The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2007
The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2007 will be awarded to a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most contribution to photography in Europe between 1 October 2005 ~ 30 September 2006.
The four shortlisted photographers in this exhibition are: Philippe Chancel, Anders Petersen, Fiona Tan and Walid Raad/ The Atlas Group. See them all here
Last weekend I was reading about Anders Petersen, and he said he gave up fashion photography because of one photograph by Christer Stromholm of a Paris graveyard, Montmatre, in the snow, with footsteps walking away.
It is this shot
And I was quite thrilled because it reminded me of a shot I took last year in the Jewish Cemetary in Prague. The place was very busy, but I walked away from the crush to get the long view down a quieter area, and there was one set of footprints in the snow, leading to the bins and a door in the wall. My shot doesn't have the height and perspective of the wonderful Stromholm picture, but at least it shows I'm thinking.
My shot and one other that I took that day are at the top of the this piece.
Labels: photography
posted by apprentice at
11:59 pm
9 Comments:
Just come across Minerva's blog
https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13439140&postID=6182191683852899112
I hope that worked. Thought you may be interested.
http://womanlyparts.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-treat-someone-who-has-cancer.html
I think that worked for her blog page - the other is her comment page. Just a thought. Be back to look at photos.
Re photographs: isn't that strange - and that you both used black and white.
I looked at the link. Dealing with people's reaction to your illness, and especially a cancer diagnosis is often the most difficult part of it all. There's a great article on the web called "Angels and Bolters", about friends and relations behaviour around cancer, I passed on the link and my support. It's so hard to get perspective when you're in the thick of it, people are afraid to say the wrong thing, so they say inappropriate things instead, or shy away altogether. People fear their own mortality and some handle that better than others. But it's difficult when your tired, or stuff with steroids, or sick and frightened to have to make allowances for other people too.
A I've said before illness sorts out your friends for you, sad but true, and often those who come through for you aren't the people you thought would have.
I have a number of friends who have had to deal with recurrence,and it is a devasting thing. But local recurrence doesn't always lead to full blown "mets". I have a friend in NY whose back working as a highly paid PR consultant after dealing with a local recurrence, ie return of the cancer at or near to the primary site.
Much depends on the aggressiveness of the cancer, and other factors, like its hormone receptiveness, what's its HER2 status etc, etc. And sometimes who lives and who dies seems completely arbitary.
It's a horribly complex business and you just have to learn on your feet. The reason why some survive and others don't is probably coded somewhere in our individual DNA.
I think it's about acceptance in some way. There's no going back, you can grieve for your past life and then you just have to get on with it. And it is a horrible disease, but there are other awful debilitating illnesses that rob a person of as much and sometimes more. I have one friend who dealt with her own breast cancer, and then a year later her teenage son was diagnosed with bone cancer that took his leg - I mean how do you deal with that?
Not that we should have a hierachy of illness, but I think it just means we need to work hard at treating everyone reasonably and with dignity. You never know what anyone is dealing with in their lives.
Each day at a time is an awful cliche, but a very true one. Adaptation is the trick with this disease, taking pleasures on the hoof, when and where they occur.
Yes it was a coincidence on the photographs, but I seem to be in good company :)
This is a good recurrence/mets support board:
http://members3.boardhost.com/recurrence/
Strange... I saw your photo with the footsteps in the snow in the graveyard, and it made me think of the jewish cemetary in Prague, and wow, it actually is the jewish cemetary in Prague. It's quite an evocative photo...
Thanks.
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When my eye first landed on your graveyard in the snow shot I was chilled for a second. It looked to me like loads of Deaths (the hooded caricature with the scythe Death) or creepy monks lined up in some cloiters (the arches at the back).
I have to say I like your's better than the finalist shot. The footprints are touching and thought-provoking.
Sam,
Yes the grave stones there are very weathered and are interesting shapes.
Here's some info on it:
The Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov, the Jewish Quarter, was created in the 15th century when Jews were forbidden to bury their dead outside their own district. Space was scarce, so bodies were buried on top of each other in an estimated 12 layers. Over the centuries, lopsided tombstones formed unruly, poetic groupings.
The surrealist author Franz Kafka enjoyed moments of quiet reflection in the old cemetery. However, his own grave lies across town in the New Jewish Cemetery. That burial ground is half empty because the generation it was built for was transported to Nazi death camps.
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