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Arthur Crestani’s Bad City Dreams

“Gurgaon is a paradigm for the new Indian city: entirely privatised with no public space, managed by a few companies which cater to the needs of the middle class. It’s an image as much as a place,” explains Arthur Crestani. In his series, Bad City Dreams, image and place are fused to construct a paradoxical and layered portrait of the rapidly expanded city, which lies 30km outside the capital, New Delhi. Borrowing from the Indian tradition of studio photography, Crestani photographed migrant workers, security guards and other Gurgaon locals outdoors against a mobile backdrop decorated with real-estate advertising imagery.

26 February 2018

War is Only Half the Story on the lingering impact of conflict

“The end of war does not mean peace,” says Sara Terry, founder of The Aftermath Project. “Every story of war includes a chapter that almost always goes untold – the story of the aftermath, which day by day becomes the prologue of the future.” It was in September 2000 that Terry decided to go to Bosnia. Six weeks earlier she had come across a story reporting on so-called ‘Bosnia fatigue’, the factor that meant that, five years after the end of the Bosnian War, the reporters were long gone and the international aid agencies were shipping out. Frustrated by the idea that people could forget what had happened, Terry felt compelled “to capture the images that are the all-too-often forgotten companions of the vivid pictures of war itself.” Terry had started out as a print reporter but went on to produce formative photographic work in Bosnia, which she published as Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace. The experience also led her to set up The Aftermath Project in 2003, with the aim of telling post-conflict stories from around the world and throughout time.

21 February 2018

New talent stars at Paris’ Circulation(s) festival

“It is a very progressive, very independent festival. It’s not part of the city’s art establishment. It’s dynamic, because the organisers are working way out on a limb,” says Susan Bright, ‘godmother’ of the Circulation(s) festival of young European photography, which takes place in Paris from 17 March-06 May

20 February 2018

Ivor Prickett, World Press Photo of the Year double nominee

“It’s crazy, I can’t believe it,” says Ivor Prickett, of his two nominations for the World Press Photo of the Year award. “Out of a line up of six, to have two images seems insane considering the amount of great work being produced last year. I can’t quite believe it.” He’s on the phone from Iraq where he’s headed back back to Mosul, the city he’s been photographing for well over a year. Iraq’s second biggest city, Mosul was taken by ISIS militants in June 2014; in October 2016 Iraqi troops began a major offensive to regain the city, the largest military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Prickett joined them right away. Originally from Ireland, he’s been based in the Middle East since 2009 and says that “as a reporter in the region, I couldn’t help but cover it”.

14 February 2018

World Press Photo MD Lars Boering on the 2018 contest

This year, he says, all the images have been thoroughly checked before the shortlists have been announced, let alone the winners. “All the checking is already done – all raw files, where the images were shot, everything,” he tells BJP. “We know how important it is that everything can be trusted, and we keep asking questions until we are satisfied. We wouldn’t announce the shortlists unless we were.”

14 February 2018