Ospizio – Photographer’s Dream and Nightmare

I’ve been photographing theatre productions throughout my professional career, and before that too. I’d even say that covering the theatre scene was one of the things that led me to turning pro, and helped in a big way in establishing me on the scene. Acting and directing plays was something I used to do lots of, from pantomimes to Shakespeare, classical to contemporary. Though not the most recent thing I did, I still feel the pinnacle of my involvement in theatre was directing the ghost story The Woman in Black at Malta’s national theatre way back in 1996. My approach to directing plays, and my approach to photographing plays (and dance), was similar, in the way I composed visuals on the stage, used lighting and so on.

Yesterday I faced what I felt was one of my greatest challenges ever as regards photographing theatre. “Ospizio”, by Theatre Anon, a company I’ve followed closely since its inception and photographed countless times. The site-specific production, part of the three week long Malta Arts Festival, was held at the Ospizio in Floriana, just outside the capital Valletta. It was once a powder mill built by the Knights of St John, and later used as an institution to house the more vulnerable members of society – the old, the sick, the infirm, orphaned and unwanted children, prostitutes and the destitute. All in all, a magical performance space.

Immensely challenging because of the sheer overwhelming volume of visual feasts – afterwards I referred to it a a photographer’s paradise, wonderful dream, but also a nightmare. Not because of the low light as some suggested, but simply because half the time, one didn’t know where to look in order to get the best shot, or where to place oneself (the audience, always on its feet, moved through the complex as the play progressed and much of the action took place among the audience). Definitely the sort of production one ideally needs to have watched a couple of times before attempting to shoot it.

I really wish I hadn’t more or less lost touch with the company members – many are old friends I hadn’t seen in a long while. I’d have loved to have been involved from the start, late last year, documenting the whole process of how the production came about – could have made a great medium term project.

The final scene, in an underground chamber, where an artificial lake was created as the main acting area, was one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever watched, and boy was it frustrating. One of the most important attributes of a theatre photographer is sensitivity to the production. At its most obvious, that means flash photography is an absolute no-no (could never understand how people could even dream of using flash when covering productions – what an insult to the director and lighting designer, apart from the distraction to the performers!). Equally important is the element of noise. This was a scene which relied heavily on silence, and the sound of dripping water. A single shutter click would have shattered the illusion. So I had to make do with some quick pictures as the audience made their way into the space, and two frames when one of the few lines in the scene got a loud laugh from the audience. Yet throughout the scene, I never lowered the camera from my eye, never removed my finger from the trigger, never stopped focusing…… never stopped cursing at the impossibility of taking the picture.

Still, I don’t think I did too badly. Thirteen pictures used on the wire, one making top 24 pix of the day. So on the whole, a good day.

Ospizio in Pictures

Charter flight to a new life

In Pictures

Passengers burst into applause and cheered as flight BLE0348 touched down at Charles De Gaulle Airport, outside Paris on Monday.

Under normal circumstances, this may come across as somewhat naff but this was no ordinary flight. Ninety-three refugees had just completed the final stage of a years-long journey that started in Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Liberia and Iraq, a voyage fraught with danger, often beset by tragedy, across deserts, across the graveyard that the southern Mediterranean has become in tiny rickety boats. In sharp contrast, they were now flying in style.

The relocation programme was initiated in 2008 when French Ambassador Daniel Rondeau flew in a French military helicopter, forming part of the Frontex mission, on a surveillance mission south of Malta. Flying 100 metres above sea level, he saw dolphins, whales, turtles, fishermen, two empty dinghies and an old boat packed with more than 100 men, women and children. Their position was radioed to the operations centre but those people were never seen again, they never landed anywhere, were never intercepted or rescued.

Horrified by what he had seen, knowing he had become a witness to the tragedy that had befallen thousands of immigrants trying to reach European soil from Africa in search of refuge and a better life, Mr Rondeau, a writer, set about publishing articles in the French press. He explained that the issue of immigration was not a Maltese problem but a European one and drew particular attention to what was happening out at sea.

Before long, on a French initiative, the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum was agreed upon and the intra-EU Relocation from Malta pilot project set up.

The group of 71 adults and 22 children was the second to be relocated to France, the first having left Malta a year ago and, according to the ambassador, now settling in and integrating remarkably well.

Instrumental in the success of integration of both groups is the International Organisation for Migration, which provided pre-departure orientation classes and assisted refugees with boarding procedures.

The French Office of Immigration and Integration assists the refugees with their year-long integration programme.

Farewells at Malta International Airport were long, intense and often emotional. Maltese, African and Middle Eastern friends turned out to wish the 93 bon voyage. Those left behind put on a brave face, hoping that perhaps one day it would be their turn.

The refugees, many dressed in suits and fedora hats, walking through the departure gates displayed a mix of excitement, happiness and more than just a little bit of anxiety. Few, if any, had ever been on a plane before and they were all aware of the huge challenge ahead.

Several nervously clutched their travel documents as an airport coach took them to the waiting aircraft. The English and Maltese they had learnt over the years would have to be put aside and a new language learned from scratch.

One refugee taking a photo of some of his friends counted “one, two, three” before taking his picture and was good-naturedly admonished by a French Embassy official. He must now say: “Une, deux, trois”.

The passengers spread themselves comfortably throughout the chartered plane. Mr Rondeau, who joined them on the flight, was almost accorded superstar status with many wanting to take their picture with him and repeatedly shake his hand or hug him.

Some took the opportunity to sleep after their in-flight meal; others gazed in wonder out of the windows, lost in thought.

Hassan Elmi Abdisamed from Somalia, travelling with his wife and eight-month-old daughter, could only describe himself as “very happy, happy, happy, hoping to live the good life!”

Abraham Abdullah Ismahil, 22, who fled his home in Darfur seven years ago, said: “I always wanted to move on to another country in Europe. I used to keep going to UNHCR asking if I could go and just now I’ve achieved my dream. I’m very happy.”

“I want to get a better education, go to school and get a job like everyone else.” His motivation is clear: his family still lives in Darfur and he hopes to be in a better position to help them.

Mohammed Adan Abdi Salan, born in 1981 in Somalia, lived in Malta for six years. Throughout that time, he begged to be allowed to bring his family, currently seeking refuge in Ethiopia, to Malta but was told it wasn’t possible because the island is too small. He understood the problem and found that, by and large, the Maltese were very helpful and friendly towards refugees. So he decided to try to relocate and now knows the odds of being reunited with his family have greatly increased.

Esam Ali Ele Beyati was once a poorly paid soldier fighting in Saddam Hussein’s army, serving a tyrannical regime he hated. He fled Iraq in 1995, arriving in Malta in 2002. Now, together with his five-year-old son Mohammed, he was staring in awe out of the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the French mainland through gaps in the cloud while his wife fed his other child in the seats across the aisle.

He is thrilled because now he is certain his children, born in Malta, will have a much better childhood than he had, living in a liberal democracy, not under a dictatorship.

Once the plane touched down in Paris and started taxiing along the runway, many of the over-enthusiastic passengers immediately leapt to their feet and tried to retrieve their carry-on bags, much to the chagrin of the French cabin crew.

When they were finally given the go-ahead to move and the aircraft doors were opened, loud cheers and applause erupted as French Immigration Minister Eric Besson appeared in the doorway and called out: “Bienvenue en France!”

With the biggest grin imaginable, one French-speaking immigrant lifted his bag over his head and powered his way down the aisle, overwhelmed by his own enthusiasm.

A VIP reception, including several French media outlets, awaited them: speeches, drinks, food, interviews and flashing cameras.

Before long, IOM personnel were gathering the different groups who would set off for Champigny-sur-Marne, Soissons and Oissel, small towns in northern France. The new arrivals would go their separate ways, learn French, adopt the French Republic’s motto of liberty, equality and fraternity as their own, taking the opportunity to build their own future.

“Take this chance and you’ll be part of our common future,” promised Mr Besson.

Originally published in The Times, Malta, July 7, 2010

RETHINK CENSORSHIP – THIS ISN’T OVER YET

As referred to in a blog post a few months ago, I’ve been working on a pinhole photography creative documentary on censorship in Malta. That project is now more or less complete, though I hope to be able to revisit it from time to time as and when new issues of censorship crop up (and crop up they will, I know). The main presentation of the project is in book format, called RETHINK CENSORSHIP, containing 28 pinhole photographs, reproduced alongside quotes by people in the pictures, or who have contributed to the debate on censorship in some way. I can only link to a gallery containing the images here, and have opted against making the book PDF available for download.

THIS ISN’T OVER YET …

In 2009, in what was meant to be the EU’s Year of Creativity and Innovation, cases of censorship in Malta were plentiful. Once the Film and Stage Classification Board opted to ban the Unifaun Theatre production of Anthony Nielsen’s Stitching, calling it “an insult to human dignity”, the floodgates of censorship seemed to open. The only porn cinema in Malta, which had been operating for over 30 years in the centre of the capital Valletta, just round the corner from the city police station and national Law Courts, was raided by police, films confiscated and the owner arraigned in court on charges of screening pornographic films; police ordered a shop owner to dress up nude mannequins in his shop window, part of an art installation creating awareness on sex trafficking, after “someone influential” complained; a student newspaper was banned from the university campus, and its editor and the author of a fictitious article prosecuted in court by the police (both face prison sentences if convicted), prompting the editor to set up the Front Against Censorship ; TV production houses had their knuckles rapped for allegedly showing programmes in bad taste. Following pressure from the extremely powerful Catholic Church Curia, gearing itself up for a papal visit, police presence during a spontaneous, radical carnival on Malta’s sister island Gozo earlier this year was drastically stepped up, to ensure that no revellers dressed up as priests, nuns or Jesus Christ, as happened in 2009, resulting in several revellers being arrested and arraigned in court – A planned ‘march of the thousand Jesuses,’ organised by a Facebook group in protest, where everyone would dress up as Jesus, never got off the ground ; at the same carnival, the police announced they would vet the lyrics of songs being performed by live bands, and only backed down when faced with public outcry and ridicule over their move. The same Curia then found itself on the receiving end, fearing crucifixes in public places may be banned following a controversial European Court of Human Rights judgment, prompting the Archbishop of Malta to decry censorship in this case. The country became divided between those who wanted freedom at all costs, and those who feared the cost of freedom. On both sides of the fence, people became emboldened and more outspoken, filling newspaper columns and online blogs, flooding TV chatshows. The whole saga is by no means over. New incidents crop up constantly, even if only brought up by petition-waving private individuals and not the authorities. As the situation continues to develop on a regular basis, I opted to leave the book I designed unfinished – I left blank pages in, text placement was done haphazardly.

The project was shot between December 2009 and May 2010. I opted to shoot this project on pinhole cameras, using a combination of digital pinhole and zone plate cameras, as well as pinhole blender cameras, because of a subtle link I could see between the pinhole and the peephole. The discreet pinhole cameras helped the illicit element of the picture making in many cases. The inherent blurring in pinhole images became a form of censorship in themselves. With pinholes being a derivative of the camera obscura, literally meaning ‘dark room’, and the fact that illicit activities that may be censored often take place in dark spaces, I found another reason to shoot the whole Rethink project using pinholes. Some of the images involved changing the composition midway through the exposure, enabling me to show different viewpoints in the same picture. One of the difficulties I had to overcome was how to depict incidents of censorship that were already past events. I got round this by shooting portraits of the protagonists, and in one case, using a form of multiple exposure technique, showing a pinhole rendition of a detail from an older conventional photo with a pinhole image of the location. In addition, I wanted to rethink my photographic technique, and do it in a manner as far removed as possible from the news and sports photography I do on a day-to-day professional basis. Hence the creative documentary style of the project.

Multimedia over Easter

Apologies for not having updated this blog for quite some time. It’s been a hectic few months, and over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try do a few more ‘catching-up’ updates.

I’ve been toying with multimedia a lot lately, learning the intricities of gathering audio, editing it and using it in slideshows.

For the purposes of the multimedia assignment as part of my MA, doing the 90 second audio slideshow The Passion was not my initial intention. Once I’d decided I’d be opting for the multimedia elective, I started keeping my eyes peeled for any stories I’d be shooting for my newspaper which might have multimedia potential. At the moment, we don’t do audio slideshows on our newspaper website www.timesofmalta.com . We have a number of videographers, so stories which go online tend to use video, not still photography, though this will hopefully change in the near future as our editors become more aware of the power of the still image accompanied by sound.

Within a matter of days, I thought I’d found my ideal subject. I was assigned to shoot a feature in the youth section at the Corradino Correctional Facility, Malta’s only prison. Pleasantly surprised to find that, for a change, I was allowed to show inmates’ faces in the pictures, I figured an audio slideshow about these prisoners cooking Maltese traditional Easter almond cakes for charity would work well. Staying there for some three hours, shooting, recording lots of ambient audio, as well as doing some interviews in a quiet room, gave me plenty of material – too much in fact. I soon found it close to impossible to cut the whole thing down to 90 seconds.

So it was back to the drawing board.

It didn’t take me long to come up with the idea of doing something on the Easter processions that take place all over the islands over Easter weekend – rich in visual material, and plenty of opportunity to get some good audio, as long as it didn’t get too windy. The audio recorder I use is an Olympus DS-40 digital recorder, with its built-in microphone covered by a Rycote mini windjammer, whose effect is limited if the wind’s too strong, thereby rendering audio recordings unusable. On Maundy Thursday, thousands of people converge on a hill outside the village of Siggiewi, at the top of which is the enormous Laferla Cross. The the hill is dotted by hundreds of flaming torches, illuminating the pathway running past several stations of the Cross, where pilgrims stop to pray. I found stopping taking pictures in order to concentrate on capturing audio on a regular basis easier than I imagined. It was clear that doing both at the same time wasn’t going to work, both because of the clicking of the camera shutter (though this could easily be edited out) and handling noise. Whenever possible, I placed the recorder, with the microphone pointing in the right direction, on the rubble walls, always looking for spots where stones could provide a modicum of shelter from the wind.
I recorded people praying, the village band playing funerary marches, ambient music playing over speakers near the top of the hill, people’s footsteps. Much of the audio was unusable simply because the content was ruined by some people who seem to see the whole pilgrimage as an excuse for a picnic – though recordings of people laughing, or swearing, could have in themselves made interesting material, that wasn’t the angle I was looking for this time round.

Meanwhile, as regards pictures, I made it a point to stick to available light, something I normally do as I dislike using flash intensely unless in a news situation where I might have no choice.

The following day, Good Friday, I headed to the smaller Maltese island of Gozo, planning on trying to fit in two processions in the villages of Nadur and Xaghra. At Nadur, I started off inside the church were participants were preparing to take part in the procession, dressing up in biblical costumes. The afternoon light was streaming through the open doorway. On the church parvis, the local band was playing funerary marches. I spent some time recording them, but the pictures I was taking weren’t really exciting me much. So I decided to move to Xaghra, arriving during the so-called golden hour. It was here that I was hoping to create the main body of work for the project, as I wanted to photograph and record the hooded penitents dragging heavy chains attached to their ankles. Whilst it might have been great to interview one of them, I decided not to – partly because they don’t normally talk as they’re very guarded about their identity, and also because I preferred to just go for atmosphere, feeling that in 90 seconds, I needed to be very selective.
By the time I’d made my way down the procession and found the penitents, light levels were dropping fast, and not long afterwards, the islands were hit by a nation-wide power cut, which meant street lighting was no longer available. Some people tried lighting the procession with car headlamps, whereas back at the church, there was a generator, so the organisers managed to switch on a couple of floodlights on the church parvis.

Heading back to Malta, I did an initial edit of the photos on the ferry boat between the islands, wiring some to Reuters. I started tackling the audio and picking images for the Soundslides Pro slideshow the following morning. After converting the audio files to MP3 using eRightsoft SUPER (C) software, I edited the audio with Audacity, selecting the bits I wanted, creating different tracks so I could mix different volume levels, all the while watching my output and input levels so as to avoid distortion. It was clear that editing the sound can be a very long process, which can be a problem if doing a similar project for the online version of the paper, as the editors usually want stories up and running as quickly as possible. No doubt with practice, the process will become faster, but I envisage it will remain a thorny issue in that regard.

As an opening title shot, I dug out a picture I’d taken of a statue I’d shot the previous year. The timing of the pictures was an important element – getting it to match the sounds, such as the beating of the solitary drum, was crucial. I decided to keep zooming and panning of the images to an absolute minimum, as I find those kinds of effects very distracting if overused. I opted for an overall black template because it looked neater, and also fitted in well with the subject matter.

Lastly, thanks to Chris Helgren at Reuters and Benjamin Chesterton of Duckrabbit for their feedback and advice as I went along.

Playing with pinholes

I’ve continued my experimenting with pinhole over the past few days, opting not to really get going on my Rethink censorship project till I’ve really got the hang of certain things. I’ve been using a combination of digital SLR cameras with pinhole and zone plate body caps instead of lenses, as well as shooting some test film (haven’t done that in a while) in a blender pinhole camera. I’m anxiously waiting to see the results once I get the film developed tomorrow. I’ve also been working on using flash with the pinholes, as I may need that once I get cracking on the portraits I’m planning on doing.

Meanwhile, I quickly shot this image on my 5DMkII earlier this afternoon at the horse race track while on assignment for the paper, using a zone plate body cap, which has an effective aperture of f/45, as opposed to a pinhole proper which gives an aperture of around f/200. Nothing to do with the project, but I quite liked the result.

Rethink

Rethink – that’s the theme of the next photo essay we’re all working on as part of our MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. Guess the advantage of it is that it’s so wide in scope that everyone’s bound to come up with some great stuff. Apart from tackling a topic which falls under the theme of Rethink, we’ve also been asked to rethink our technique, and the way we approach photography. Personally, I’ve had to rethink Rethink a couple of times till I made up my mind how I was going to tackle it.

I’ve opted to tackle the issue of censorship in Malta. 2009 has been called the Year of Censorship in some sections of the media, and with good reason. After being a dormant issue for several years, it re-exploded onto the scene last year, in what was meant to be the EU’s year of Creativity and Innovation. The Anthony Nielson play ‘Stitching’ was banned by the censors ; At the ‘alternative’ carnival in Nadur, on Malta’s sister island Gozo, people who’d dressed up as Christ or nuns were arrested and arraigned in court ; Malta’s only porn cinema was closed down by the police after being openly in operation for decades, just round the corner from the law courts and a police station ; a University art lecturer had his work removed from a collective exhibition becasue it could have been libellous to politicians ; the police walked into a shop and asked the owner to put clothes on his naked mannequins, which were part of an installation that the owner had put up to raise awareness against sex trafficking ; a University of Malta student newspaper was banned from the campus by the Rector on grounds of obscenity after the editor ran a fictional short story about sexual violence – the editor is now facing court proceedings and could end up getting six months imprisonment. The Broadcasting Authority, a government-appointed watchdog which monitors local TV content, charged several programmes with ‘bad taste’ but let them off with a slap on the wrist.

The backlash has been widespread – Unifaun Theatre, producers of ‘Stitching’, instituted a court case against the Board of Censors, the Front Against Censorship was formed and demonstrations organised, several newspaper columns and editorials tackled the issues, an anti-censor play was hastily written and performed (yes, it did get past the censors in one piece) ; people have gathered together on Facebook planning to go to the upcoming Nadur carnival in large numbers dressed as Christ, and members of parliament have joined in the debate, with a private member’s bill expected to be presented in parliament in May to abolish the Board of Censors. In the last week, government announced plans to re-examine the whole issue of censorship, and admitted the current legislation is antiquated and outdated, and not suitable for the 21st century.

One of the issues I now face is, how do I visualise and photograph things which are now in the past? There are some events I’d shot over the year for the paper, but I can’t use those, as I’ve decided to shoot the whole project on pinhole cameras. I’ve already made a start shooting some stuff by using a pinhole cap on a digital camera, but in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be going back to basics, using real pinhole cameras loaded with film ! (anyone remember film?). The approach will be far removed from my normal technique of shooting whilst moving fast on my feet, carrying a couple of cameras and a selection of lenses. I’m going to have to take my time, set the camera on a tripod, think very carefully about exposure, realy embrace and understand what pinhole does and so on. A lot of the photo essay is likely to be made up of portraits of people who have been involved in these incidents, as well as relevant locations. I shot a Front against Censorship demonstration a short while ago using the pinhole digital – some of the images worked surprising well. I also made it a point to record audio clips of the demonstrators reading from ‘steamy’ but classic literature. Those pictures can be seen here.

Intelligent Still Life

Back to shooting pictures for the MA course, and it feels good – it felt frustrating getting bogged down in critical theory and the like. Peter Fraser’s recent talk on intelligent still life, just like his talk to us last semester, was thought-provoking and inspiring.

He wanted us to shoot with our emotions, let the subject control us, and not the other way round. Take pictures as you feel them and not doing anything contrived or ‘designed’. Using the technique he’d recommended when I was shooting VISIONS – closing one’s eyes for twenty minutes, shutting out all visual stimuli thereby unloading any visual baggage and then opening one’s eyes again and letting emotions guide you as you shoot. He wanted to see where this would take us.

I opted to do the assignment at the house where I used to live, up in what used to be my bedroom – a room I’ve been clearing out bit by bit. The twenty minutes of shuteye must have made me very introspective. I’d already decided I was going to shoot in black and white, and would concentrate on tight details around the room, but had no idea what I’d shoot specifically.

Here are the results - a reflection of my quiet, reflective, nostalgic yet partly foul mood.

Dear Me,

Paul’s asked us for a letter to ourselves, a spot of reflection on how the course is going, what we think our strengths and weaknesses are at the moment, where we hope to find ourselves in the future, and areas we need to develop further.

To be honest, I don’t think there’s much I can add to what I wrote in my blog Visions a couple of months ago. I still think I need to be a better editor of my own work, and need to work more on developing relationships over time which will enable me to shoot better pictures, get closer to my subjects and create more meaningful bodies of work. I also need to start to trust my gut instincts better, particularly during the editing process. I’ll continue to play with audio and improve on that – there’s no doubt in my mind that multimedia is the way of the future (and present for that matter), and printed newspapers are pretty much a dying breed. And whilst I’m starting to shed my newspaper mode of shooting, I realise I still have a long way to go till I find my own voice or style in the documentary work I do. That’s why I’m doing this Masters. I know the academic side of it is going to continue to be particularly tough, but let’s face it, there’s nothing like a real challenge to set our pulses racing, is there?

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE…

Published in The Times of Malta, August 24, 2009

Ugandan children sing beautifully. I’m drawn towards the classrooms by the angelic sounding voices tempered with an unmistakably African rhythm. The songs are more than just a welcoming ritual – they’re an everyday part of life, something quintessentially African.

The outside walls of Katoosa Primary School in Kyenjonjo in western Uganda are colourfully painted, an extension to the classrooms themselves as they’re covered with maps and biology diagrams. The dimly lit rooms are packed with enthusiastic children, peering through the large windows with more than just idle curiosity.

There is no such thing as a typical Ugandan school – Some are no more than open air classrooms under a tree in the middle of a field, the blackboard hanging from a low lying tree branch. The teachers have few or no teaching aids.

At Loro Primary school, in Oyam in the north of the country, the classrooms are huts with corrugated iron roofs. Barefoot pupils sit on the dusty floor cross-legged for hours on end, deep in concentration as they try to follow lessons. The children tightly clutch onto their bundles of pencils as though they’re their most precious possessions – maybe that’s exactly why.

Many of the young pupils don’t have a meal throughout a whole day at school because their parents can’t afford the 5000 shillings (2 US $) a term to pay for school meals. How must that hungry child feel, when he has nothing to eat and the student sitting in the grass next to him is gobbling down his food? How can that child be expected to learn and develop at school, listen to the teacher, when the only thing he can hear is his rumbling empty stomach?

Whilst primary education is supposed to be universal, many families can’t afford to send their children to school, for the simple reason that they’re expected to pay for the child’s meals. The government is trying to eradicate the practice of schools charging for school meals, but much remains to be done in that area. There is also a chronic lack of teachers. Government policy only allows districts to employ a certain number of teachers, but given the rapid population growth, those numbers are nowhere near sufficient.

Some children are luckier and attend private school. The Kyamusansala Primary School in Masaka in southern Uganda, run by nuns of the Sacred Heart, is one of the better schools in the region. The pupils, all girls, are boarders, many orphans who lost both parents to AIDS, and they’re guaranteed to get their meals every day. Teaching standards are high, classrooms are well equipped, the pupils wear smart, meticulously cared-for uniforms, discipline is strict but fair, and by and large, things appear no different to a well-funded school in the West.

Reminders of the scourge of AIDS are never far away. A wooden signpost nailed to a tree near the main entrance reads “Be aware of HIV/AIDS”. At the Katoosa Primary School in Kyenjonjo in western Uganda, a patch of grass in an otherwise dusty field is dotted with boulders with similar messages painted on them “AIDS kills,” Together we can fight AIDS, AIDS Petients (sic) need care and support.” With Uganda having been one of the worst affected countries, authorities are making sure that AIDS awareness campaigns target children by the earliest possible age.

According to UN figures, some 75 million children worldwide are denied the basic right of a primary school education. These children, left without the chance to learn, will grow up in poverty, with no hope, no ambition and no future. Uganda appears to be one of the success stories – in only 5 years, the country managed to double the number of children in primary schools to over 90%.

Yet, the issue is not so clear cut. The Millennium Development Goals, which were agreed internationally to reduce poverty levels and improve education and health worldwide, were imposed on African countries as a condition for debt relief. The pressure this exerted on the education system has almost brought it to its knees, according to Madeleine Bunting writing in The Guardian. Classes of over 75 students are commonplace; there aren’t enough books, blackboards, teaching materials. The priorities are access, equality and quality – in that order – putting the Ugandan authorities in a dilemma over whether to go for quantity or quality, which is no choice at all.

Some pupils at Kyamusansala School are intently watching me, but they shyly turn away when they realize I’ve noticed. They’re interested in my cameras. We strike up a conversation of sorts, I show them some pictures, and ask them what they want to do when they grow up. One wants to be a doctor, another wants to join the Sisters of Sacred Heart. All the children have dreams, and given the chance, given the right education, many will achieve those ambitions, however lofty they may appear.

This is the fifth in a series of reports from Uganda raising awareness about the UN Millennium Development Goals with the cooperation of SOS Malta.

Photo Gallery

VISIONS

It’s been a busy time these past months which goes some way to explaining why this blog’s been neglected for so long, apart from posting stories I’d written for my newspaper and a couple of audio slideshows, my first proper attempts at doing them. I have an exhibition about the L’Aquila earthquake on at the moment, but I’ll write about that another time.

Coursework these past months has all been taken up with photo essays. After doing a number of smaller picture essays during my travels in Uganda and the Italian earthquake zone, (my submitted photo essays during tutorials showed me very clearly that I need to work on my editing skills – it didn’t take me long to realise I was often including the wrong pictures and leaving out some good stuff), I moved on to a more in depth photo essay. I was tipped off to the subject matter by the TV programme Xarabank. Since then, for the past three months, I’ve been documenting what’s happening at the hill of Borg in-Nadur, outside Birzebbugia, in the south of the island, where a visionary/stigmatic has been leading prayer meetings and seeing apparations. It’s been interesting and is probably a project I’ll keep revisiting on and off over the coming months, though it will of course have to shift downwards on my list of priorities. I’m planning on moving on to something else for my big final project which will be shot over several months – actually I started shooting it ages ago, though for purposes of the MA course I’ll keep it restricted to what I’ve shot since starting the course.

I learnt a lot from this project I called VISIONS, primarily the value of patience,and sticking with a story in the long term, even if at times one almost despairs at getting the sort of shots one needs (there were a couple of occasions when I considered dropping the project altogether and moving onto something else, but both my tutors John Easterby and Homer Sykes convinced me to keep at it). I learnt the value of really discussing pictures in a profound way with my peers (they know who they are!),of blending into the surroundings, letting people get used to my presence, getting to know people so they can let me have a peek into their lives. Admittedly, I got off to bad start in that respect, as in the first minutes of my first visit there, I was standing right where the apparations are supposed to take place, much to the horror of many people present!

One interesting technique I picked up from Peter Fraser during a tutorial was – once I got to the location, I sat down and closed my eyes, and just listened to sounds around me. Peter had suggested doing this for about twenty minutes, I lost all sense of time and carried on for forty. Opening my eyes after that long stretch, I started to see things in a different way from the norm (I did this on one of my later visits), the pictures I took were different from the usual stuff, and though none of them made the final edit as they didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the set, I still think they’re some of the more interesting images. Naturally it’s not the sort of thing one can do when covering a news assignment, but it’s certainly something to consider doing more often.

There are still huge gaps in VISIONS, but access to some things I needed to shoot has proven to be next to impossible, though there have been some positive indications that that may change for the better sometime soon. That’s one of the things which is motivating me to continue monitoring this story. The door hasn’t been opened to me, but it seems the window has… so I might get there eventually. It’s taken a long time for the inner circle of people involved in this to come to trust me, to accept me – in this regard, my working for the biggest newspaper on the island worked against me, as they have a deep distrust of the media, having been ruthlessly attacked by some sections of it in the past. They’ve now understood this is something I want to follow in the long term, and that I haven’t been doing this as a newspaper assignment. At the same time though, I’m not keen on the occasional suggestion that it’s ok to shoot something as long as it’s just for an MA assignment but not for publication. I don’t see the sense of that – out in the real world, it’s always going to be for possible publication, isn’t it? So may as well get it right to start with.

These events will probably carry on for a very long time, so in a sense, there’s no rush. In the meantime, I’ll look deeper into how to widen the scope of the story, build on the trust I’ve garnered, meet more people in their homes and so on.

Re the story itself, whether it turns out to be true or just the result of fraud, deceit or some form of mental illness, shouldn’t affect the importance of the work I’m producing. It remains something that needs to be documented journalistically because it has anthropological, historical, social and religious value.

So, what is VISIONS all about?

Once a week, come rain or shine, a growing number of religiously devout people walk up a narrow slippery path to what was once a Bronze Age settlement at the top of a small hill of Borg in-Nadur (meaning ‘group of stones on a hill in an archaic Maltese dialect). They come out of religious piety and a good dose of curiosity to see and listen to Angelik Caruana, a telephone operator in his early 40s, and now a visionary and stigmatic, who claims to receive apparitions from guardian angels and the Mother of God, who he calls The Lady.

What first started as a private matter at home in 2006, with a statue of the Blessed Virgin shedding tears of blood (now kept away from prying eyes due to ongoing scientific investigations), soon became a growing phenomenon. The apparition, visiting Caruana on a regular basis, told him to go to the hill of Borg in-Nadur as that is where she wanted to appear in future. A cross was erected at the spot indicated, and that has now become the focal point of the activities.

The devotees, many carrying chairs and stools, come to the hill to pray, to recite the Rosary, and to listen to any messages from The Lady passed through Caruana. They also hope to see a miracle for themselves, such the sun spinning on its axis and descending on them before retreating again; a vision of The Lady appearing in the sun; a Eucharist host appearing on the palm of Caruana’s hand out of nowhere. Unusual shaped clouds become supernatural visions. Because they are told it won’t hurt their eyes, they spend several minutes, practically unblinking, staring into the setting sun in the hope of seeing something.

At the end of the prayer meeting, several pilgrims go to the cross, to touch it, to ask for blessings, or to put a note or a photo of a departed loved one in between the rubble stones.

Caruana is surrounded by an entourage of “chosen ones” who include a spiritual advisor, his wife and a small number of friends. They are the only people allowed at the foot of the cross during the apparitions (apparitions of The Lady, angels, and occasionally – of hell), with one exception – a psychiatrist who is closely monitoring the case, carrying out scientific investigations, looking out for anything that might indicate fraud, deceit and mental illness. The investigations remain ongoing.

Once a month, the apparitions also take place on Malta’s sister island, Gozo.

Caruana also claims to receive the stigmata every Friday afternoon, when he goes rigid in a crucified position on his bed, and marks form on his hands and feet. It remains a very private moment however, strictly off limits to all except the “chosen ones.”

The Church authorities have yet to pronounce themselves on the matter, waiting for the results of scientific, psychological and theological investigations. In the meantime, it takes the position that nobody is obliged to believe in apparitions, even if they are officially recognised, but if it helps people in their faith and daily life, then they shouldn’t be rejected.

The submitted photo essay VISIONS