Pointless vanity project of the former Tabascokid

When you wake up in the morning with an unplanned day of work ahead of you, skinned giraffes and aborted babies don’t usually figure in the general ingredients of the day but that’s the life of a press photographer..

Running from October 24th 2008 to August 23 2009, Gunther von Hagens’ latest exhibition “Bodyworlds: The Cycle of Life” aims to show every stage of human life from pretty much the big bang (arf arf) to the final whimper.

This exhibition certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes as there are some pretty extreme things on show but aside from the fact that they’re plastinated human beings and animals in “fun” poses, it’s all science and is fascinating to see.  I must admit however that in the press pack I received, it was rather disconcerting to be given a brochure on how to go about offering my body to the centre and what procedures I’ll  go through before I end up becoming “man playing ping-pong” or whatever they decide they’re lacking in the next show.  Nowhere did it mention whether Gunther’s volunteered to have his body poked and prodded by freaked-out kids for the rest of eternity.

When “Dr. Death” first appeared on the scene a few years ago, everything he did was seen as being horrifying and controversial but now, a few years down the line, his latest exhibition is sponsored by the Red Cross.  He has always insisted that his idea is to make death an acceptable thing to discuss and it seems that with a family-friendly corporate venue like the o2 hosting his latest work, his mission seems to be going to plan.

I found that once the initial shock has passed of seeing this stuff up close, theres a lot of things that are truly fascinating to see up close from human brains to the arterial pathways of a rooster (above).

So in the spirit of Halloween, I suggest you head down to the o2 in London this week to spend some quality time with a bunch of skinned humans.  Personally, I’d advise saving lunchtime until AFTER the visit but make sure you get to check it out.

Having just finished reading the thirteenth Ian Fleming book in my boxset, I was in a decidedly Bondy mood when I went down to Leicester Square for the Royal premiere of “Quantum of Solace“, the 22nd film in the James Bond franchise.

With it being a Royal premiere, the two Princes rocked up and having spent ages talking to punters around the corner, decided to dash straight past the assembled photographers without looking up once (apart from a quick glance as they came down the steps..)

Not that it bothered me TOO much as I was still feeling a little dizzy after one of the previous guests turning up.  The woman below is 44.  Good lord..

Premieres of this size are always good fun to shoot as the PR companies have normally managed to prune away all the drivel that usually turn up to these kind of things.  Not one Big Brother contestant.  Bliss.

I can’t wait to see the new film as, having read the books now, I can enjoy the character a lot more and Danny Boy seems to be doing a damn fine job of recapturing that original creation that makes any man in a tuxedo do a “gun pose” in front of the mirror when they’re alone.

The new baddy of the film, played by Mathieu Amalric, also looks to be well cast as he was the only person to turn up to the event with a cigarette in hand.  Oddly enough, it reminded me that the only other person I’ve shot at a premiere with cig in hand was Heath Ledger but I can’t for the life of me find the pictures now.  I wish I was more organised..

The new Bond-girl, played by Olga Kurylenko, looks to be the usual suitable late-2000’s beauty.  Rather annoyingly, while Daniel Craig would only pose with his wife and only for a very brief moment, Olga was surrounded by PRs and hangers-on who managed to ruin the background of every shot.  Grrr…

The one thing that every paper wanted from tonight was a shot of Bond with a Bond-girl on each arm but that would have been FAR too difficult to get organised, what with them all being in the same building and all..

Aside from that gripe, everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.  I just wish we got to wander in and watch the film as we edited!

In my previous work for The Times, the monthly week of shifts for the business desk was seen as a bit of creative desert so as a Radio 4 discussion programme talked of the next four years of global recession, a part of my brain withered a little.  Does this herald the beginning of half a decade of banging my head against the wall of economic news photography?

As the media looked at ways to illustrate the story, after shooting branches of banks and credit cards, the next route saw the square mile of the City of London being flooded with photographers and film crews shooting the city workers as they popped out for their lunch.

Thankfully, I got the chance to shoot on the floor of a brokers in the financial district and experience a taste of “Wall Street – UK”.  Having only seen this side of business in TV shows and films, it was incredible to see that all of the clichés are true.

For around two minutes, all was seemingly peaceful with the brokers manning their phones, checking their screens and generally looking like a regular office then suddenly a unintelligible yell went out and immediately everyone was on their feet, phone cords stretching and twisting around each other as they shout, wave, point and curse each other.  Within 30 seconds, the panic dies down and they’re back to near-normality.  The career lifespan of these guys has to be so short as there is no way that it can be a healthy environment.  Giant fridges full of water and soft drinks are all around the office with big bins near the desks full of hastily discarded empties, flashing screens and whiteboards fill every wall and with such heightened bursts of adrenaline throughout the whole day, it’s amazing they don’t all end up nervous wrecks.

In the back offices, when the lunch girl came around with her trolley of snacks, she opened the door and yells “lunch” to attract attention but when she headed onto the trade floor, in a Pavlovian-stylee, she produced a little bell so that she could be heard through the yells of the bellowing city boys.

Thankfully while I was shooting, the Bank of England announced their interest rate cut so I got an extra bonanza of frantic fun and fiscal fizz.

With attention still focused on the trouble and strife of the CityFolk, the week got harder and harder to illustrate as the ravenous media beastie chewed out every idea we had on ways to show the credit crunch.

The next logical stage in the coverage of the crisis is to show how it impacts the everyday punter but until the person in the street begins to be directly affected, you’ll see the streets of square mile crawling with increasingly baffled news crews.  Bring on stage two!

Following posts on photography sites and bulletin boards over recent weeks, photographer James Nachtwey’s latest project on the new world health crisis XDR-TB was launched around the world yesterday with simultaneous projections of his strong images of the effects that the devastating illness is currently having in 46 countries. The official website has the following to say about the project;

“XDRTB.org is an extraordinary effort to tell the story of extremely
drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and TB through powerful photographs
taken by James Nachtwey.  XDR-TB, or extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis,
is a new and deadly mutation of tuberculosis. Similar in creation to
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) but more extreme in its manifestation,
it arises when common tuberculosis goes untreated or standard TB drugs are
misused. James’ photographs represent these varying strains.”

Please forward the message to others so something can be done to prevent this developing into a global pandemic.