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here is one for the road.
visual mumblings from david f bowen






tourism from the italian and german, english and scandinavian parts of europe as well as from within croatia itself is booming in places.
there is antipathy towards some areas of the business.. the all-inclusive resorts with wrist band wearing clients who do little or nothing to feed the local area are reluctantly accepted.
tourism has the potential to be big business here, with so much coastline and crystal clear sea, yet i am told that any profit rarely filters down to people in the form of social benefits or improved infrastructure.
big business has moved in from richer countries and purchased many of the most profitable companies and some people have the opinion that there is little left for the croatians themselves..
finding reconstruction in villages and towns is really quite easy - there is a lot of it going on in terms of new housing and development, industry and holiday resorts.. individuals and business moving on.
one of the strangest things i have found in this region is roads-to-nowhere. these grids of high quality roads and pavements have been seen next to minefields and deserted villages... like sprawling suburban or industrial areas, minus the buildings.
the first project is to investigate and document reconstruction along the old front-line, perhaps working across into bosnia as well, and in doing so i thought it best to start at the beginning.. with the devastation.
there are a string of ghost villages.. uninhabited due to landmines or simply because the damage was well beyond repair and also peripheral areas of villages and towns, particularly small towns, where damage has not been repaired due to funds...
more info later.. whilst actually photographing i would like to learn much more than i now know and research specific geographical areas before saying more.
while photographing as positively as possible i have already been made aware of just how close to the surface the friction is.. with one village in particular taking exception to my working there.
it's quickly become obvious that treading carefully and negotiating access & conversation very gently is the name of the game, even when photographing something as innocuous as a ruined building..
other developing projects are centering around;




my home office right now is actually no more than a corner of our baby change room.. i sit at the desktop mac, photoshelter and photographs open to edit live, with beates laptop open on skype to my right... the internet jack is bust so a hairband hooked over the table edge holds it in place.
















i uploaded 100 photos to the photoshelter account we are editing through.. these were made up of a mixture of photos - some of my fav photos from music events mixed with some personal photos from the travels and some contextual photos - signs, objects and the like, which i thought may end up being used as part of the story i need to tell.

after editing and looking back for the past year there have been times i have stalled in the process for weeks on end.. then there have been higher times when everything falls into place..





American troops wading from troop carrier towards shore into German artillery fire on Omaha Beach during D-Day, 6th june 1944 invasion of Normandy.
the photos go much further back than music work from the past 10 years and i'm looking forward to seeing india and tibetan refugees again, through the eyes of a naive and more than slightly mind-altered 18 year old..

i'm showing it to you because over the years stacks of commissions have come from people i have never met.. faceless phone-calls from editors who switch on my imagination with words alone - sometimes only emails..
aged 18 with strange hair, luding ke rinpoche's monestary,
monopoly game at the school-house, 1997



















































it's been more than a decade since i first photographed a party and it's time to get it all 'down', as some may say, and present it in a book.


and so.
































































fantastic.. thanks david and respect to you.. the book's an absolute corker.. has already inspired and motivated....
new years eve, san francisco, 2001/2
stiff kitten, belfast 2006
celtronic 2005
magnum photographer and all round good guy david alan harvey recently ran a competition for the majorettes he kindly mentors on his forum.. a self portrait which had to be taken during that week.


It's been a long while since i have posted here now.. a good chunk of months have passed during which I have been archiving old work, learning dreamweaver, flash and the excellent slideshowpro, setting up my online sales with photoshelter PSC and generally house-cleaning. Snapping away at self initiated projects and working on various commissions has been fun - however this time has been all about organizing my archives..
Good things have been going on for the Garden Festival and it's growing into a real success story.. well deserved. Photos from the event have made it into Time Out, the Times and Guardian newspapers and top quality German magazine Prinz to name a few. Previous press for them has been in DJ magazine, I-DJ magazine, xlr8r and more so all in all they are reaping the rewards of hard work.
In other news 'Kampanje", a Norwegian based marketing and advertising industry mag, have been kind enough to feature my photographs in their extremely well intended 'Portfolio' section - and i didn't even have to buy advertising space. A great, ethically clean and philanthropic effort from good people. Hilde Nyman from the magazine was excellent to work with and also very kind in choosing to feature the work - so big thanks and a couple of ice cold beers are due to her in Oslo later this year. As Willy Wonka said at the end of the original (and best), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film '...so shines a good deed in a weary world...'.
In a shameless display of self promotion i have put the article at the top of this page.
what else can i tell you?
Good friend, humble hippy and all round decent bloke 'one man dan' from Birmingham has started a music podcast, 'silver skins'.. An excellent journalist of many years and co-founder of the now legendary 'blowback' magazine, his show is aimed at those of us old enough to remember Kajagoogoo, although thankfully he keeps his musical references more contemporary.
and lastly - congratulations to photographer and journalist Paul Sullivan on the birth of Luka... a child who will know good music and good food.
stavanger in rogaland, norway, really is a special place and it's great that whoever votes for the 'european city of culture' award also thinks so. the launch weekend saw all kinds of strangeness going off - from acrobats below a huge mechanical bug to concert hall dance and opera on the lake.
the '2008 commission' asked me to photograph the 2 launch days, with events on the street and in theaters around the city
culture pie.





i was never really that keen on england from the first moment i went abroad and experienced that big yellow ball in the sky otherwise known as the sun. i thought i would always move round the earth to get a little closer to it, however life and the way of things has bought me to beautiful norway. moving over here during december was about the best thing i could have done - the people are warm and the scenery is spectacular. some friends have asked for photos, and so here are a handful.



right now i am enjoying the process more than ever.. with more than 340 sixbyfour prints laid out i am getting ideas about how this book will look.. the layout through to the size and feel of it has only come to mind, (even in dreams), once i have had these prints to hold..
when editing on the computer we are not thinking about the photos - we are thinking ‘click here, drag there’.. we think about the software when editing online.. editing with hands is so much more instinctive.. more enjoyable.. inspiring.. it makes a massive difference.
i also have an essay which i wrote before looking back.. about my teens and discovering photography.. travels... about my time in music.. my impressions.. why it ended for me.. why it began in the first place..
this for me is like a business plan is to a business - to keep referring back in order to see if i am achieving what i need to.. a subliminal influence over my choice of photographs.. a wish for what the book will be..