is in a basement with a little light coming in through two small windows and a bit more from a couple of angle poise lamps (he doesn’t need much). I took a couple of quick test shots today on my point and shoot to see how the light was, and as you can see it’s quite dull and very contrasty. So, as well as embarking on a short piece of work the likes I’ve never really done before (in stills photography anyway), I’m up against lighting problems. I’ve decided to shoot black and white and to use whatever available light there is. I realise that my work is all over the place at the moment and really am working hard to produce some results, this pleasant and I hope touching little assignment hopefully giving me what I need to move forward.

Dainius

As mentioned in a post from yesterday, Dainius has finally come up with some answers to my original questions. I’ve now edited what he wrote and have created a new set of questions to help illuminate some of the issues he discusses and to fill in some of the gaps in continuity. Additional to his text are some 200 photographs taken by him on his Nokia, some of them hinted at by me in terms of content, but most taken entirely at random. With the text I can now start working on the pictures and getting Dainius to add the second layer to his written account of his experiences living in the UK. This remains very much an experiment. I’ve included the edited text below and would be interested to hear comments on it from anyone. Today I visited a tiny museum dedicated to the blind in Lithuania. An extraordinary experience I learnt all about the slow integration of Lithuanian blind people into society over the last 80 years and have been thinking in particular about a blind choir and a blind potter who has a workshop around the corner from the office. No news until Monday on my Karaite connections. I may go away this weekend for a party on the coast. If not I’ll absolutely make the trip back to Trakai and will see if I can start making some progress. No reply to my email to the Karaite community as I predicted. Maybe also tomorrow I’ll drop by the Karaite restaurant here in Vilnius and see if I can get somebody there to help further the cause.

Mobile Nation
Pilot

Name Dainius Buržminskas
Nationality Lithuanian

I was born in Pasvalys Central Hospital on February 6, 1975. I grew up in the Lithuanian Highlands in a tiny village of less than 200 people called Nairiai, 5km south of the border between the Soviet republics of Lithuania and Latvia.

Although I’ve never seen my father I had good childhood. My grandfather was the real father in my life. Together we spent lots of time collecting mushrooms in the forest, riding on a motorcycle and playing chess. He passed away on September 1, 2008 and was an intelligent man with a good education and people liked him very much. My mother’s name is Laima. She’s 57 years old and lives in Nairiai. I love her and we keep in regular contact. She works as a cleaner in the village’s House of Culture. I’ve got a step-sister, Jolita, born in Pasvalys on January 3, 1978. She’s married with three children, a girl of 10 and two boys aged six and four. She’s unemployed and stays at home looking after the children.

At school I was good at sport and really enjoyed playing handball, football, basketball and running. I was one of the best runners in my area and was also the regional chess champion in my early teens. I finished secondary school in 1993 and was awarded a school leaving certificate. I had a lot of friends at school.

During the Soviet occupation we weren’t told that Lithuania was once an independent country. Our teachers never mentioned this and I genuinely believed Lithuania had always been part of the Soviet Union. When Lithuania gained independence on March 11, 1990 everything changed.

Between 1994 and 1997 I studied printing and publishing technology at a technological college in Lithuania’s second city, Kaunas. I lived in a student hostel where I made some good friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with. These were great times and I really enjoyed my student life. When I finished college I started work in a Kaunas printing company called Spaudos Praktika, but I wasn’t happy and decided to move and find a better job in the capital.

I moved to Vilnius in 1998 and worked for a publishing company called TEV who published educational books for schools, colleges and universities. As the director’s assistant, each day I gained more experience in publishing and printing and quickly learnt a lot. In Vilnius I made some really good friends who’ve stood by me over the years and who I respect greatly. During this time I also had my first serious relationship with a woman, Vaida, who I lived with for over two years.

Over the next five years or so I moved from company to company but was never happy with the ridiculous wages. It really was difficult to survive. On May 1, 2004 Lithuanian joined the European Union. Vaida found work in Norway and after three months we split up. One year later I borrowed some money and moved to England. I arrived by coach in Leeds on the morning of September 26, 2005. Myself and my travelling companion Vytas Pilelis travelled by taxi to an employment agency we’d registered with called Globamed International and where we met another Lithuanian guy called Dovydas Butkus. We were really tired after the long journey. Little did we know that this agency would piss off us. That’s was our welcome to England.

It turned out that the agency had lied to us about wages and accommodation. We were sent to work in a really bad nursing home in a town called Mirfild between Huddersfield and Wakefield. It was absolutely crap, and completely different to what we’d expected. We earned £4.85 an hour, the minimum wage in the UK at the time, working as care assistants. Accommodation came with the job, for which the three of us were expected to sign a contract to pay £320 each per month. A three-bedroom house at this time cost about £500, almost half what we were being made to pay. We refused to sign the contract, and on the same day met some Lithuanian guys on the street who helped us with a place to sleep. We spent a few nights in small two-bedroom house with five other people. After a few days we found two-bedroom house for £400 a month plus bills.

We worked like slaves. No respect, no attention. Just work, work and work. Always 12-hour shifts with only four members of staff and 26 residents. Some of the management treated us like animals. They were racists. They used to say very rude things about us, thinking we didn’t understand English. I thought about coming back to Lithuania. But after a year, when my English became better, I found a job in small printing house in Leeds where I worked as a print finisher. I felt better, started going out, meeting and talking to interesting people. England became friendly for me.

As my English further improved I met an English woman in a pub and we started a relationship. It was very interesting for me. Different traditions, different countries, but hearts beating with the same blood. I started working for another printing house. The work was very hard, with 12-hour shifts and just one 45-minute unpaid lunch break. Unfortunately the company didn’t keep their promises about wage increases and I soon left the job, and the woman. All this time I was living in the Harehills area of Leeds, where people were getting shot a few streets away from my front door. Realising this wasn’t the place for me, I first moved into another house full of Lithuanians before moving again into a house with a lot of Polish people, who I found to be very friendly.

I eventually found another job as a personal care assistant and decided to move away from Leeds. On Christmas Eve 2007 I moved to King’s Lynn on the north Norfolk coast with my Lithuanian girlfriend Danutė. We shared a room in a large house with a big garden. The other Lithuanians in the house were a young married couple, Juozas and Neringa and their baby, Nikas, a single guy called Erikas and young single woman, Laima.

When I’m not at work I like to travel around the UK whenever I can, discovering new and beautiful cities. So far I’ve visited Leeds, York, Dewsbury and Ilkle in Yorkshire, Birmingham, Bridgnorth, Stafford, Telford, Stone and Claverley in the Midlands, the Norfolk towns of Hunstanton, Norwich, King's Lynn and Sandrigham, plus Manchester and the two main Scottish cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh. I like to visit old buildings and museums, and I often take photographs of them. Sometimes I just go to the pub for few drinks but not much. I prefer a healthy life style. I don't smoke, and drink very little alcohol. My hobbies are travelling and working on my PC, which I’m just learning and am improving all the time.

One afternoon I was on duty looking after a client called Francis Palmer in Wolverhampton. I was looking out one of his windows, saw a wedding and made some pictures on my phone. I was excited to see an English wedding. It was an interesting experience and something new for me.

Lithuanian alcohol is good. All of it, including the vodka, the beer and the wine. I don't drink British alcohol apart from Scotch whisky, and I don't like English beer. Lithuanian food is all right, but I sometimes like different food, such as English, Russian, Indian and Russian cuisine. English food generally isn’t very good for me. I don't like fast food. I prefer nice, light and healthy food. I like to eat lots of vegetables, fresh salads.

Lithuanian people are very different from the English. Their culture and way of like depend very much on their education and religion. Some are very nice and friendly, but unfortunately mostly of them are selfish and just looking after themselves. I’ve found a few good Lithuanian friends in England, but I keep my distance from most of them. In my experience, the English don’t usually don't like immigrants, and a lot of them are racist. Having said that I’ve found some really nice English people. They respect foreigners who speak English, and are polite, well educated and always ready to help you. English people have a great sense of humour. Lithuanian women are different, and I don’t have a very good opinion about them. Many are just looking for a rich man who can provide an easy life for them, pay for everything and take care of them. Some of them are nice, looking after their family and taking good care of their men. I don't know many English women that well. In general they’re warm, polite and easy to talk to.

Daniel’s my client. I work and live with him one week on, one week off in Stone, Staffordshire. He’s got a great sense of humour, making the job of looking after him much easier. I do it because it's interesting, and the money’s good as well. Daniel’s 24, and was born in Stone, where he’s got own flat. He’s confined to an electric wheelchair. He’s got a lot of friends who visit him almost every day. He likes to go out in his car, usually to Stafford. He enjoys his PC and uses it to chat with his friends.

It's very difficult to say where I think I’ll be in five years. Sometimes I plan my life, but unpredictable things happen and my plans change.

Ha!

I completely forgot, Douglas already takes photographs with his phone. See for yourself. Off to the office now, but will be back on the case this evening. Dainius’ replies to my questions are great. I’m also now editing it down into something more readable whilst compiling a list of second questions and concrete requests for photographs. Didn’t Paul mention something about professional practice as the third part of our assessed work this term? If so, I think working a finished piece together for the Dainius project with my Vilnius-based designer friend Mark would be just the ticket.

(im)mobile nation

Whilst the Karaite are bubbling away nicely on the back boiler (more in a later blog) I thought I’d spend some minutes writing down a few thoughts on the subject of where I plan to take the mobile phone photography. As reported yesterday, Dainius, like a true Lithuanian, is taking forever to finish replying to the questions I sent him what seems like (and what probably is) weeks and weeks ago. Without this exchange of ideas I can’t find a way of moving the project forwards with him beyond the pointless exercise of looking at the photographs he’s sent me so far and wondering what on earth I’m going to do with them. Inspired by my own recent thoughts as well as by Rhian’s Albert Hastings post and a look over some of the work I was doing in Greece earlier in the year, I’m now busily engaged in turning everything on its head, which in the case I’m writing about here involves a temporary halting of my voyeuristic flâneurisms and refocusing on the art of engaging with the photographic subject to a point closely resembling collaboration. This also involves spending less time on worrying about the image and more on the process (more of that in alter blog as well). If I throw everything I’ve learnt and experienced about photography over the last 12 months up in the air and have a look at it, I can see lots of moments that stand out, some of them possessing the inclination to be brought together and formed into a sort of Heath Robinsonesque photographic project. The bastard child of my ongoing albeit temporarily immobilised project with my friend the self-monikered ‘disabled Welsh-Englishman’ Douglas Hoarton and my grand plans for a Mobile Nation project, (im)mobile nation fans the flames of my belief that each and every mobile phone possesses within itself the power to do great things, whilst simultaneously being capable of producing some outstanding documentary photography. That’s the theory, anyway. If anybody has even the faintest idea how I might be able to produce some work with a partially disabled man taking photographs in Greece whilst I’m in Lithuania I’d be delighted what that idea might be. Bloody hell, Dainius has just finished his questionnaire. How opportune is that?

Minor update

Have been on a glorious extended seaside weekend away from technology and am back again in an expensive flat with even more expensive heating that doesn’t work (but that still has to be paid for). In among the usual crap in my inbox on my return was a short reply to a Karaite-hunting email I sent to my good friend Dovid Katz, who as usual knows exactly the right people to contact as who’s open all the appropriate doors. It feels good to not only have a proper project to chase but one that requires interaction with my fellow species. I’ve been indulging in my isolation too much of late and have suffered for it. Switching the mobile/serious photography has been a breath of fresh air. I feel like I’ve achieved everything I can with my mobile wanderings, but have got from it a fresh set of ideas as already outlined here for my Mobile Nation project. Dainius is still not finished answering the questions I sent him, but I’m still young. I now need to concentrate on how to develop this project further. I think I mentioned my desire to continue my work with my friend Douglas in Greece (the one who had the stroke), and am currently pondering this. I’m blissfully broke and haven’t felt so good in ages.