A special collaboration with Fujifilm Cameras
All photographs were taken © by Jack Picone during cremations at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu.
JACK PICONE: FAST, FLUID AND INTUITIVE
Fujifilm’s Amazing New X-T4
What does it take to be a successful documentary photographer?
Apart from the skills required to find and capture the images, most of the better- known documentary photographers you’ll meet are also deeply-thinking individuals. For them, photography is only a part of their personal involvement with the world – how they interact with their subjects is equally
important.
Jack Picone
Australian-born Jack Picone shoots editorial, corporate, architectural and street photography professionally. Over the past three decades, he has covered wars and social issues in Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe, and his work has won several international awards, including World Press Awards, the U.S. Photographer of the Year Awards (POY) and the Mother Jones/IFDP Grant for Social Documentary Photography. Professor Picone is also passionate about educating new generation photographers, passing on his experiences and ideas, but after all, this, what continues to drive Jack are his personal projects.
“Generally, my personal work is street photography and currently I’m working on ‘The Other Chinatown’in Bangkok and a surreal shopping mall rooftop zoo, also in Bangkok, called ‘Pata Zoo’.“
While Jack acknowledges challenges that all documentary photographers face – finding stories, access to subjects, engaging with subjects and obtaining permissions, it’s the nature of the interaction that is most important to him.
“I find it challenging to achieve an ethical balance with the people I document in longer-term documentary photography projects.” In other words (and at the risk of over-simplifying the issue), a wealthy first-world photographer documenting a poorer or disadvantaged subject creates an immediate bias, no matter how genuine the project is.
Collaboration
“I have partly surmounted this challenge by collaborating with the people I photograph”, explained Jack.
“I once read that it is impossible (without getting into the subject’s skin) to share an identical purpose. That said, and as Sarah Pink (in Doing Visual Ethnography, 2007) observes, working in close parallel can help to offset the unequal power relationship that often exists between a subject and a practitioner, resulting in a body of work that is more ethically balanced.”
Readers looking at Jack’s work (and that of other great documentary photographers), often wonder what cameras and techniques were used and while these aspects are important, the strength of the images usually results from addressing other issues, such as ethics.
Having said that, how does Jack work when he’s out in the field? Does he walk up to his subjects and shoot with a wide-angle lens, or shoot from an unobserved distance?
“It depends on the genre of photography I am working in”, answered Jack. “If it is street photography, I make photographs that avoid ‘disrupting’ the original moments unfolding. If documentary photography, then I meet people, spend time with them and invite them to have a say in their documentation.”
However, whether street or documentary photography, Jack believes the smaller and less obtrusive the camera, the better. “Some people are intimidated by cameras and house- brick size DLSRs only amplify any intrusion or intimidation.”
And in a nutshell, Jack is explaining why he is a keen advocate for the Fujifilm X-series cameras.
“The Fujifilm X-T cameras are small and
unobtrusive. Their retro design also makes them less intimidating and I think it is this combination that creates potent and positive psychology when photographing people, especially those in fragile situations.”
Before its release, Jack tested the new Fujifilm X-T4 in Kathmandu, Nepal on an assignment.
“Like Kathmandu itself, the X-T4 has a dual personality: On the outside, it resonates retro with classic design lines not eclipsed by time. On the inside, it is all twenty-first-century space-age technology. It’s a compelling combination.
“Nepal is a spiritually multi-dimensional and creative place. Much of its creativity is rooted in Hinduism. In Kathmandu, Hinduism is omnipresent in life and death. In fact, Hinduism is a conversation between life and death and it is reflected in Nepalese culture with its religious iconography, art, writing, graffiti, music and even the cremations on the banks of the sacred Bagmati river.”
Extreme Edge
“Unlike most Western countries, the Nepalese people are unconcerned with the documentation of their dead. They are inclusive of it because it is an intrinsic part of the Hindu religion, to share life’s experiences and to promote a culture of understanding between people everywhere.
“Hindus believe we are all the same and we are all in this life together. Sharing death is
part of that philosophy.
“Even so, photographing the ritual of death
is mostly about respect, unobtrusiveness and speed. There can be beauty in pathos and poetic and sorrowful photographs can be made or lost in microseconds.
“I found while documenting the cremations at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu that the Fujifilm X-T4’s fold-away LCD screen in combination with the large dials and controls on the top deck allowed me to work fast, stay in the moment and learn about the Nepalese peoples’ conversation with death. I can’t imagine working with a camera that requires you to scrolling through endless menu pages!
“I push my cameras to the extreme edge of their capabilities. Having six and a half stops of image stabilisation, lighting fast autofocus, lots of film simulation modes and extra battery life, keeps me on that ‘edge’ where most of the potent photographs happen.
“The Fujifilm X-T4 is intuitive, fast, fluid and a natural extension of me and my creativity.”
For more information on the Fujifilm X-T4, visit fujifilm-x
+ All photos also used the Bleach Bypass film simulation mode.
Reportage Photography Workshops 
Conflict, Documentary Photography, Ethics, Fuji, FUJIFILM XT3, Genocide, PEACE, Photojournalist, Picone Documentary Workshops, Rwanda, social commentary, Street Photography, The Jack Picone and Stephen Dupont Documentary Photography Workshops, War, Workshop News
RWANDA PEACE VII/F The VII Foundation
In Photography, Photography News on April 16, 2019 at 12:58 PMAs you read this, Rwandan people are midst 100 days of mourning.
The final number of people who died (and maimed) in the most violent, base and horrific of circumstances has never truly been quantified. Educated estimates place the death toll, conservatively, at one million people. Previously unknown mass grave sites are still being discovered, today. The depth and breadth and vast scale of death solicit inevitable comparisons of the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish community during the second world war and the Cambodian genocide in South-Esat Asia.
In 1994, I documented and reported on the genocide as it unfolded. After crossing the border illegally from Uganda with fellow photographer and friend Stephen Dupont we quickly realized that we had easily, too easily, walked through a door into hell on earth. In front of us was; a burnt, blighted, broken, bomb and a bullet-scarred landscape peppered with the dismembered dead. We ricochet across Rwanda in the back of pick-up gun trucks with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). At times we crossed paths and interviewed the RPF’s leader Major General Kagame (now President Kagame) as he led his men and pushed towards the capital Kigali to regain power, he saw was theirs. During the battle for RPF to regain power, Rwanda spiralled into a politically toxic and human abyss. Rwanda almost fell off the edge of the world. Such was the heightened level of destructiveness, horror and carnage dispensed by both Tutsis and Hutus it is not implausible to suggest that Rwanda may have never been seen again. It was on the cusp of annihilation.
Fast forward >> to the Twenty-First Century; The VII Foundation is examing countries now at peace (like Rwanda in this case) critically and with rigour and by dispatching leading photographers and writers of war to those countries where they first reported from during the conflict to consider them contemporarily.
Some of the other countries and regions included in the series include; Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia, Colombia and The Middle East.
I have recently returned from Rwanda working with The VII Foundation VII/F documentary film crew making a feature-length documentary film re-tracing the dark journey I made in 1994. I was assigned by VII Foundation Directors Gary Knight, Ron Haviv and Directed and collaborated with Fiona Turner. On the
ground in Rwanda, I collaborated with the erudite VII Cinematographers and photographers, Christopher Morris and Maciek Nabrdalik our translator and Rwandan all things cultural ambassador was Gadi Habumugisha. Peter Klein the legendary Producer, Director and Founder of The Global Reporting Centre kept us all flying at a high altitude and being the best we could be.
As quintessentially important and necessary as it is documenting war, media is often absorbed with documenting wars as they unfold. The distinction here is, the VII Foundation Peace Project is innovative in adjusting the balance by extending the documentation and the conversation to be more inclusive of the aftermath of war. It is an exploration of countries previously ravaged by war, considering the legacy and impact of war upon their specific culture and country. It is rooted in reflectively making an attempt to quantify the ‘quality of peace’ in post-war time and most importantly – maintaining peace.
Our Rwanda at Peace documentary is in the editing suite for a while yet but as soon as I hear of a release date. I’ll make a post about where and when it can be viewed for those interested.
I have attached a random précis of photographs made during the 1994 genocide (as historical documents) and some contemporary photographs of Rwanda in 2019 – at Peace.
Rwanda April 1994
An RPF rebel soldier advances towards Kigali during the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda.
Rwanda February 2019
Alice Mukarurinda (right) and the genocidaire Emmanuel Ndayisaba (left). Emmanual viciously attacked Alice during the genocide cutting her hand off and leaving her for dead. Against all odds, both have reconciled with each other and now teach reconciliation to fellow perpetrators and victims caught up in the 1994 genocide.
Ecotourism (above and below) is a major contributor to Rwanda’s growing economy. In these photographs, Rwandans perform for foreign tourists at The Guardian Village an Eco lodge in Ruhengeri.
Belancila (Laurencie Nyirabeza’s close friend who was murdered during the genocide) Taba, Kigali.
Poignant and pervading photographs installation at the Kigali Genocide Memorial of Rwandans who were slaughtered in the 1994 genocide.
Ruth Mukankuranga mid-class at Karushaka, Prefecture, Kigali. Pre the 1994 genocide many teachers imparted discrimination against ethnic Tutsis via anti-Tutsi writings within school textbooks.
Agnes Nyiransabimana (red headdress) Pyrethrum flower farm owner with her workers harvesting Pyrethrum flowers outside of Ruhengeri (or Musanze) a city in northwest Rwanda.
A one on one interview (Jack Picone green jacket) with The President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame (blue windcheater). Producer, Peter Klein (far right).
Dairy cow shepherds care for their cows, Rubavu (former Gisenyi), Rwanda.
“Bringing in the wheat” (and below) outside of Ruhengeri (or Musanze) a city in northwest Rwanda. It’s the gateway to Volcanoes National Park, home to mountain gorillas and golden monkeys.
This is “Umuganda,” a community cleanup held on the last Saturday of every month. It is the reason that Rwanda is known as the cleanest city on the African continent. Kigali, Rwanda.
Daily life in and around Kigali’s CBD.
Daily life in and around Kigali’s CBD.
Dairy cow shepherds care for their cows, Rubavu (former Gisenyi), Rwanda.
~JP