Wrong Place

©Michael Grieve

We are living in a time of great control in all aspects of society. I was recently commissioned to photograph on the red carpet at the London Film Festival. The PR company told me that I was one of three in-house photographers. My specific brief was to represent the festival as exciting and vibrant, something other than the stiff photo call standard, the great yawn of nothing photography. Smashing I thought, a well paid job and a free reign to make interesting photographs. I'd shot in this environment before, when I worked for The Independent newspaper in 1999 without any great hinderance. But not this time as I quickly realised that the 'fascists with clipboards' (PR) were not going to let me do my thing even though I was very reasnoble (honest) about it and expained that my brief wanted me to have greater freedom. Oh, no. These women, who disliked me getting close to the talent as it apparently angers the publicist, made life very, very difficult for me. They wanted me to only photograph in three places. One on the red carpet, the other just inside the foyer with the 'talent' pinned up against advertising and then again upstairs getting exactly the same shot as before and exactly the same shot as the other two in-house photographers. In other words, whats the point, where is the spontaniety, where is the difference? The week ended in dispute. I had complaints made against me, even though mine were not heard, or even respected... I had been stopped from doing my job by insensitve souls who really do not care about anything except their pre conditioned rules. By the end of the week I ended up not caring and found it hard to raise any kind of enthusiasm or will to fall into line. My crime.... I cared too much about producing good work. The ridiculous world of PR and celebrity culture has spawned a perverse image control code of conduct, cheapening our culture.
However, I managed to take this photograph of Eva Green with my old Leica M6, stealing the flash from the paparazzi, by being in the wrong place, that is often the only place to be.

From Back Home

©Anders Petersen

Just received a crisp new copy in the post all the way from Sweden of the Anders Petersen/JH Engström book, From Back Home. When I first set eyes on this book in Arles last year I knew I had to own it. The wonderful thing is I will be reviewing this book for 1000 Words. Anders, who I first met in a late night Paris bar in the Bastille, muttering 'things are as they are', is far from a conceptual photographer 'artist' which is probably why, although shortlisted, this influential photographer did not make it to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize finalists. The fashion these days is for deadpan, emotionless photography, clean, neat, generic, sterile and, dare I say it... smug. Any engagement with the spontaniety of life is apparently, for the most part, redundant. Probably doesn't look good on corporate walls.

Portrait of Will Self

©Michael Grieve

A recent commission for Le Monde found me in the London home of writer Will Self. It's not often that I am commissioned to photograph someone whose work I admire. As as a result of the portrait session I was invited to The Sebald Lecture 2009. The lecture was given by Self on Absent Jews and Invisible Executioners: WG Sebald and the Holocaust. A brilliant lecture, delivered with theatrical confidence in which Self analysed Sebalds historical writing in the light of the evolving historical understanding of the Holocaust and the part the German people took in it.

Blog Manifesto

This is where I lay my cards on the table and get things off my chest, open myself up to scrutiny and criticism and undoubtedly learn more about myself. I am fairly certain that no one will really be interested in my ramblings on photography and other such things and so I will simply imagine that I am talking to myself... as I often do.