A Warmer Sound – Sophie Gerrard
Written by duckrabbitSophie Gerrard is a top top woman, and not a bad photog too!
How do I know? She’e been politely harassing David and I for the last year and then finally came on one of our photofilm summer courses. Just wish I had more students with her energy, enthusiasm and talent.
Here’s the film she made with Karoki Lewis, which is lovely feature, thrown together in just a few hours.
The Diskery, one of the oldest record shops in Birmingham, is something of an institution. Jimmy Shannon shares his thoughts.
It’s also good to see her work featured on Foto8 this week.
You need to see the foto8 images fullscreen to really appreciate them.
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (6 Comments)
Therefore contextual information given in the piece in the form of text is very different from the images themselves?
50 years of structural difficulties, lawlessness, corruption, illegal mining and distribution, wealth distribution of natural resources is the text based narrative and are all explicitly mentioned but they are investigated journalistically with any substantiation? Who are the coal mafia? What is the position of the state? What do the police say?
I mean taking shots of people working in open coal mines illegally (2.05 mins) could do with a bit more substantiation? Does the state turn a blind eye to enable these people to earn something rather than nothing? If they do not turn a blind eye, does that mean these people have no alternatives? What are the alternatives?
I am not going to knock the author and everything you say about the personality, enthusiasm, energy and talent etc, etc but despite the photofilm technique, where is the journalism?
The record shop piece is bloody excellent though – full of exquisite intimate detail and just a lovely document of the person and place – thanks for sharing!
(These two a great example of the difference between documentary and journalism and the need to be clear about the boundaries between the two?)
@IAMNOT
The work that is showing here is about a record shop.
Why did you focus on the negative? Why don’t you leave this comment on FOTO8 where the coal piece is showing and where Sophie can engage with you? And why don’t you read the text that accompanies the work before slagging it off?
Also I really don’t understand your view of what is and isn’t ‘journalism’. Documentary is a form of journalism.
‘Wobbling and pushing their bikes laden high with stolen coal, the Coal Cycle Wallahs slowly make their way through rural Jharkhand’s steep and twisting forest roads.
Home to the largest coal belt in Asia, Jharkhand has been plagued by poverty, lawlessness, bad governance and corruption for over half a century. It is also, however, home to the vast majority of India’s rich mineral deposits. India’s government owns everything underground and all coal mines are state-controlled. It is unlikely that the Coal Cycle Wallahs of Jharkhand will face the opportunity to benefit from India’s predicted rise to becoming the world’s third largest economy over the next 25 years.
The Coal Cycle Wallahs and the work they do are a stark illustration of poverty in the midst of rich fossil fuel resource abundance. They come from the remote and extremely poor East Indian states of Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. Jharkhand in particular generates more than two thirds of India’s electricity. Yet despite its great mineral wealth, few of Jharkhand’s 30 million, mainly tribal inhabitants, see any of the financial benefits mining has brought to the state.
With very few jobs available in the state owned mines, the Coal Cycle Wallahs must scavenge coal from illegal coal mines. They frequently load up to 300kg of coal into jute bags and then through the frames of their stong, steel reinforced bicycles. The teetering, heavily laden bicycles are then pushed by the Wallahs who strain under their weight. They travel up steep roads and through Maoist controlled forests, pushing these coal loads often for days at a time. The men travel in groups to avoid trouble, it’s incredibly strenuous work and they help each other on the biggest hills. When they eventually reach the state capital, Ranchi, the coal is sold to individual households. Dependence on coal for domestic use is high, the small stoves in villagers homes called “cholis” belch out thick black smoke, contributing to to respiratory problems and poor health. When the coal is sold, the Coal Cycle Walllahs replace the chains of their bicycles and make the return journey back to the mine in order to start the process again. It’s incredibly hard and labour-intensive work, many of the men suffer from respiratory and rheumatic problems. Most of them look older than their years after a lifetime of hard manual labour and chronic malnutrition.
Few employment alternatives are available to these men in Jharkhand. They do the work because there is no other. It is estimated that every year in India, up to five million tonnes of coal is illegally mined and distributed in this way. As India’s economy grows, all eyes will be on Delhi. Many green pledges have been made regarding air quality and green energy. India’s continued reliance on coal as a cheap, readily available and yet highly polluting fossil fuel is fast increasing. Coal is the dirtiest fuel on the planet and India is estimated to become the world’s third highest CO2 producer by 2030.
The Coal Cycle Wallahs claim they are not thieves, and are not stealing coal. Mine owners are bribed to turn a blind eye to these activities and the Coal Wallahs depend on this grey market for their livelihoods. Each bicycle of coal provides the Wallah with approximately Rs300 profit, £4. His three-day round trip will amount to just enough to feed his family. The Coal Cycle Wallahs are unlikely to ever benefit from India’s economic growth. They scrape by a living, collecting this ‘black gold’ under the ever watchful eyes of east India’s Coal Mafia whilst corrupt officials pocket the rewards.
As India heads into an ever growing coal powered future, the life of the Coal Cycle Wallahs, like that of the majority of India’s 800 million rural population, will continue to subsist off the small pickings left behind.
Words and photographs by Sophie Gerrard.
@duckrabbit
“Why did you focus on the negative?”
I repeat: “The record shop piece is bloody excellent though – full of exquisite intimate detail and just a lovely document of the person and place – thanks for sharing!” (see original post).
Happy to also add thank goodness the producers are producing this kind of work. Gives a magical insight into how people live their lives from within – a great documentary.
Coal Cycle Wallahs.
Look at the text both you/SG have provided for the work.
That is the point – it is all in text.
If you are documenting the way of life – then that is documentary – record shop work was excellent in doing that and loved it. Felt the life of the subject quite vividly.
If you are reporting information or the facts of a place – that is journalism. If you are reporting facts in images then report them using the photos.
Report the facts or tell the story.
(e.g When saying “Dependence on coal for domestic use is high, the small stoves in villagers homes called “cholis” belch out thick black smoke, contributing to to respiratory problems and poor health.” – these are stated facts so where are the images of it?)
Surely that is a legit question given the discussions about context and journalistic substantiation have been important running themes on the duckrabbit blog.
On the foto8 issue, they chose to support her by giving her the story of the week so good on both her and them so let audiences decide for themselves as I should not nor do I want to have a place in shaping any of that at all.
As I said I felt you led with negative and comments on a feature that is not hosted on duckrabbit and was not the focus of the post.
I spent many years documenting ways of life for the BBC and there is no doubt in my mind it is a form of journalism. There is a massive crossover between the two (doc and journalism). Mark Damazer, BBC deputy head of News and then the Controller of Radio 4 made the point that the distinctions between feature, journalism and documentary are often both unhelpful and arbitrary. Mainly though, in relation to how we discussed work, they were pointless.
I just don’t get your logic:
‘If you are reporting information or the facts of a place – that is journalism. If you are reporting facts in images then report them using the photos.’
Are you really suggesting in 2011 you can’t work with both text and images? Surely different mediums work in different ways? Are you beating up on Sophie because you didn’t read the text, that provided context for the images or that the photos did not really fit with the text?
‘These are stated facts so where are the images of it?’
Does a journalist have to back up every fact with an image? Of course you are right, this would bring greater depth.
I have not worked inside any of the industries you have so I will openly admit I am looking from the outside – a non industry based audience perspective.
The question is still valid – What is the difference?
The MA at the LCC is an “MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography” so somebody is drawing a distinction.
Is a 5 min film on More4 news a documentary or journalistic? No point as you say in discussing if a piece of film works in its context of use but pretty sure the terms “documentary” and “journalism” are still used distinctly.
It is when the boundaries are blurred between, documentary, journalism and art in photography that creates tension between introspection and making a statement to others about the world.
“Are you beating up on Sophie because you didn’t read the text, that provided context for the images?”
Am I beating up on Sophie? Find that hard when I praised her work yet even if I was, this is public work and I bet she has had work up in public before so she must be expecting to having her work critically evaluated and I am sure she is well used to it.
That has to be part and parcel of putting work out there and every single member of the audience has a right to critically evaluate if it is fair and about the work – not about her. I asked legit questions about the journalistic intent.
That might be a failure of my critical faculties as she was given the “Story of the week” space from those in foto8 but I do not think I was or am being unfair at all.
“Are you really suggesting in 2011 you can’t work with both text and images? Surely different mediums work in different ways?
Where do I suggest that?
The text provides the context to her images. We are told to look at her images with the supporting text as the backdrop. I read them and then watched the photofilm asking myself “what have I actually seen?” A small group of people working hard trying to make things work out using bikes to transport coal they have mined. Fair enough.
What do I read in the text? Energy (coal is bad), India’s coal mafia, corrupt officials, illegality, dangerous landscapes, India’s predicted rise to becoming the world’s third largest economy, respiratory problems and poor health, rheumatic problems, poverty, lawlessness, bad governance, great mineral wealth… if that is what you are trying to show, then show it. What a great story – a fabulous idea – but where are the substantiating images?
“Why does a journalist have to back up every fact with an image?”
Where do I ask for that?
I do not make some request for some dry uber literalism in photojournalism where every fact would be needed to be backed up by specific images of specific facts. How boring but if the words do more of the work to tell the story than the images, why present a photofilm when a written piece illustrated by a couple of photos would work so much better?
Besides, look at the story she shot in Birmingham – The Record Shop, full of exquisite detail that is full of life from the words of the owner in his own voice – it documents his life wonderfully without the need for a single word in text. For that, I congratulate and thank her for producing that lovely slice of life, giving a voice to someone I presume is from her native home, the UK.
CUDOS to both Sophie and Karoki for their wonderful and enjoyable photofilm!
I hope to be able to attend a Duckrabbit workshop soon, so I can join their ranks!
I made my first photofilm just recently, but for a few reasons, I am nervous to show it.
chris