A break in the weather and the chance to go to sea
There’s a break in the weather and when its like, good weather all day, we work all night to get the lines ready, the young men will then go out with the older men and they will learn how to do this’ Fisherman, Skopun, Sandoy in the Faroe Islands.
Daniel and the drydock
My name is Daniel. I trained as a butcher here in the Faroe Islands, but I ended up going to sea my whole life. Newfoundland, Greenland, the far north, deep, and cold. I worked my way up to Captain. Now I work on this boat, the little Nolsoy ferry, its just twenty minutes between the islands. I sell the tickets onboard. I’m happy this is my life. I am happy, really.
Anna and Vagna
‘I think it has changed here in the lest twenty years yes, the younger generation has a wider view. In fact even my parents now follow me in a way, for example they use the internet and my mum is on a computer course. My baby Vagna is 15 months old today. I’m so happy with her. But I still have my own life. I study and would love to work in a doctors surgery. I will probably have to move to Denmark to complete my studies, but to be honest I want to live here’ Anna is from Torshavn, Faroe Islands.
Torshavn just before the snow, two young footballers
It was just about to snow. The bird took off heading out from this building site on the edge of town and out towards the Atlantic. I photographed these two boys who were coming back from playing football in the Faroese capital Torshavn. They didn’t care about the cold.
Claude and a floating operating theatre.
I find these two photographs of a young Claude F. Hankins really amazing. Taken on glass plates by photographer Clara Sheldon Smith they show a 14 year old Claude accused of murdering a man who was trying to assault him at the time. There are different reports about Claude but its likely he was born in Alameda California in the late 1890s, it is known he served between 5 and 10 years in San Quentin for this crime and later married, had children and died around 1965 in Seattle. These photographs are quite famous, and they remind me of a book of photographs from the Sydney Police Department called ‘City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912-1948′, this is a great set og photographs.
In a photograph by Vo Anh Khannh, a Cambodian guerrilla is carried to an improvised operating room in a mangrove swamp in this Viet Cong haven on the Ca Mau Peninsula (1970) they did this to avoid detection and the operating theatres could be quickly and discretely organised.
Martin Juul
I have been spending time in Gøta (in the Faroe Islands) with Martin Juul. I’ve attached a slideshow here which looks at my time spent with him: fishing, feeding geese, driving around the mountains. This slideshow is unedited and quite long but it’d be nice if you could see how Martin Juul helps keep the wheels of the Faroes turning in his own special way. I haven’t really edited much yet as it didn’t feel like the right time to do this.
Sandoy, Føroyar
I’m part Faroese. I’m proud of this. I’m living in the Faroe Islands at the moment and I want to share the photographs in some way, especially with the people I photograph. I hope to use this space to share the photographs with them.
Michael, Sandoy, Faroe Islands November 2009
What follows in the link below is slideshow of photographs from the islands of Sandoy. The mountains here remind me of Sudaroy in the south where my family are from, less steep and dark than the mountains forcing their way out of the sea to the north of the Faroe Islands. They welcomed me here with open arms and cups of tea. All my photographs from the Faroe Islands will catalogued under the the title ‘Tjaldur’ which is the national bird of the Faroe Islands (the oystercatcher).
Please have a look at the photographs here
slideshowclick here for</a
Fast food restaurant staff really poorly treated in Perpignan, France by the ‘Quick’ chain.
Another thing I did whilst visiting Perpignan was to photograph a demo outside a branch of the French MacDonalds, Quick.
A slideshow of that demo can be viewed here, you will get a more complete experience of the event by looking at this here click here for
The fast food restaurant staff at this branch of Quick had been poorly treated because of their involvement with the Union. I was shocked to hear how long term members of staff had been sacked solely because of Union membership. The general theme here amongst all the staff is that they were all terrified of losing their jobs, they were all local to the branch, loyal and non-transient ie. this was not a workforce composed of students working through the summer, transient or temporary workers etc.. rather the people I spoke to really wanted their jobs back, proud of their work at a busy city centre restaurant and dependent on their job as their only source of income supporting families in an expensive city. There was an overwhleming feeling of vulnerability in the group demonstrating I felt, they wanted the jobs back but many felt just their presence on a Union organised event would seal their fate. Many members of staff avoided the demo I was told, especially the young mothers who work at the restaurant who fellow workers said several times where particulalry vulnrable as they where basically exploited becuase of their dependency on the job.
This is just a brief look at this story, but I feel there is a real issue here, the vulnerability of fast food restaurant workers all over France. I’d be interested if anybody could suggest how they might be able to support the workers in the demo here and their campaign or if anybody has done any similiar work then to get in touch. The Union working on this campaign can be found here at www.cgt.fr
‘Maghreb forever…’ Maghreb life in Perpignan, France.
المغرب العربي al-Maġrib al-ʿArabī.
I have a slideshow of my life for the Maghreb in Perpignan here click here for
The Maghreb is the region of North Africa that most commonly includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In Perginan in the South of France where I visited recently, the North African Muslim community are confined to a specific area on the old town. A ghetto if you will. They live alongside the Roma population, also living in a highly defined geography. Within this area there are street divisions which mark boundaries between Roma gypsies territory and the Muslim population’s. A small but busy market is the centre of daily activity and naturally the area has the best cafes.
‘I dont feel French. when Morocco play France in football, its Morocco all the way. Maghreb forever…’
Mohomammed Luyckx, a 21 year old Moroccan living in Perpignan and hanging out on the streets of the Maghreb neighbourhood.
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