Panem et circenses

Panem et circenses, "bread and circus" games, were the only remaining cares of Roman plebs who had long given up their political freedom. Bread was distributed amongst the poor people but everybody liked the circus games. This strategy was an efficient political instrument in the hands of the Emperors to keep the population peaceful, and at the same time giving the citizens the opportunity to voice themselves via the popular entertainment channels of gladiators, exotic animals, chariot races and sports competitions.

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Recently I came across one of those new fangled CCTV cameras with loudspeakers attached, which barked at me when I got out of my car. It warned me VERY LOUDLY to remove all valuables and lock my car because there were thieves operating in the town that day. Well one assumes that if they were watching me, then they’d watch the thieves too (and apprehend them) so why the need to make me jump out of my skin with fright? A friendly warning from Big Brother, or something more sinister? It was at that moment that it really hit me just how far we had come along the road to totalitarianism.

The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies," according to a study last year. The 2007 International Privacy Ranking gave Britain the "black" or "endemic" ranking for the second year in a row. The US fell to the bottom rung for the first time due to increasing government surveillance and decreasing federal oversight.

As I have blogged many times before, the UK is now a totalitarian state. The UK had long been on the razor’s edge between liberty and tyranny and in recent years it has tipped over the edge into an anti-utopia. Through the development of legislation, the media and sophisticated technology, the Government now controls nearly every part of our lives. They tell us how to live, what to do and how to think, all in the interests of national security of course. Citizens are not seen as freedom loving individuals with rights of their own, they are not even seen as citizens. Instead we are all now “consumers.” The Government just have to keep us happy with panem et circenses (bread and circuses) and nobody lifts a finger just as long as they can veg in front of their fave t.v. soap and pig out on pizza. Let's face it, most people don't care whether they are watched by the State because they believe they have "nothing to hide." Who cares if you’re caught on camera an average of 300 times every day? It’s all for your own good right?

Nowadays, cameras aren’t just instruments used to create fabulous images, they are also tools of oppression. Nowhere is this more evident than in China, another surveillance society and the first totalitarian state. In China photography is seen differently than in the western world, less of an expressive art form and more of a way of recording things. Because of the omnipotent role of the State in every aspect of Chinese life, their culture developed differently to ours and the development of cameras was never equated with creating or expressing the character of an individual, or exploring aesthetic views of reality. Forms of artistic expression were originally discouraged because the State was the only one allowed to dictate the development of “freedom of thought.” The role of the camera in Chinese society was to objectify, rather than in our capitalist society, where right from when the camera was first invented, individual artistic freedom was encouraged and the role of the camera rapidly developed beyond a simple recording device into a subjective tool for creating art.

So it will be interesting to see how the current social change will affect the development of photography in the new totalitarian countries like the UK, and eventually the US. How will the photographic surveillance change the way we think about cameras, and what will it mean for the future of photography? As Sontag observed, “any social change is replaced by a change in images.” How will the transformation from freedom-loving capitalist society, where our whole culture is based on images and where art is a subjective form of self expression limited only by one's imagination, translate into a totalitarian state, where cameras are seen as tools of the state, whether to protect or oppress, depending on your point of view?

I would argue that society’s view of the camera is starting to change already, as is evident in the new hostility to street photography, which is still legal (so far) but is increasingly viewed with aggression by the general public. As in Orwell’s vision, citizens are starting to turn against each other. Nowadays, people carrying cameras are viewed as suspicious and street photographers are treated as potential pervs. Society considers it perfectly acceptable for the government to use cameras to watch people, but definitely not O.K. for the general public to use cameras for the same purpose. What does this mean for the future of photography, I wonder? And what will happen to us, the photographic art community?

But not to worry, Comrades! Cheer up! No need for sad faces! Our Government has our best interests at heart you know, and it wants to protect you from those fearsome terrorists who are attacking your precious freedom.

And what better way to stop terrorism than to eliminate "freedom" in the first place? Simple, sensible and effective. And coming soon to a town near you.

Think about that the next time you are pigging out on pizza in front of the telly.

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Images are of Ifat

The Grass is Always Greener

The UK sucks. We wanna emigrate. The credit crunch is making the British population miserable, the taxes are humungous and there is one surveillance camera for every fourteen people. Did you know that there is currently draft legislation that will result in the recording of every email, phone call and internet search in Britain? The information will be stored on giant server farms at an as-yet-undisclosed location. It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell’s vision of a future where cameras and computers spy on every person’s movements is finally here.

So Canada it is then. Free healthcare and the land is cheap (note that everywhere is cheap compared to the UK) and Canadians are recruiting skilled workers, unfortunately only about 50,000 of them though. My guess is there are about 5 million of us who would like to go. The only problem with Canada, or in fact the US or Australia, is the healthcare issue. In order to qualify for entry, you have to be free of disease, and of course there’s the whole health-insurance issue in the US. What are the chances of me getting a job or health insurance anywhere? A snowball's chance in hell, I suspect. But even assuming we could get past the paperwork and get into the US (our preferred choice), then there is the thorny issue of what would happen to Rich’s photography.

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Some of you may well have noticed that there is a big difference between American and British nude photography. It’s primarily a difference in style, not dissimilar to the difference between American and English interior design. Contemporary American nude photography is…how do I put it?...more arty, more fashion orientated. It features more unique angles, trendy cropping techniques and it is more dramatic and emotional. I would moot that British nude photography is less hip and is actually more traditional in style (fellow British nude photographers, please feel free to send me hate-mail now.) American boobies have a whole different culture than British boobies. I’m not sure our own boobies would comfortably make the leap.

There’s also the effect that emigration has on the photographer’s psyche. Remember my thing about Paul Strand? Well, Strand loved America to distraction. His “Time In New England” reflected his passion for his country and the people he loved. He was compelled to record everything he saw in terms of light, and the resulting portraits and landscapes were masterpieces of illumination. His American photography was the best work he’d ever done, it was his life’s achievement. But in 1950, when he was approaching old-age, the country he loved had changed so much that he could no longer bear to stay, and so he left and emigrated to France. The problem was that his photography never recovered from the move. Because he hadn’t grown up in France he didn’t intimately understand the people, their culture or how they thought and felt, so he always felt excluded, no matter how friendly the locals were. This distance, and the inevitable culture gap, meant that his French work was perceived as being disjointed, sentimental, idealised and lacked the intimacy and insight of the original photographs from his homeland.

So even if by some miracle we bypassed the paperwork and health issues and we finally managed to emigrate, it is my deep suspicion that Rich’s photography would suffer irreparable damage. As Robert Adams observed, photographers are especially vulnerable to dislocation. It is not possible for them to transfer to a new country the fundamental ingredient of their art – their love for their people, culture and way of life.

Rich and I are both British through and through. We love our people and their foibles, their stubborn and repressed intellectual snobbery, their inability to admit when they are wrong. And we are probably rather too fond of the British stiff-upper-lip culture and our class ridden system with all its eccentricities and flaws. It’s the way we think, it’s who we are. Despite the injustices inflicted by the current oppressive regime, how can we bear to leave? And even if we did go, what would happen to our art?

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Images are of American model Clayre McKinnen, photographed in a very British style of course.

The Law of the Jungle

Can freedom ever exist in the world of creative art?

This is not as stupid a question as it sounds. As artists, photographers and writers, we try to produce art because we love it, because something inside us compels us to create a fragment of beauty or meaning that we can give to the world. However conceited it sounds, we want to make our mark, leave part of ourselves out there, create our own legacies. This process of creation is, IMO, a vital act of freedom. We are free to interpret anything and everything from our imagination. If a photographer or writer loses that psychological sense that he is free, then his ego is injured, his work is below standard, and his creativity dries up because he cannot dream. Effectively he has lost his power, not just his mojo.

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Freedom is synonymous with power. When you want to produce a piece of art, you crave the ability, the choice and the freedom to do it. Whether or not you actually have that freedom depends on if you exercise your power over others, or let others have power over you. There’s truth in the old adage that no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I know a gifted glamour and nude photographer (let’s call him Luca) who prevents himself from producing the best work he can possibly do because he lets others tell them that he isn’t very good. Luca’s photographs are beautiful, but he won’t show his work and even though his friends try to bolster his self-esteem all the time, he still remains convinced that he is a crappy photographer and unworthy of recognition as an artist.

So as a result of listening to the opinion of other rival photographers (who have their own self-interests at heart), then those rivals have taken power over Luca’s self-esteem, resulting in loss of freedom. Luca’s mind is racked by insecurity and self-doubt and he has effectively built his own mental prison driven by his damaged ego. Trapped within his self-made cage, he has practically stopped producing new photographs because he thinks he is useless.

Luca needs to turn the tables on his opponents. He needs to take the power back and exploit the insecurities of his rivals. He should harden his heart, push back, exert his will over others instead of himself being coerced. In the glamour photography jungle, Luca’s potential success is produced not only by self-confidence, but also by toughness, by manipulating other people’s dreams and dictating to them what they should think of him. If Luca learns how to become good at power games, then it won't matter if his current rival is a better photographer than him (which he’s not), because Luca can still be more successful than his rival if he learns how to pimp himself, how to bullshit, how to schmooze and bend others to his will.

If this sounds incredibly cynical of me, then I do apologise. I’m simply calling it the way I see it after spending much too long (obviously) in this entertainment business. The glamour and nude photography world is not a pretty place. It’s a narcissistic cesspool of artistic egos and Luca needs to exploit that to his advantage. He needs to learn to play the Game, because at the moment he is losing. He has to harden his heart and learn to be the predator, not the prey.

The problem is that Luca is too nice. He is a gentleman, a professional, and he believes in mutual respect and freedom. For these reasons, he’s probably much less likely to ever be the outstandingly successful photographer he dreams of being. The Jungle does not care about Luca’s freedom or his dreams. It prefers to eat him.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You make your own rules, you define your own reality, and you can be free but only if you give yourself permission to do so. You have to choose not to be enslaved by others. Take back your own power, believe in yourself, know that you can produce some really great art if you practice long and hard enough, trust your dreams and don’t let other people push you around.

Freedom and dreams are not a natural God-given right. You have to fight for them, every single minute of your life, or the Jungle will chew you up and spit you out.

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All images are of Pirate Maiden

The Biggest Show in the World

O.K. So it’s 4 a.m. and once again I’m racked with insomnia, courtesy of my head. Seven days straight with practically no sleep. Bleh. So you’re gonna get my sleep-deprived incoherent ramblings on…American Politics. Zzz…

Now, I know diddly-squat about American politics, although the BBC tells me, quite unobjectively, that it’s very important. The Race for the White House. The most powerful man in the world. Or woman, apparently.

I thought it might be interesting for you folks to see how your little goldfish bowl is seen from the outside. The world’s media is NOT objective. Quelle surprise.

According to the newspapers and the t.v. news here, the next president is going to be Democrat. Either Mrs Clinton , or Barack Obama. A white woman or a black man. That’s it. Gender, race and personalities are what hit the headlines over here. I have no idea who the Republican candidates are, or even if they exist. The UK media is predicting that the backlash against Bush will be so strong, that the Democrat candidate will win by a landslide. Who are the Republican candidates? Do they stand a snowball’s chance in hell? Personally, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger should be allowed to run. I can picture him saying “Asta La Vista Baby” to our Prime Minster (who SO deserves to be nuked by Arnie for turning this green and pleasant land into a totalitarian state.)

The U.K. media is concentrating on American personalities and celeb-backings. The U.S. policies (if they even exist) are glossed over, forgotten. Would Barack Obama actually stand a prayer without the mighty Oprah? Should Oprah be running the world instead? Maybe she does already. Now there’s a scary thought. Why do American politics appear to be run by the celebrity factor? What happened to …gasp…real policies? How do the candidates feel about global politics, green issues, energy, religion, security, science, space, healthcare? It’s all very well promising to save the planet (a sure-fire vote winner) but how will the changes in energy infrastructure be paid for? Does anyone running for president actually credit the American public with intelligent thought or do they assume Americans are soap-loving sheep who just like a bit of drama?

Is this concentrating on personality-before-policy a feature of global media-misreporting, or is this really what it’s all about? A contest between a black man who is not actually black (but pimped by a chat-show-queen), or a woman who is so dry, brittle and power-hungry that she’ll stoop to nothing to rule the world? And if it’s personality that counts, do you really want to give the global domination of the world to a woman who can’t even keep her husband in check?

From an accountant-like-me’s point of view, I'll side with the economists who say the elections should be all about the economy. If the global economy is ever going to grow, then whoever wins must find a way to reverse the catastrophic failures of the Bush presidency, notably the screwed up and overly aggressive attempts to use hard military power, and the bovine attempts at diplomacy. The world needs free trade. As far as I can tell, none of the candidates so far have given a hoot about free trade, whether it be Republicans mooting blocking immigration, or Democrats waffling on about the need to prevent jobs going offshore. Frighteningly, Mrs Clinton has even talked about re-writing the North American Free Trade agreement, which was one of Bill’s main achievements in the first place. Why is it that she appears to be forgetting her husband’s mantra of “It’s the economy, stupid?”

The only remotely objective source of information for me is, you guessed it, the blogosphere. I am following the varying political threads (with accompanying gorgeous naked laydeez) with great interest. Maybe someone out there could please do a tutorial for the non-Americans? You know, a basic idiot’s who’s who. Their policies, the world implications, and so forth. And subjective opinions too please. Who do you think should win and why?

After all, the whole world has a stake in the US elections in November. And it all depends on your vote. You’re not voting for yourselves. You’re voting for the entire planet.

So, if the world goes to hell-in-a-hand basket in 2009, I’m blaming you lot.




Lou-Lou.

Power to the Children

In the1920’s the evolution of printing lithography and the birth of the Leica gave birth to Photojournalism and the concept of the illustrated newspaper. This new technology resulted in the most important persuasive visual medium (before television) and subsequently changed the way humans viewed the world around them. From the 1930’s onwards, magazines such as the British "Picture Post" and the American "Life" publications had enormous status and were able to mould public opinion and the way they shaped society. Behold the power of the visual image!

Nowadays of course, the web is similarly changing human behaviour at a fundamental level. Humans spend large amounts of time online, reading, accessing, researching and assessing information. Then they use what they learn to collaborate with each other, refine the information, and use it to shape their own opinion as to the way the world works. Consequently they are learning vastly different thought processes and ways of viewing information and society than the older pre-internet people grew up with.

Our kids are now “the net generation” and because they are learning in a different way to the methods by which Rich and I learned, they are effectively re-wiring their brains with different software. In the book “Wikinomics”, Don Tapscott calls them the “integrity generation,” because they are learning to demand integrity from the institutions they deal with, whether they be governments, companies, or educational institutions.

Growing up with a constant source of information on the internet means that our children now take transparency for granted. If they hear something on the news on T.V., and they think it sounds suspicious, they check it online. They collaborate, they look for the truth, they gather all information, and they find the real answer for themselves.

Although it is possible to lie online, because of the vast network of millions of people, such falsehoods can be discovered and disproved very quickly. It is much harder for governments to cover up scandal and spread misinformation than it was before the birth of the internet. Nowadays, people do not automatically believe everything they are told by authority. In the words of the X Files, “the truth is out there,” and it is a heck of a lot easier to find than it ever used to be.

If I find out my local council is going to build crappy houses in a beautiful and hitherto protected area of outstanding beauty, I can go online, help form a protest group, organise meetings, raise funds, publicise and gather support, and through this collective gathering of minds, we can put a stop to the development. Which is exactly what has happened several times in our local community inside the last year.

Do you realise what immense power this is?

The power to the people to think differently, to discover the truth about the world, and to change it into something better. This is the power that our kids are learning. They will use this new technology to shape a society which will be a very different place from the one Rich and I grew up in.

And the most wonderful thing about this power is that it seems to be overwhelmingly a force for good.



This is Kate, from last year.

Raptus regaliter (Royally screwed)

We interrupt our usual witty art-nude and porn (sorry I mean erotica) related repartee for a brief political rant. For those who are not remotely interested in UK politics, please skip to the next blog on your Google Reader.


Tonight, 25 million Britons are really, really pissed.

It seems that our omnipotent tax authorities, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, have lost confidential personal information on every single family in the UK who receives Child Benefit. Since everyone with kids receives this by default, that’s practically everybody.

The password-protected CDROM's, which contained all of the information on the HMRC's child benefit database, were sent unrecorded and were LOST IN THE POST!!!
The missing information contains the details of all Child Benefit records for 25 million individuals and 7m families. This includes dates of birth, national insurance numbers, bank and building society details. That effectively means the personal details of every family in the country with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The head of Revenue and Customs resigned this morning. Our esteemed Prime Minister (not renowned for his honour or integrity, but instead famous for being Machiavellian by nature) has warned of the possibility of identity fraud, and warned everyone to monitor their bank accounts.

That’s it. That’s all the help we get. No guarantee if identity theft occurs, or if money gets stolen from our bank accounts. No reassurance at all.

As you know, Rich and I run an internet software company. We take information security very seriously. Protection of customer details is critical to our business success. Our customers’ and resellers’ bank and credit card details are kept behind military-grade encryption software, and is deleted once the transaction has occurred. For regular customers who pay monthly, the encryption techniques are even stronger. No expense is spared to keep their details safe.
If I ran my company like HMRC, we’d be out of business within a day.

This government has no fucking clue! Just HOW can they get away with this? And why the hell are they still in office? How the hell are they supposed to be trusted with biometric data for identity cards next year?

Just what does it take to get rid of these idiots that run our country?


O.K. Rant over. Thank you for your time. Please also excuse the use of the “F” word, which is reserved only for when I’m suffering from extreme apoplexy induced by incompetent morons.