Some articles

I have just found a really useful website - http://www.editorsweblog.org/ They have published a recent article on the citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside - 'Citizenside is there a future for Citizen photojournalism?' This agency seem to be different from other agencies/companies that collect citizen's photographs in that they can check the authenticity of an image through an especially developed 'tool' where for example image changes online can be spotted and by using the senders IP address they will now where the image is sent from. They are also keen to share their technology and sell the reporter kit to traditional publications. I want to find out some more about this, could be interesting...

This weeks TIME magazine have a couple of good articles on the challenges newspapers are facing: 'How to Save Your Newspaper' and 'Turning the Page' (Charlie Beckett is quoted in this one). It mainly deals with the dilemma of decline in subscriptions, increase in people reading free online content and web advertising falling. Many newspapers and magazines rely heavily on advertising.... citizen journalism is also mentioned.

Cow smuggling and India's new fence

Photographer Prashant Panjiar

Time Magazine published a really striking story about the Indian/ Bangladeshi border this week, titled ' A Great Divide' India is building a fence on its border with Bangladesh that will when finished encircle the whole of its smaller neighbour. The Indian government sees this as a necessary step against extremism but there are several other border issues, the biggest problem is cows smuggled from India over to Bangladesh. Since cows are sacred in India they can't be exported for slaughter but they are in great demand for food in Bangladesh. Dozens of Indians die every year trying to earn $22 for getting a cow across. The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) captured 70,000 cows last year.

I also found another border story, 'The Wall - Ahmedabad' by the same photographer as above.

Yorkshire and sound

The Holderness region in East Yorkshire has one of Europe's fastest eroding coastlines. The Alderborough area is estimated to erode as much as 3.8 metres a year. Walking the coast line there were bits of earth constantly falling off, creating a deep rumbling sound. It made me think of doing sound recordings of this, it all felt very athmospheric and there is also the constant sound of the sea. I'm not sure how difficult this would be to record yet, how near to the 'fall' I would have to be and then it is the sound of the wind to take into consideration. I saw an really interesting exhibition last year called Soundings from the Estuary that combined sound with images as well as text. The different sounds were playing on an constant loop in the gallery.

I found some good locations in Yorkshire that illustrates what I want to capture but the light was not right for most of the time, to much sunshine which does not fit with the bleak landscapes I want. I will make another trip for sure to get better light and there are still more locations in the Yorkshire area that I want to explore.
I'm looking for more people to include in the landscapes, people that are in some way affected. I want to interview them and use their stories/thoughts with the images. I think the writing could fit well with a set of landscapes and would hopefully add more understanding for how erosion is affecting peoples lives.