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By admin, November 17, 2011 12:40 pm

Today’s news that Virgin Money has bought Northern Rock for £747m should come as no surprise for two reasons. Firstly, it was always the government’s intent (both Labour when they nationalised it, and the coalition government when they took over responsibility) that Northern Rock should be privatised when the time was right, and secondly because those with a long enough interest in these things will remember that Richard Branson expressed more than a passing interest in buying Northern Rock back in early 2008.

My interest in this is of course photographic. When in early 2008 Northern Rock was having all its problems, Branson was heavily involved in another of his ventures – Virgin Galactic. On the 24 of January he held a press conference at the Museum of Natural History in New York to unveil White Knight Two and Space Ship Two. That evening, Virgin Galactic hosted a reception for the “astronauts” and other interested parties. It was at that event that Branson met a London based financier who knew of his interest in Northern Rock. Said financier advised Branson that he acted on behalf of two of the biggest shareholders in Northern Rock at the time and might be in a position to help. I took this photograph at that moment. A second later Branson turned to his aide de camp and told him to set up a meeting with the financier back in London for the end of the week.

Richard Branson at the Virgin Galactic reception in New York City discussed matters pertaining to Northern Rock. January 23, 2008. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2008

Of course, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. I had originally hoped that the initial Virgin deal might go through in 2008, at least then I would have had a picture that might have been pivotal to that story. Instead what I have is evidence that when things do not initially go quite the way he might hope, Branson is not put off. I suspect that he is the kind of man who takes the view that all things happen for a reason, and all outcomes pose opportunities rather than problems. Indeed it is precisely that frame of mind that has allowed him to build the Virgin brand into the hugely successful organisation that it is.

Vince Cable, now Business Secretary in the Coalition Government, might find that its harder to come to conclusions when he has to act on them. July 6, 2010. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

So here we are nearly four years later, and Branson has got Northern Rock. Has it worked out better for him? Has the tax payer taken a hit? I’ll leave you to consider that for yourself by reading this rather enlightening article published in the Daily Mail just a few days after the photo above was taken. It was written by one Vince Cable, at the time in the enviable position of being the Treasury Spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, and apparently never likely to have make important decisions to affect the economy… like I said, a lot of water under the bridge since then! Do I have a photo of Vince for you? Of course I do. Happy ruminating.

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By admin, September 16, 2011 2:51 pm

What ever line of business you are in, there will always be people and companies that you love working with. I am lucky in that I have many clients that I am very fond of, but one in particular is Sensei Tim Steel. I have known Tim for about 10 years, and he is one of the most affable and enjoyable people to spend time with, and I had the pleasure again this morning, shooting a series of images for a new website for his karate school, Zendo Kai. Don’t be fooled by the picture, he’s a wonderfully calm and peaceful character!

Tim Steel with his beautiful sword. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2011

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By admin, September 2, 2011 3:25 pm

For the first three weeks of his life, Phineas was a model baby, but on the Thursday night of that third week something changed. By six o’clock in the morning his mother was sure that all was not as it should be. She took him to the local hospital A&E (Accident & Emergency department). Unknown to her, that particular A&E had recently gone to a twelve hour opening as a prelude to being closed altogether. As a consequence there was only an on-call GP. His verdict? “It’s just a virus, take him home. He’ll be fine.” Up to a point he was right.

Three hours later Phineas’ mother trusted her instincts and took him to another hospital to get a second opinion. He was admitted immediately.

Phineas in the intensive care unit at ECH, May 2010. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

What followed was a battle to save his life and diagnose the problem. By the Sunday afternoon his condition had deteriorated so much that he was retrieved to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of the Evelina Children’s Hospital in Central London.

Phineas’ Friends is a photographic study of the doctors and nurses and clinicians that were involved in treating him during his six days at the Evelina. It is a study that forces the reader to challenge naturally held preconceptions about the size of modern medical teams, and indirectly asks the question: if all these people are necessary to a treat one baby with an infection, who in this new age of austerity can we afford to do without?

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Phineas is my third son. His mother, Laura, is my wife. Any parent who has ever asked a doctor if their child is going to die, and been met with a long pause and a non-committal answer, will have some idea of the emotions that were raging for us at that time. We were lucky. Although his condition was life threatening, he was in the best hands. Laura travelled to ECH in the retrieval ambulance with Phineas. By the time I got there the PICU team were hard at work stabilising him, and Laura, though still beside herself with worry, was comforted with the feeling that he was in the best place to get better.

Fatima Meho. Paediatric Staff Nurse, Beach Ward. Provided nursing care for Phineas on the ward. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

The doctors in PICU were able to stabilise him sufficiently that he was moved out of intensive care onto Beach Ward on the Monday afternoon. From then on it was about supporting him as he got better, and trying to establish exactly what was wrong with him.

From the outset the doctors were fairly certain that he had a viral infection. The problem was that without knowing which virus, it was difficult to know exactly how he should be treated. At his worst Phineas had been cannulated to all four peripheries, his blood sugar was perilously low, his temperature was dangerously and stubbornly high, and he was on a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine to help him breathe. He was having bloods taken every hour or so, he had chest x-rays, and at one point they attempted to put a long line into him because his blood sugar was still dropping and he was on the limit of what could be given to him as a peripheral infusion without burning his veins.

Laura never left the hospital, only leaving his bedside to wash and eat. Over time it became clear that he was improving, but still the tests continued. Lumbar punctures, electro-encaphalographs, ultrasound brain scans. More infusions, more drugs.

Dr Emma Aarons. Consultant Virologist. Ensures any patient with possible viral illness has the right investigations, and where tests show viral diagnosis that the appropriate care is given. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

On the Wednesday afternoon I was sitting with Phineas while Laura got some lunch. Staff nurse Fatima Meho was attending to him while I flicked through that week’s Sunday Times Magazine. The cover story was about a patient in the renal ward at Great Ormond Street Hospital. I held the magazine open for Fatima to see and remarked how ironic it was that the story should be published just I was sitting in Beach Ward (the Evelina’s renal ward) with my son. “No one ever writes about us,” Fatima replied. I asked her what the difference was between Great Ormond Street and the Evelina. “Nothing,” she said. Both hospitals have the same specialisations, only the former is world famous and leverages that fame effectively to raise funds. I have to admit that I had never heard of the Evelina until I needed it.

It was Fatima’s response which set me thinking that I should document Phineas’ story and get some publicity for the hospital. But what was the angle? I did not want to rehash a story that has been done many times before. The fact was that although it was important to me, it was not significant to anyone else. If I was going to publish his story, it needed an angle.

The following afternoon Laura and I got a visit from three doctors from the Infectious Diseases Directorate. At first I was struck by how different these three characters were. Nuria Martinez-Alier, Ian Plumb and Emma Aarons seemed at first an unlikely trio, but it quickly made me reflect on all the different characters we had come across during Phineas’ time in hospital. Not simply the diversity of characters, but the sheer numbers of people involved. I had my angle.

Dr Marilyn MacDougall. Paediatric Intensive Care Consultant. On-call when Phineas was admitted to PICU, she made the decision to retrieve him. Authorised the retrieval team and responsible for his initial treatment. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

Over those six days Phineas was treated by about one hundred clinical specialists, about four fifths of them at the Evelina. There were doctors, consultants, registrars, nurses, matrons, ward sisters, students, phlebotomists, radiographers, metabolic specialists, virologists, and these were just the ones that actually saw him. There were as many, if not more, clinical scientists and technicians analysing and interpreting the various tests he was subjected to and samples taken from him. There was the ambulance technician and the retrieval team who collected and treated him on the journey to the Evelina. There was the counsellor who was there for us as parents.

As a photographer I found myself thinking about all the hidden talents within this huge team of people – the unsung men and women whose work as technicians and scientists underpin the decisions that the doctors make and the nurses carry through. The doctors get the plaudits, but the reality is that all these different facets of modern medicine need to work together to produce the outcomes that we as patients and parents yearn and pray for.

The more I thought about all these people, the more I kept thinking about Richard Avedon’s seminal work The Family, and more recently of Nadav Kander’s Obama’s People. Both these projects used portraits shot against plain backgrounds to highlight the differences in character – the repetition of style and of people was the motif, and yet it is this approach that highlights the enormous differences from subject to subject.

Tom Walton. Biomedical Scientist. Analysis of urine by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

It is a form of typological study that was perhaps made famous by Bernd and Hilla Becher and their studies of blast furnaces, and taken up by other photographers including Donovan Wylie and his study of the Maze Prison. The difference is that with people the subject has the capacity to introduce its own character and agenda to the way that they are recorded; it is necessarily a two-way process. Certainly these are “my” portraits and they reflect something of my intention, but as each individual sits for me, they have control over the face that they present. For a good portrait there must inevitably be a balance in that “dialogue” between the subject and the photographer.

Avedon chose to shoot in large format black and white, with a simple white background. His subjects were the men and women who ran and shaped America. From Gerald Ford as President to Roger Baldwin, the founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Kander chose to use a similar approach to document the nascent administration of Barack Obama as he was about to take office, but in this case he shot in colour, with a creamy background. The images have been digitally worked to some extent, putting a shadow close in behind each person, and emphasising the texture of each person. There is a kind of hyper reality about them which makes each face fascinating to look at. Although the work was regarded by some as something of a departure from Kander’s norm at the time, it was nevertheless imbued with his artistic sensibilities. It had his “signature”.

Sean Hayes. Retrieval Technician. Part of the retrieval team that brought Phineas back to the Evelina PICU from Darent Valley Hospital. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

Both of these bodies of work were successful for the combination of simple, arresting portraiture and the fact that the subjects were either household names, or held positions of power that made their faces worthy of closer inspection.

For Phineas’ Friends I felt certain that a similar approach would be ideal. To the best of my knowledge no one had taken this approach with a medical documentary before, and the strength of the story would reside in the fact that as the reader moved through all of these portraits it would dawn on them that the common link for all of them was a single patient – a baby. None of these people are famous, nor was the patient. But the pull of such a small child as a narrative element is undeniable. Perhaps more importantly, we are all able to see ourselves in that baby. And when we do Phineas’ friends become our’s. These are our doctors and nurses and technicians and scientists. These are the people that keep each of us alive if we need them. As Phineas is a metaphor for all patients, so too his friends are a metaphor for all the clinicians working in all the hospitals around the world. Once we realise that, the old narrative beloved of dramas and documentaries seems a pale approximation of the truth – modern medicine is not a doctor and a nurse, it is a vast team of specialists.

Habiba Kawu. Neonatal Staff Nurse. Agency nurse providing constant care and monitoring of Phineas' condition while in intensive care. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

Nevertheless I was conscious that for the project to work, the standard of the portraits needed to be high. Each image had to work individually while they all worked together as a set. The choice of background, the style of lighting, the choice of lens, and the subtlety of any direction I gave would have to complement the image and the intent. I wanted very much to give viewers something of the experience of the parent or the concerned relative. Hopefully I have succeeded.

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I decided on a whim to enter the book of Phineas’ Friends in this year’s Photography Book Now Awards. Although it did not win, it was shortlisted in the Documentary Category, and as a result was eligible for the People’s Choice Award. To have been shortlisted by the jury in the first place is a tremendous honour. But more importantly it gave me a glorious reason to push the work in front of people as I tried to garner all the votes I could. I was able to enlist the help of a great many influential people around the world, and that in itself has helped in my quest to raise the profile of the hospital. All of you who voted, thank you. Your support means a great deal. But it does not end there.

As I intimated earlier, my motivation from the outset has been to help publicise the work of the Evelina and perhaps raise its profile just a bit. As a part of that process, Blue Filter has published Phineas’ Friends in three formats: as an iBook for the iPad and iPhone, as a small format paperback, and as a limited edition signed hardback. All of these can be ordered from this site, and the profits from the sale of these books will be donated to the Evelina Children’s Hospital.

Please, buy the iBook or the paperback. If you are feeling flush and want some exclusivity, buy the hardback. But whatever you do, encourage all your friends, family and acquaintances to read this post and buy the iBook too. If you just want to donate with nothing in return, you can do that as well.

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Buy the iBook for iPhone & iPad

Buy the paperback

Buy the limited edition hardback

If you would like to support the Evelina Children’s Hospital, some of the Evelina Team recently undertook a sponsored climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, and you can still donate now. Their target was £400,000, with the current total raised standing at £396,616.63. It is to this fund that monies raised from the sales of Phineas’ Friends will be donated, but if you would rather donate directly, please click here.

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By admin, April 20, 2011 11:10 pm

The news tonight of photographer-filmmaker Tim Hetherington‘s death in Misrata is shocking and upsetting. I had the pleasure of meeting him first about 10 years ago when I invited him to give a talk to the RPS Visual Journalism Group. I remember him to be thoughtful, intelligent and focused, with a clear view of where visual documentary was likely to go. It was clear then that he had a bright future and his was a name to watch.

It is for others who knew him well to write his obituary (although one piece well worth reading can be found here). What concerns me is the gaping hole that is left by his passing, and what his legacy might be. What made Tim unique was not the methods he employed, but the fact that they were coupled with a genuine passion and empathy for his subjects. He was not judgemental, and it showed in his work – it had soul.

I confess I am ashamed by a thought that forced itself into my mind shortly after hearing the news: the well known story that on learning of his client’s untimely demise, James Dean’s agent retorted, “Good career move.”

To modern ears this seems a crass remark, but in an era that predated the soundbite by several decades, it is more likely to have been a quick reflection on the likely effect on Dean’s appeal. Indeed, this effect is as true for rising stars in acting, music and popular culture today as it was then.

It was once also true for photographers: Robert Capa was at the top of his game when he was killed in French Indochina (Vietnam) in 1954. He was called the greatest war photographer in the world during the Spanish Civil War, and his exploits during World War II did nothing to diminish that view of him. Moreover, with friends like Hemingway and Picasso, and Ingrid Bergman as a lover, his champagne fueled gambling lifestyle and big heart only served to enhance his appeal. Arguably for Capa generally, and his legacy Magnum in particular, his death was a “good career move”.

But with that thought in my head whether I liked it or not, it necessarily posed the question, does it apply in this case?

Hetherington was unquestionably a talent whose star was in the ascendant. He was nominated for an Oscar for Restrepo earlier this year, a film which had already won the prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival last year; he took the top prize in the World Press Photo Awards in 2008, and had received countless plaudits since he turned professional in the late 90s. He was widely regarded by his peers as one of the most dynamic and creative people working in photography today.

While the industry as a whole is starting to get excited about “convergence”, Hetherington had already occupied the high ground. He recognised early on that to make a difference it was not enough to shoot stills, or video, you have to grab the opportunities the modern multi-media world offers to get a story across using a variety of tools. Magazines, newspapers, art exhibitions, books, the internet – all have an audience, and the audiences are receptive to the stories you want to tell provided you approach them in the right way.

Hetherington’s genius was that he had started to find a way to bridge those audiences and tell those important stories. None of this was done out of self-agrandissement, but rather out of a genuine desire to give voice to those who are often overlooked. Restrepo (and the accompanying book Infidel) was a perfect example of this. When the public in the UK and America (Hetherington had dual UK and US nationality) became increasingly hostile to the war in Afghanistan, Tim worked with writer Sebastian Junger to show that far from being a simple instrument of policy, the soldiers on the front line were real people doing a hard job in an impossible situation. The point was that if we, the public, have a problem with the policy we should take it up with the policymakers; the soldiers on the front line deserve to be appreciated whether or not we agree with the orders they carry out.

But to come back to my question, when Capa died the world was a different place, and the gap he left was never really filled, not in the same way. With each passing conflict ever greater numbers of photographers have strived to make a name for themselves in war zones, and the impact of the inevitable deaths has been increasingly muted; their names rapidly consigned to history. Hetherington’s death, should be different. It deserves to be if for no other reason than the impact his work was starting to make. But therein lies the problem – it was only starting to affect a broader consciousness than that of photographers and filmmakers alone. Time will tell whether this impact will be the lasting one it deserves to be, but the reality of 2011 is that it is so much harder to make a mark than it was in Capa’s day, and as a result there is a real danger that Tim’s legacy will be left behind by history’s inexorable march and the exponential rise in the numbers of people eager to take his place.

Perhaps we should not be surprised when someone who chooses to spend months in the Korengal Valley dies in a war zone, but his death has shocked everyone. It is a testament to the extremely high regard in which he was held that his name was trending on Twitter (is this really how we now measure a man’s worth?) within an hour of the news breaking, and was the lead item on the BBC by 9 o’clock. Tim was no novice, and he certainly knew the risks in Misrata – his final tweet read:

In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO.

His passing will numb his family and friends for a long time to come, and my prayers are with them all. I shall miss his despatches, his images, his films, and his thought provoking contribution to the world we live in. It has affected me more profoundly than I would have expected even though I did not have the honour of calling him my friend.

In the end I do not believe anyone’s death should be written off in the way James Dean’s was, and certainly in the case of Tim Hetherington, with so much promised, it was not a good career move at all.

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By admin, March 23, 2011 5:58 pm

Look at any forum dedicated to photographers, and photojournalism in particular, and you will find a thread asking for suggestions as to what movies there are about photojournalism and its protagonists. The films are for the most part little more than war porn – action filled adventures full of death, guns, booze and sex, usually with one or more attractive and glamorous heroes toting cameras in the thick of the action.

Well there is a new one about to be released, with the subtle difference that it is based on a true story. The Bang Bang Club is due to have its cinematic release in the United States on April 22 (as yet there is no date for release in Europe). The trailer (see below) promises everything that we have come to expect from these films.

I have no idea, it may actually be very good, but I would hope that it places plenty of empahsis on the fact that of the four members, one was killed on assignment, one committed suicide after finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile the fame that came with his Pulitzer Prize with the public opprobrium he faced for the photo that won the award, and a third has recently lost both his legs in Afghanistan.

I know that the surviving photographers have been involved in the making of this film, and it is based on the book of the same name written by both Greg Marinovoch and Joao Silva (the other two members of “the club” were Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek), so one hopes there will be rather more accuracy than is often the case when Hollywood is let loose on the truth. Having said that, it would be folly to suggest that there wasn’t something inherently glamourous about the life the club led. The problem, therefore, is how to convey the story without spurring ever more young and naive wannabes to pick up a camera and head for a war zone in the hopes that some of that glamour might rub off on them. Most of the time it won’t.

I confess I am looking forward to seeing the film, but I would urge anyone not familiar with the story to read the book first, and if possible see the Oscar nominated documentary The Death of Kevin Carter too. At the very least that will give some scope to strip the truth from the good yarn that the film must almost certainly be.

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By admin, February 25, 2011 11:26 am

After months of technical delays the space shuttle Discovery lanuched from the Kennedy Space Center at a little before 10pm UK time last night. Discovery is regarded as the fleet leader, having flown in space more times than any other space craft, covering some 143 million miles by the time it completes this mission.

Aboard STS-133 is Mission Specialist Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr on his second trip into space. I met Al in Houston in October 2010, shortly after his first flight, and he was kind enough to sit for my project on astronauts, so this seems a suitable reason to post his portrait here.

Astronaut Al Drew photographed at his home in Clear Lake, a few miles from the Johnson Space Center, Houton, Texas. October 2007.

For anyone that’s interested in watching a piece of history, here is the video of the launch:

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By admin, February 10, 2010 8:02 pm

The danger of entering photography as a profession in the 21st Century is that of being derivative. We are gradually drowning in an ocean of imagery swelling at an exponential rate as more and more people look to forge careers as photographers. The irony is that many established practioners openly question how much longer the traditional idea of photography might be commercially viable. In the meantime the wannabes churn out work that is little more than a pastiche of the work that inspired them to pick up a camera in the first place.

On the positive side, the more enured we become to seeing the same things endlessly repeated, the greater the satisfaction that arises from catching the glint of a gem in the sunlight. Today I have had one of those moments, and I am going to stick my neck out on the block.

Promotional images shot for Carmel Walsch, a Florence-based Irish shoe designer. © Leo Bieber 2010

While others his age were studying assiduously, a young British boy moved from his family home in Sussex to a flat in Florence in an effort to learn how to be a photographer by learing about life. To put it another way, he set out to become a photographer the old fashioned way. Driven by what is going on in his head and in front of his eyes, his creative sparkle has not been throttled by an over-emphasis on technique. While he is interested in many genres, he has determined that his own innate passions and creative bents should shoulder the burden of developing his eye.

Promotional images shot for Carmel Walsch, a Florence-based Irish shoe designer. © Leo Bieber 2010

I have been watching his work for a couple of years, and from what I have seen his sense of style is unique. Clearly I am not the only one to think so, as he has started to pick up some interesting and enjoyable commissions. Where others his age might be tempted to do the easy thing and make the money, he sees every job as an opportunity to push his creative envelope.

He still has a long way to go, but I think Leo Bieber is a name to watch.

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By admin, January 23, 2010 8:56 pm

I had the pleasure of covering Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women lunch at the Walbrook Club in London a few days ago, and was struck by the juxtaposition of a “gentleman’s club” with the colour and sophistication of the women in it. I found myself smiling at the seeming incongruity of the rather staid and forlorn hanger of “emergency ties” tucked behind the beadle’s enclosure that seemed to belong to a different age. An age finally losing its grip as women prove themselves to be more than capable of anything they want to do.

Catherine Mayer, Time’s London Bureau Chief, welcomed those present remarking that she had once thought such events would be redundant in the 21st Century. To prove how wrong she was, she recounted the recent story of a friend who is a fund manager. The CEO of a large company had hoped that the fund would invest in his business and arranged a meeting. Said CEO entered a room to meet the fund manager and her two junior male associates. He introduced himself to the associates and asked the fund manager for a tea with two sugars. Apparently the fund manager did invest in the company, saying that “with such a stupid man at the top I knew it was ripe for takeover.”

I think we deserve everything we get.

To be fair, it is symptomatic of a deeper malaise. We are all alike incapable of judging people by their merits when there is so much to distract us on the surface. Women can be just as guilty, but where they really score is in an innate understanding of the fact that image matters. While men congratulate themselves on having the balls to wear a colourful tie with their grey, crumpled, and dandruff-flaked suit, women show that they can run the very biggest organisations brilliantly, and still have time for personal flair and colour. If they are going to be judged for how they look, they aim to look good.

In the few seconds I had to work around my brief, I thought I would concoct a little homage to their sense of style:

To find out more about Torley and his music click here.

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By admin, January 17, 2010 12:01 am

There is, apparently, no season for earthquakes. They can and do happen at any time of the year. But with the news pouring in from Haiti, I can’t help but think this time of year is when earthquakes happen, January in particular seems to be “popular”.

I have to confess to a personal interest. Fifteen years ago today, a matter of weeks after giving up the day job to pursue photography full time, I was in Japan working on the research for a picture story I was going to do on the A Bomb survivors. It was coming up to the 50th anniversary and I wanted a counter in the western press to the stories that were inevitably going to run. I had interviews set up, access to the archives and museums, and a great many people eager to help. What I lacked was an innate understanding of what it was like to be in a city that is destroyed in a matter of seconds. I was based in the Kansai city of Kobe.

The former (and now deceased) PA picture editor (and one of the founder members of the Picture Editor's Guild) Eric Pothecary told me that this was the best photo of "shell shock" he had seen since McCullin's famous image from Vietnam.

Fires consumed whole city blocks.

At 5:46am local time an apparently dormant fault under the northern tip of the island of Awaji, about 20km from Kobe, ruptured at a depth of 14km. The resulting earthquake was measured at 7.3 on the Richter scale, and was the first recorded earthquake in Japan to reach 7 on the Japanese Closed Scale which measures the intensity of the tremor as experienced by people and objects on the earth’s surface, as opposed to the Richter Scale which is concerned with the seismic energy released at the epicentre of an earthquake. In terms of how it felt for people in Kobe, it recorded an 11-12 on the Modified Mercalli Scale; that is “Very Disastrous” to “Catastrophic”. It was, and remains, the first major earthquake to strike at close quarters and a shallow depth relative to a major metropolitan conurbation. Japan is used to having earthquakes, and for years buildings have been built to “withstand” them.

The remains of a hopeless battle three days later.

Nevertheless, the violence of the earth’s motion was too great. Nearly 6500 lost their lives, with thirty thousand requiring hospital treatment and almost a third of a million rendered homeless. The final cost of the quake has been estimated at as much as US$200 billion.

I got what I was missing and discovered what it was like to be in a city flattened in seconds: it has coloured my view of everything ever since.

On the face of it, the quake in Haiti is similar, a shallow hit. But Haiti isn’t built to withstand it, and it does not have the resources to pick itself up. Japan, despite its considerable wealth  struggled, and to some extent through misplaced pride, it paid the price. Haiti asked for help right from the start, and it needs all the help it can get.

In the end, the size and place of this kind of disaster is incidental. Only those who have experienced it first hand can ever truly understand how terrifying it is when the ground – that one thing that we all take as a constant – turns against you.

Today, of all days, my thoughts are with all those who have been scarred by earthquakes, and in particular it is with those in Haiti.

These are some of my photographs from Kobe, and form part of a very long term project called Shikata ga nai 仕方がない, a very common Japanese expression that translates as “It Can’t Be Helped”.

If you want to help the people of Haiti click here and donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti Appeal.

Because the water mains were ruptured, appliances had to be daisy-chained together from the nearest culvert to provide water to tackle the blazes. Many of the appliances were destroyed in their stations.

The high frequency earthquake was particularly devastating for low rise buildings.

Burnt out area in Nishinomiya, January 24, 1995.

Frequently only one hose could be spared for a fire that in normal circumstances would have required 10-15 appliances, let alone hoses.

This was as close as I could get with a 200mm lens without losing my hair.

The building to the right was a multistory carpark. The only noise you could hear was that of car horns and alarms, a noise which continued until the car batteries died.

The upmarket Kobe suburb of Ashiya.

Burnt out area, Amagasaki, January 24, 1995.

Fumi and her daughter Hana were pulled from the ruins of their home in the background. January 17, 1995.

Locally based soldiers tried to offer some assitance for search and rescue, but were hampered by the destruction and the peculiarities of the terrain: a thin strip of habitable land bordered by mountains and the sea.

Where people were pulled alive from the ruins friends and family used anything as a makeshift stretcher to get them to the hastily erected field medical centres, all the time dodging live sparking power cables.

People were stunned by the destruction and ensuing fires, not really knowing what to do next.

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By admin, December 10, 2009 3:15 pm

Hugh Masekela

Been up to my eyeballs the last week or so, and not really had the time to post, but just thought that I would pay homage to a jazz legend that I had the opportunity to meet and photograph yesterday, Hugh Masekela, along with the younger and hugely influential artist Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.

Will.i.am

Masekela has been celebrating his 70th birthday for the last eight months, and will be giving a concert with the LSO at the Barbican tonight.

Will.i.am as well as being the frontman of the Black Eyed Peas is arguably one of the music industry’s most sought after producers, and has collaborated with many of the greatest names in music, including Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, to name a few. Apparently he was going to spend some of today with Mick Jagger – it’ll be interesting to see where that might lead creatively.