# data[].attributes.headline
Photographs and video from participatory workshop: from Kyrgyzstan post on my consultancy blog

# data[].attributes.subject
Photographs and video from participatory workshop: from Kyrgyzstan post on my consultancy blog

# data[].attributes.body
This blog post has some of the videos, songs and views of participants that would inform the text to accompany the images. I have more confidential video clips from which text and insights can be drawn for a book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ai-ai-Ejeler Vision: song words Daughter-in-law Song of Change: words We Will Get Success: song words GENDER and rwee in kyrgyzstan GALS Catalyst Workshop Naryn May 2016 GALS follow-up and li...

# data[].attributes.headline
Assignment 4.3 Cuckoos at Dawn: outsider in a Kyrgyz village. Wordpress blog post

# data[].attributes.subject
Assignment 4.3 Cuckoos at Dawn: outsider in a Kyrgyz village. Wordpress blog post

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Competing documentary perspectives: book concept

Planned as charity book to fundraise for women's associations in Kyrgyzstan, and also a participatory reflection and sharing of different 'outsider' and 'insider' perspectives on Baizakh.

I re-select and re-edit the colour photographs, focusing on content and meaning rather than technical quality, using my skills developed in Assignment 2.2 Shutterscapes to bring more technically problematic images to an appropriate technical level.

I use InDesign to give a better layout with my own text from memories, brief notes and reports on peoples' views expressed in the workshops and on-line information/Kyrgyz texts building on approaches to image and text in book design from Part 3 Image and Text.

I add pages of 'audience-generated' 'outsider' and 'insider' text at the end written in reaction to my version by 'outsider' colleagues from the capital Bishkek, 'outsider' workshop participants from elsewhere in Kyrgyzstan and people from Baizakh village itself. I also start to look at what potential markets in Kyrgyzstan might be interested in in terms of images and text.

Designed with and for a lower cost Kyrgyzstan/Russian-speaking audiences (with translation) international development agencies, and socially interested tourist market.

The idea for this book was to focus explicitly on a selection of photographs that could be used as a basis for asking questions about the meaning of what I was seeing as an outsider. Getting information and text from people from the village and also development agencies in Kyrgyzstan. I explore which aspects of the images and documentary are interesting for different audiences, partly to consider potential markets but particularly for my own understanding of documentary process.

The photographs of Baizakh - as with the monochrome images - were all spontaneous images taken in snatched times of day fitted around my consultancy work. There was no possibility because of transport to add on any time specifically for photography and a more purposive documentary with informal interviews, planned portraits etc. They therefore represent what I saw:

at very specific times of day: early morning, lunchtime break and late afternoon.

in specific locations between where I lived with a few participants on the outskirts of the village, not nearer the centre of the village (unlike Asel and many other participants) or more built up parts.

at a specific time of year: late Spring when all was green and warm in sunshine, apart from storms. Not 16 degree below zero winter or heat of summer.

I aim to produce a publication with distinctive photographs (unlike the general run of tourist photos) and more unusual/provocative text that could be of interest to people in development agencies, internationally and in Kyrgyzstan itself (translated to Kyrgyz/Russian) and a socially interested tourist audience.

The earlier Blurb Photobook brought together a technical selection of photos based on what I thought were immediately attractive or provocative images from my outsider perspective - beauty of the mountains and light at dawn and sunset, distinctive textures and colours of gates, dramatic weather, some people, animals and plastic pollution. It was put together very quickly as part of my initial learning process in Lightroom, using Lightroom layout templates exported to Blurb. This enabled very rapid experimentation and a reasonably consistent look. Although my experience of digital processing in Lightroom was also very rudimentary at that time.

My first step was therefore to go through each spread in detail in the light of what I had subsequently learned about Book Design, and also digital processing of more problematic photos from the camera. Combined with ideas from my background reading on Kyrgyzstan and reports on women and men's visions and realities from the workshops I had been facilitating.

I revisited the whole series of original images and:

re-select and re-edit the colour photographs, focusing on content and meaning rather than technical quality, using my skills developed in Assignment 2.2 Shutterscapes to bring more technically problematic images to an appropriate technical level.

use InDesign and Photoshop to give a better layout with my own text from memories, brief notes and reports on peoples' views expressed in the workshops and on-line information/Kyrgyz texts building on approaches to image and text in book design from Part 3 Image and Text.

My idea for text is to:

on the image pages to incorporate Kyrgyz sayings, poems and stories from the workshop participants, as attractive integrated overlays using Photoshop. I need to consult on fonts and what people can read easily.

to include spreads/sections with text at the back for feedback on the book from :

1. people in Baizakh - which images do they like and/or think represents their life, what is left out and/or misrepresented, anything else they would like to say.

2. other workshop participants who were in Baizakh with me at the time - what did they think was different about Baizakh from their own place? which images do they like and/or think represents Baizakh as they saw it, what is left out and/or misrepresented, anything else they would like to say.

3. people in Bishkek - both people like Asel and others who know Baizakh, and artists/photographers/international development staff.

4. people from my international development network including Africa and elsewhere in Asia

5. people from UK/socially interested tourists who do not know Kyrgyzstan

I sent this new book to my main reviewer and colleague in Kyrgyzstan - Asel Kuttubaeva - for initial feedback. This included many questions and suggestions for text. I shared this using Adobe Connect (for initial feedback in English) and Facebook (to enable multilingual feedback discussion with more people in Kyrgyzstan through Google Translate). But in the end everything was sent by email as Word documents in English or Russian that I could translate with Word Translate.

Asel gave me some detailed feedback, with other preliminary feedback from her friends in Kyrgyzstan. See pdf on the right. I then revised this into a provisional draft for further feedback as below. This provisional draft now needs to be shared with people from Baizakh and other workshop participants from other parts of Kyrgyzstan for their feedback and suggestions. I also need their permission to reproduce some of their stories. It was not possible to get this before beginning November because of COVID travel and meeting restrictions. It is unlikely that feedback will be possible in the current COVID and extremely cold season. So this is now anticipated sometime April 2021 and over the summer, during which time I will also be able to link it with further on-line consultancy.

I also start to look at what potential markets in Kyrgyzstan might be interested in in terms of images and text. A key question if I want to take this in a commercial direction will be:

cost - which audiences might be able/interested in paying how much for how many pages and what format/quality. Currently for Blurb, standard paper. About GBP15 cost price gives 64 pages with some allowance for postage. But I could look at possibilities of cheaper bulk printing?

from feedback so far it is possible that a commercial audience in Kyrgyzstan might be more interested in a book with the more creative photography.

should this be a charity publication to get funding for Women's Associations and/or from development agencies with more text from workshop participants?

or should I just make it available as an e-pub for free on-line accessibility? if so I need to think about file size, format/s and platform/s

A further issue would be translation and what this means for text layout.

NOTE: This feedback pdf will be updated as things progress. And attractively laid out. So there are blank pages at the moment. Please ignore.

CuckoosatDawn_feedback

(very compressed)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Assignment 4.3 Cuckoos at Dawn: outsider in a Kyrgyz village

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Planned as charity book to fundraise for women's associations in Kyrgyzstan, and also a participatory reflection and sharing of different 'outsider' and 'insider' perspectives on Baizakh. I re-select and re-edit the colour photographs, focusing on content and meaning rather than technical quality, using my skills developed in Assignment 2.2 Shutterscapes to bring more technically problematic images to an appropriate technical level.

# data[].attributes.headline
Assignment 4.1 Communicating Kyrgyzstan: photographic creativity with an audience. Wordpress blog post.

# data[].attributes.subject
Assignment 4.1 Communicating Kyrgyzstan: photographic creativity with an audience. Wordpress blog post.

# data[].attributes.body
This blog post discusses different approaches to photographic creativity for three selected images. Comparing audience feedback from colleagues and photographers in Bishkek the Kyrgyzstan capital city and Cambridge Camera Club, OCA Discussion forums, family and other social networks in UK.

The cover image is one of the favourites from Kyrgyzstan. For me it represents the contrast between the old picture postcard image of Kyrgyzstan, with the simmering underlying angers and tensions that erupted in 2019 several years after the image was taken.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Continues exploration of photographic styles, meaning and communication from Assignment 2.2, further developing my creative process workflow as it related to photographic media.

Monochrome and photographic experiments with Lightroom, AnalogFX and Photoshop, with using creative prompts.

Also draws on styles from printmaking like screenprint, cyanotype and solar plate.

And asks for feedback from different audiences.

See particularly:

Some issues to be considered

Photographer and subject: the photographer as voyeur 'shooting' images of
issues and themes that are not necessarily the same as the subjects of the photo.

Is the image showing how things are, or how the photographer want things to be? or how the audience wants to see them? Selective editing and erasure (eg cars and rubbish bins)

Different focus and viewpoint - is the photographer directing the image or leaving interpretation open?

Present, past and future - places change over time - even over a few seconds - short term, long term, historical perspective and layers - the past is always present but maybe the message is for the future.

Exploration and deepening understanding of tensions and contradiction of reality over time

Creativity 1:Fire in the Sky

Creativity 2: After the Event

'After the Event' - more photos from Baizakh Village in Naryn Province May 2016 exploring creative effects in DxO analogueFX and/or SilverFX. These picture of bottles in what was a beautiful landscape - particularly mountains that are outside the frame, follow early monochrome traditions of 'late photography' of bombs and war by Richard Fenton.

Creativity 3: Washbasin with Rag

Feedback from colleagues and their friends in Bishkek, OCA student forums and Cambridge Camera Club.

So far this is quite encouraging on the more creative art, as well as black and white styles, particularly from Kyrgyzstan and Cambridge Camera Club.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Assignment 4.1 Communicating Kyrgyzstan: photographic creativity with an audience

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Continues exploration of photographic styles, meaning and communication from Assignment 2.2, further developing my creative process workflow as it related to photographic media. Monochrome and photographic experiments with Lightroom, AnalogFX and Photoshop, with using creative prompts. Also draws on styles from printmaking like screenprint, cyanotype and solar plate.

# data[].attributes.headline
Assignment 4.2: Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan: WordPress Blog Post 

# data[].attributes.subject
Assignment 4.2: Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan: WordPress Blog Post 

# data[].attributes.body
Designing a Photobook

This blog post discusses my exploration and choices about book design and book layout to best communicate my feelings about Baizakh as a contribution to 'Making the World a Better Place, in the light of feedback from potential audiences in UK and Kyrgyzstan.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Light in the Shadows:
Book Concept

"Baizakh Village in Naryn Province, Kyrgyzstan is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. These photographs were taken taken over 6 days in May 2016 in spare moments at dawn, midday and evening time when I was not working. They are very much an outsider view of things I noticed and chose to record - only a snapshot of life at particular times of day and one of the kindest times of year."

My concept for this book was to start with monochrome abstraction. Partly because I was really struck by the light and shadows in what I saw - the light had a particular clarity from the altitude in the sunlight. That is somewhat lost in colour. Partly because I know that monochrome styles are popular in Kyrgyzstan and ex-Soviet countries, and that many of the images are well-suited to this style. Partly because processing the images in different monochrome styles can improve my understanding of the images for clearer colour composition and processing.

I am interested in experimenting and getting feedback from different audiences on different moods and treatment possibilities:

Dramatic abstract light/shadow contrast.

Soft misty mystery

Grungy textures.

Fragility of thin delicate lines

Nostalgia.

As well as giving a feel for life in Baizakh.

I still need to decide whether to add text, where and how - based on audience input and relationship to the final more documentary colour book version. Possibly this might draw on Japanese/Chinese styles.

Inspiration

Influence Lithuanian photography, Atget/Brassai Paris and Photobook from Kettles Yard.

Japanese and Chinese photobooks.

!! Insert pages from Photobook logbook

Baizakh Black and White: original
Blurb 2017

The Original Blurb book for Landscape Photography done in Lightroom Book module. !! need to do annotations. This was printed as a hardcover landscape format photobook on Prolene Pearl paper. Text was limited to the inside flap of the back cover. 25x20cm 42 pages costing currently around £35 without discount or postage - probably around £20. Print quality was generally good, but the photos lacked depth or texture and were sometimes too dark, and the layout was not very inspired.

Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan 1:
Landscape format Black and White

Revised landscape version with re ordering of photos, processing in Silver FX to give more targeted detail and contrast. 25x20cm 42 pages costing currently around £35 without discount or postage - probably around £20. I left out the photos of people. But needs more consistency and better juxtaposition.

!! slideshow needs to be annotated. These look much darker at smaller size.

Light in the Shadows
of T'ien Shan 3:
Square format sepia

There seems generally to be a preference for the sepia images.

I now plan to do a detailed analysis in a logbook of the images and book layouts in sources I have looked at:

Lithuanian photography

Atget/Brassai Paris

'Light Spells' photobook from Kettles Yard, Cambridge.

Japanese and Chinese photobooks.

I am particularly interested in:

how far they follow one particular style/mood and whether and how they vary the mood between pages and spreads

use of whitespace around and between images, including use of blank pages

whether, how and where they use captions

how and where they give other information sbout the publication - what is explicit and what is implicit and left to the viewer

which approaches I find most effective in communicating mood, beauty and particularly provoking questions about what I am looking at.

This feedback pdf will be added to as I get more input, and it will be attractively laid out. Currently I have left some black pages. Please ignore these.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Assignment 4.2 Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Baizakh Village in Naryn Province, Kyrgyzstan is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. These photographs were taken taken over 6 days in May 2016 in spare moments at dawn, midday and evening time when I was not working.

# data[].attributes.headline
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan: audience feedback

# data[].attributes.subject
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan: audience feedback

# data[].attributes.headline
Reflections from the Mountains of Heaven, Kyrgyzstan

# data[].attributes.subject
Reflections from the Mountains of Heaven, Kyrgyzstan

# data[].attributes.body
When the gods created earth they landed first in the mountains between China and Kyrgyzstan.

They called them ‘Ti’en Shan’ - Mountains of Heaven.

Link to SMUGMUG Portfolios

Baikzakh Village in the foothills of the T’ien Shan Mountains in Naryn Province, Kyrgyzstan is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

These photographs were taken over 6 days in May 2016,  fitted around consultancy work to facilitate a participatory workshop on empowerment and gender with women and a few men from different rural areas of Kyrgyzstan  They are very much an outsider view of things I noticed and chose to record - only a snapshot of life at one of the kindest times of year - late Spring - particular times of day.

My overwhelming impression of Baizakh at the times I saw was one of emptiness - a largely closed world with rutted mud streets of streaked light and shadow. I saw few people on the street - men were going to work in the very early morning, women who stayed seemed to be busy in enclosed courtyards  of houses. Children at school.

There was a very dramatic storm with dust and driving rain, sun glinting on the mosque and trees before and after the clouds passed.

The main spare time I had was in the very early morning for walks in the mountain, or just strolling down the lane where I lived on the outskirts of the village. Watching the changing emerging sunlight on the peaks of snow. Then the gold to red sunset in the evening as quiet settled again after a period of noise and activity.

But this was only the outside - I knew from my participant friends at the workshop that the inside worlds were very different. Worlds of poetry and song where everyone was invited to join in.

Although they do not constitute an in-depth ‘photo-documentary’, I saw more than most tourists would see and my contextual information on peoples’ perspectives from the workshop is more in-depth than most outsiders would have. Some of the images gained new meanings in the light of the political turmoils in Kyrgyzstan in 2019, increasing urgency to address climate change, and potential implications of the recent events in Afghanistan.

Discussions with audiences in Kyrgyzstan were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic that swept across the country in waves. The photographs are only the beginning of a dialogue with potential audiences in Kyrgyzstan, UK and elsewhere on what the images could usefully represent as part of creative documentary of Kyrgyzstan, and reflection on underlying philosophies and politics of life in a globalised world.

For more about T'ien Shan see :  Encyclopedia Britannica: Tien Shan

Link to SMUGMUG Portfolios

# data[].attributes.headline
 Cuckoos at Dawn: Outsider in a Kyrgyz Village  SMUGMUG Portfolio 3: Photo gallery

# data[].attributes.subject
 Cuckoos at Dawn: Outsider in a Kyrgyz Village  SMUGMUG Portfolio 3: Photo gallery

# data[].attributes.body
Cuckoos at Dawn brings together colour images envisaged as part of a draft illustrated book about my experience in Baizakh, bringing together my own reflections with contextual knowledge. Alternatively this might be an interactive experience freely accessible to people in Kyrgyzstan. The text is still to be written, and there are other images that could be included.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cuckoos at Dawn: outsider in a Kyrgyz Village - Zemni

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This gallery hosted by SmugMug; your photos look better here.

# data[].attributes.headline
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan: SMUGMUG Portfolio 2: Photobook and Photo Gallery

# data[].attributes.subject
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan: SMUGMUG Portfolio 2: Photobook and Photo Gallery

# data[].attributes.body
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan focuses on issues in designing a monochrome photobook based on the photography series from Baizakh village. Combining and juxtaposing images of natural and human landscapes it aims to inform and pose questions about the beauty and also difficulties of  life in Baizakh.

The project experiments with:

different monochrome styles and their associations - including delicate tonal tinting.

photographic abstraction, including the interactions between the image, the page frame and the two-page spread.

photobook design and layout, comparing how these might differ between monochrome and colour.

I consider how different styles of monochrome photography, different ways of framing and juxtaposition can create different narratives with and for potentially different audiences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan brings together clack and white natural and human landscapes to inform and pose questions about the beauty and also difficulties of life in Baizakh.

My overwhelming impression of Baizakh at the times I saw was one of emptiness - a largely closed world with rutted mud streets of streaked light and shadow. I saw few people on the street - men were going to work in the very early morning, women who stayed seemed to be busy in enclosed courtyards of houses. Children at school.

There was a very dramatic storm with dust and driving rain, sun glinting on the mosque and trees before and after the clouds passed.

The main spare time I had was in the very early morning for walks in the mountain, or just strolling down the lane where I lived on the outskirts of the village. Watching the changing emerging sunlight on the peaks of snow. Then the gold to red sunset in the evening as quiet settled again after a period of noise and activity.

But this was only the outside - I knew from my participant friends at the workshop that the inside worlds were very different. Worlds of poetry and song where everyone was invited to join in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan - Zemni

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan brings together clack and white natural and human landscapes to inform and pose questions about the beauty and also difficulties of life in Baizakh. My overwhelming impression of Baizakh at the times I saw was one of emptiness - a largely closed world with rutted mud streets of streaked light and shadow.

# data[].attributes.headline
Communicating Kyrgyzstan: SMUGMUG Portfolio 1: Annotated Photo Gallery

# data[].attributes.subject
Communicating Kyrgyzstan: SMUGMUG Portfolio 1: Annotated Photo Gallery

# data[].attributes.body
Communicating Kyrgyzstan is an exploration explores the potential of creative photography to communicate feeling and mood, rather than simply recording light through a lens. To free up my thinking around what documentary could be and improve the other more 'documentary realist' images.

I continue my exploration of how digital software - particularly  DxO Effects filters - can create new meanings and understandings about Kyrgyzstan:

Fire on the Mountain experiments with a specific set of creative prompts that explicitly ask for different extreme interpretations - defining the meaning, making things bold, making them ambiguous, revisiting the meaning, creating fantasy, adding sound and motion and so on. Using Analog FX this lead to some ghostly, apocalyptic visions. The most dramatic fires are completely digitally invented. But raise some questions that presaged the underlying political 'fires' of turmoil of 2019. And the threat of climate change that is as real here as elsewhere.

Washbasin with Rag starts with a photograph of the washing area in the house I lived in. The contrasty black and white image with the crack of light round the corner is very much a representation  of the scene itself in the harsh midday. I used multiple exposure in Analog FX to add the beatific photograph of the mountain at the back as an experiment in juxtaposition of alternative visions in saturated colour like a movie set. Challenging my/our Western views of the rural exotic picturesque. Fine for a short time, but much less fun in freezing cold winter.

Bottles or 'the party is over' echo the 'late photography' of war photographers like Roger Fenton. Except I left the bottles exactly where I found them - at the top of a beautiful mountain path in the early morning. This series is a much more nuanced series looking at the way in which subtle differences in colour/monochrome, tone, focal structure, vignettes and framing alter what we look at and notice in an image.

Trees looks at potential meanings that can be created through monochrome styles with different toning, selective focus and framing. Potentially 'rescuing' and making use of a conventionally 'picturesque' image that has serious lens flare.

Audience feedback indicated that this was interesting not only for me, but also in Kyrgyzstan. Particularly the Fire on the Mountain images. Interestingly Kyrgyzstan audiences were very interested in processes of abstraction and the more dramatic images that made them look afresh at the everyday. UK audiences were more struck by grunge images as representative of Kyrgyzstan - though somewhat wary of stereotypes - rather than photographic abstraction and drama that we are quite used to seeing here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Communicating Kyrgyzstan is an exploration of the ways in which processing experiments - particularly in DxO Analog Effects filters - can create new meanings and understandings about Kyrgyzstan.

Fire on the Mountain experiments with a specific set of creative prompts that explicitly ask for different extreme interpretations - defining the meaning, making things bold, making them ambiguous, revisiting the meaning, creating fantasy, adding sound and motion and so on. Using Analog FX this lead to some ghostly, apocalyptic visions. The most dramatic fires are completely digitally invented. But raise some questions that presaged the underlying political 'fires' of turmoil of 2019. And the threat of climate change that is as real here as elsewhere.

Washbasin with Rag starts with a photograph of the washing area in the house I lived in. The contrasty black and white image with the crack of light round the corner is very much a representation of the scene itself in the harsh midday. I used multiple exposure in Analog FX to add the beatific photograph of the mountain at the back as an experiment in juxtaposition of alternative visions in saturated colour like a movie set. Challenging my/our Western views of the rural exotic picturesque. Fine for a short time, but much less fun in freezing cold winter.

Bottles or 'the party is over' echo the 'late photography' of war photographers like Roger Fenton. Except I left the bottles exactly where I found them - at the top of a beautiful mountain path in the early morning. This series is a much more nuanced series looking at the way in which subtle differences in colour/monochrome, tone, focal structure, vignettes and framing alter what we look at and notice in an image.

Audience feedback indicated that this was interesting not only for me, but also in Kyrgyzstan. Particularly the Fire on the Mountain images.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Communicating Kyrgystan: Photographic reflections - Zemni

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Communicating Kyrgyzstan is an exploration of the ways in which processing experiments - particularly in DxO Analog Effects filters - can create new meanings and understandings about Kyrgyzstan. Fire on the Mountain experiments with a specific set of creative prompts that explicitly ask for different extreme interpretations - defining the meaning, making things bold, making them ambiguous, revisiting the meaning, creating fantasy, adding sound and motion and so on.