• B&W,  Daily photo,  Soccer,  Social Control,  Summer

    This is a stadium, not a correctional facility

    This is how the access point to a stadium has changed over time. From a place where people gather to have fun enjoying the performances of the soccer players, it has now been morphed into something more akin to a correctional facility. I have witnessed this transformation first-hand, having coached a small team of javelin, shot put, discus and hammer throwers here since 1992. Year after year, the day after the Sunday match, when the stadium was made available again for track and field training, I saw the premises looking more and more like an urban riot zone and less and less like a place to prove oneself in various…

  • B&W,  Daily photo,  Photography,  Streets&Squares,  Summer,  Thoughts,  Visual

    Which Photo Did I Shoot?

    Post-processing — and cropping, in particular — is one of the most discussed topics in photography. The often heated discussions involve ‘purists’ — who claim that a photo should not be altered but for miminal exposure, highlights and other similar tweaking — and ‘artists’ whose tenet is that only the final result matters. In principle, I think that both sides have a point. A photo taken by a journalist should reflect ‘reality’, so it should not be composed and/or edited to tell a different story. By contrast, a photo whose goal is to tell a story should not be subject to such constraints and the photographer should not be blamed…