Border jumpers are seen as they cross the Limpopo river, the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. (© Dirk-Jan Visser)
If you happen to be passing a news agents and see a copy of the French daily Le Monde, I’d heartily recommend you buy it. Their weekly Le Monde 2 supplement features a beautiful set of black & white photographs taken in Zimbabwe by Dutch photojournalist Dirk-Jan Visser of the daily struggles faced by those living in the country. If you can’t find a copy of the paper, you can also view a set of the photographs on the newspaper’s website here. Dirk-Jan was recently awarded the Dutch Photojournalist of the Year prize for this series.
Magnum Photos has published a great set of audio slideshows on their Magnum in Motion website entitled WARS. The four pieces, narrated by Christopher Anderson, Paolo Pellegrin, Thomas Dworzak and the late Phillip Jones Griffiths, who died earlier this week, were created to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. Another one worth checking out is Reuters’ Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War.
I couldn’t believe it, so much so that I insisted that she take a picture to prove it!
And all of this is thanks to the fact that a colleague of mine was writing a feature about the traditional Christmas swimming race in the Serpentine at Hyde Park (he was one of the brave swimmers!), so rather than enjoy the comforts of my bed and going straight to the office at ten, I woke up at six in the morning to take some pictures to accompany his story.
The race itself only lasted five minutes, and I was feeling a little rusty. After months spent sitting at a desk editing other people’s work, it was rather strange to be back out there, camera in hand.
Having now finally returned to London, I’ve at last been able to see the spread and what a great way to begin this new year!
Rain = dead camera, originally uploaded by David Azia.
What an idiot. I fried my camera.
Once back in London, I took my 5D to a repair shop in Kennington. I was worried that it would be a write-off, fortunately that wasn’t the case. But they had to replace the LPU PCB (some fancy electronic circuit board), the top cover (which, btw, costs £38) and the front dial unit.
Considering the crap pictures that I took during the downpour, it wasn’t worth it. I should have listened to my dad’s advice from years ago - always carry a plastic bag.
