Network Week, Day 1 - Simon Norfolk

Hey there stranger, so... that one-post-a-day thing went well eh? I'll try and make up for it now! 

I approached this week with a sort of hesitant excitement. I was looking forward to being in London (which, without a doubt, is one of the most beautiful, diverse and interesting cities in the world), I was looking forward to being home, spending time with my fellow course mates, and I was kind of looking forward to meeting some photographers too, but this is where the resistance to being excited came in. I've approached these meetings/talks before with great expectations, having been a fan of the photographer and their work for some time, but have often then left feeling disappointed, or let down. I think I sometimes just expect there to be... more. Whether it's more detail, more stories, more charisma, drive or general advice, I'm not sure. I just sometimes leave feeling like the lecture left something vital out, maybe I blinked and missed what everyone else is gushing about...

But I was happily proved wrong this week. This week has been, frankly, great. I feel like I have learned so much from some amazing and inspiring people, been given advice that will actually make a difference to the decisions I make in the future, and all while having a laugh and genuinely enjoying myself. Most of all, I feel so lucky and so privileged to have been given the opportunities I've had this week. Hopefully I'll be able to give you a glimpse into the things I have done this week in this and a couple of other posts, and maybe you won't hold that one-post-a-day thing against me? 

We met Simon Norfolk on a beautiful sunny afternoon in a stunning converted loft in north London. Now, if you don't know Simon's work, let me give you a little intro:

Simon Norfolk was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1963 and educated in England, and is a unique conflict photographer. Photographs of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, published as Afghanistan: Chronotopia, won the European Publishers' Award for Photography and an award from the Foreign Press Club of America and was nominated for the Citibank Prize. 

All images from Afghanistan, 2001

In his new project, Burke + Norfolk: Photographs from the War in Afghanistan, we see a series of photographs from Simon's return to the war-ravaged country. From our meeting, I learnt so much history in such a small amount of time, mainly about the mystery that is Simon's partner for this project, 19th century photographer (and the first to photograph Afghanistan), John Burke. There were only ever 2 drawings of him, neither showing his face, he never left a diary or records and all his negative plates were lost long ago. "All we have today are some prints scattered around and these amazing albums, brought home from the colonies in steamer trunks by soldiers and bureaucrats. The more research I did, the more questions opened up. I felt I needed to go to Afghanistan to walk in his shoes as it were; to ask 'what would Burke photograph today?' I'm presenting the work as an artistic partnership, in the fullest sense of the term, except that Burke is dead."

John Burke's Portrait

Burke's pictures are so rich in detail, as he finds everything interesting, so photographs everything. We can learn so much about the context his pictures were taken in, rather than the environment the English wanted to promote in Afghanistan. Photography was used as a tool for the British Empire at that time, to show racial hierarchy, and we can see this is another photographer of the time, Benjamin Simpson (one of his images), who was employed to show what the British wanted to portray. Burke celebrated his subjects, whereas Simpson forced them into frame. Burke thought they had worth, and shows this in his images by putting them on a level with the Englishman. Burke makes a point to mix races in his images. 

Influenced by this, Simon went back to Afghanistan in 2010 in Burke's shoes. Using the terrain on Google Earth, he worked out exactly where Burke would have been standing when he took certain images, and photographed what was there now, to show homage to his silent partner he'd had for a year and a half. "After that it became ‘variations on a theme by John Burke’, to think ‘what would he photograph if he were there now?’ because he had such an inquisitive eye." This is shown clearly in Simon's portraits, where he has tried to show Burke's "rhythm" between the subjects. 

Simon Norfolk's Portrait, 2010

When talking about Afghanistan in 2001, Norfolk describes the people that live there, live in a "bubble created by warfare" but at that time, they thought the war was over and there was a new found hope for their country. You can see this through Simon's use of golden light in his images, reminiscent of the ruin of the Roman Empire, the hope-filled dawn of a new era. In 2010, he chose to photograph after sunset, and before sunrise, to show his disappointment that the war was still happening. 

Photographs from the War in Afghanistan, 2010

On the train home, I thought tried to digest all the facts I'd just been told (it was a lot of information to take in, and write down, in 2 hours). I think what inspired me most is Simon's commitment to his work. The amount of research he does before he even takes 1 photograph is astounding, and definitely something I want to do more of in the future. It's so easily to take a series of images, but without a story or passion to back it up with, it can often come out flat and lifeless. To be a successful photographer, you need to emit your emotional response to the topic, through your image to the viewer, or how can we expect them to be impacted by it? 

A misty sunny London, my view from the train

To see more of Burke + Norfolk: Photographs of the War in Afghanistan, click here
To see some other projects by Simon Norfolk, click here

Tomorrow, I'll be chatting about the time I spent with Cristina de Middel and adam&eveDDB ad agency, stay tuned!