jezblog jezblog http://www.jezblog.com/ Pixelpost Copyright 2008 http://www.jezblog.com/, All Rights Reserved http://www.jezblog.com/ 2022-09-19T00:47:52-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2016-03-07:/2146
We've moved... jezcoulson.com
That's right, we're moving house. Jezblog has a new home on www.jezcoulson.com drop by and say hello :-)))))))))))))))) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Cheers Jez xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
]]> 2016-03-07T12:59:51Z 2016-03-07T12:59:51-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2016-01-11:/2145
Empire State Rainbow : New York City : USA
I know this probably does not count as landscape …… Well, not in in some peoples definitions …… but hey ……. I shot it from up on the stormy roof of my building today in NYC …… And as it happens my Old Mate Neil Turner is challenging me to enter the:’ Landscape Challenge ‘ …… which is kinda like the ice bucket challenge but without the ice or the bucket …… but it does involve dunking yourself repeatedly in Landscape Photography :-)))) …… so luckily here is one I have to hand right now …… that sky says landscape right Neil ? Oh come on baby? ….. Yeah thats landscape alright…… hehehehehe…….. :-)))) XXXXX

Cheers Jez XXXX

www.Jezblog.com
]]> 2016-01-11T01:48:47Z 2016-01-11T01:48:47-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2016-01-07:/2144
Eyes on the Road Ahead : New York City Taxi Driver : NYC
It's the 4th of January. .. the party is over...a new year is well and truly dawning . .. time to roll ... I’m flying as ever… the white noise of jet engines over the Atlantic in the dark with the small bright screen on the back of the seat filling my brain as Im heading to New York City … i was just watching NWA’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’.... As in yer face and explosive as any music as full on and hardcore as any music career ever was ….. Now I'm kinda recovering from that with somthing at the other end of the spectrum... I am listening to the voice of Elvis with the Royal Philadelphic orchestra ....Let’s face it this is a bit more in the classic range of easy listening more properly designed for drifting in late night flight … I'm kinda of thinking of sleeping... Elvis is crooning: ‘I can’t help falling in Love with you ‘… i can remember my mom had a record with this track on it…. just sometimes she would make us listen to it … and I can also remember exactly where I was standing when a friend told me what NWA stood for … just the sheer shock of the name alone…. never mind hearing that track ‘F the police’ for the first time … Now as I am writing Elvis is emoting : ‘In the Ghetto’. .. and for some reason NWA’s angry rap is merging in my head with Elvis’s crooning ….stuff gets muddled when you fly long haul ... Elvis and Dre …. Destination and departure ….. The future and the past … Thinking about it during the constant white noise of jet engines and the broken sleep of a night flight ….. the future is always a matter of keeping the past at bay….. .

Cheers Jez XXXXX

PS ………. I made it back to JFK …… Then took a cab via Greg’s place in Brooklyn …… cos I realized incredibly I had forgotten my keys ……. luckily Greg managed jump up outta bed in the middle of the night and zip out to my cab with the spare keys for my place …… in his pajamas temperature of about -10 ….. he really is a heroic friend …… he completely saved my bacon yet again :-))))))))) ……. Happy New Year to him and you 2016…….. as I said to Greg …… its all gonna be incredible ….. this year I’m gonna get organized……. hehehehe……. no more forgotten keys…….. as if …… hehehe …… But hey we all know its gonna all be an epic one hehehehe Happy 2016 !!!!!
]]> 2016-01-07T01:01:35Z 2016-01-07T01:01:35-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-12-04:/2143
Dont Bomb Syria Demo : Whitehall : London
The 'Stop The War' coalition organized protest against British Prime Minister David Cameron's proposal to act militarily in solidarity with France. Cameron was proposing airstrikes in Syria following François Hollande the French President's request to Britain to help them in attacking the terror group responsible for the recent mass slaughter in Paris. The same terror group responsible slaughtering thousands of Kurdish and Yazidi people in Iraq and Syria, the same terror group responsible for systematic rape and torture of young women, and the murdering of gay men and the beheading of journalists and aid workers and other horrific almost unimaginable mass human rights abuse.

One of the chants of the protestor's was : "Syria Syria don't you cry... we won't let your people die." I have to say I did feel this was either total naivety or more than a little disingenuous. In the last 4 years 250,000 Syrians have died. The civil war continues to rage on at the same pace, clearly we will and have 'let your people die'. It appears to me this, the protestors stated position, is the total opposite of considering the plight of people in Syria, to chant about 'we won't let your people die' if we advocate doing nothing, or at least to continue the same as we have done in the last 4 years effectively nothing. Clearly people will continue to die in their tens of thousands in Syria.

I don't think bombing ISIL will actually stop the slaughter in Syria but it may help some of the more progressive forces like the Kurdish Peshmerga to hold their ground and protect their people. It does seem to me to be the total opposite of internationalism or solidarity to only consider the death of a Syrian person as in anyway important or worthy of note if that Syrian is killed by a Western soldier or missile from a British plane. It really seems to me totally Eurocentric to only interest yourself in the deaths of Syrians if they are killed by Europeans (or Americans) and to ignore the quarter of a million who have already died killed by Assad's forces or Hezbollah or IS or the al-Nusra Front etc. etc. Ignoring this slaughter treats it as irrelevant. To the extreme point of not even bothering to acknowledge these deaths have happened at all, or that mass slaughter continues a pace totally separate from any Western intervention aimed at trying to slow it.

But, having said that I do secretly wish that I could generate the same indignation against the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and all the other 'war mongers' in all the different political parties. I really wish I could generate the moral certainty that doing nothing was so vastly morally superior to attempting to do something.... Almost anything .... Against some of the worst slaughterers in Syria. But for me I have always felt myself to be something of an internationalist and an antifascist ... and doing nothing seems like ..... Well, er .... Like doing nothing? ..... What used to be called 'I'm all right Jack' .... I understand the arguments against trying to do something ...... but I just don't find them in anyway more moral..... Ultimately I guess I find them kind of morally indefensible.

I remember back in the late 1980’s as a youth meeting some old guys who had fought in the International Brigades, individuals who had previously heroically volunteered to fight against the rise of fascism in Spain. Back when they were young men they left Britain and went to fight against Franco’s forces. This happened before the outbreak of the Second World War, the outbreak of the war finally signaled democratic governments had woken up and ended appeasement and began their own violent struggle against fascism.

So these men I met were amongst the first Brits to actually physically try and halt the rise of fascism during that era. I was completely humbled to meet these heroic men, they were people with progressive ideas, people who had embodied a left wing internationalism they joined the fight against fascism at incredible risk to themselves, many of their friends did not return. These were people who had very much opted to do something, when clearly they could have done nothing. They had bravely opted to personally and physically stand and fight against fascism when they were not even required to. On meeting these men I wondered wether I would have had their bravery in those circumstance, I doubted very much that I would.

There is a memorial to the heroic sacrifice of the International Brigades on the South Bank in London.Written on the memorial: " 'No Passaran' They Shall not pass". I met again some of these remaining few heroes at the opening of that memorial they were 'proud to be on the left and were proud to be fighting for a world free of fascism, free of militarism, antisemitism, oppression and economic and social injustice'. Eric Blair who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell was long dead by the time Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council saw fit to honor him and his fellow antifascists with the monument. He was dead before in 1977 when finally freed from fascism the freely elected Spanish Parliament returned. In 2007 that freely elected Parliament voted to honor all surviving members of the international Brigades with Spanish Citizenship. Orwell is one who's contribution is honored by the memorial in London as he volunteered to fight in the British Battalion of the International Brigades. His bravery, idealism, his real world wisdom and experience, and his realism in face of evidence combine to make him someone who has aways been a cultural and political hero of mine.

It would be interesting to know where someone like George Orwell would come down on this issue today. To stand back and think, the rise of fascism in Spain in the 1930's this is not our business ? The current rise of a new type of religious fascism in Syria and Iraq is not our business?

The German parliament has also today voted to send aircraft and military forces to act in support of the coalition attacking Daesh, ISIS, ISIL, the terror group running the self declared Islamic State Caliphate in Syria and Iraq. So German forces will join in support of the coalition with Britain because on Wednesday night the British Parliament did vote to send offensive aircraft to attack ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq and have begun air attacks alongside French and American forces.

The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn did not support the proposed airstrikes he was of course lionized by the 'Stop the War' protestors. But some Labour front benchers did vote with the government. At the end of the British parliament's debate Hilary Benn spoke, he is the Labour Party's Shadow Foreign Secretary ( he is also the son of the famed left wing Labour orator Tony Benn MP and has inherited his fathers speaking skills ) He spoke about solidarity with France and the need to protect Britain but in summing up he said to his own party the Labour Party:

" I direct my closing remarks to my Labour friends and colleagues on this side of the House. As a party we have always been defined by our internationalism. We believe we have a responsibility one to another. We never have – and we never should – walk by on the other side of the road.

And we are here faced by fascists. Not just their calculated brutality, but their belief that they are superior to every single one of us in this chamber tonight, and all of the people that we represent. They hold us in contempt. They hold our values in contempt. They hold our belief in tolerance and decency in contempt. They hold our democracy, the means by which we will make our decision tonight, in contempt. And what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated. And it is why, as we have heard tonight, socialists and trade unionists and others joined the International Brigade in the 1930s to fight against Franco. It’s why this entire House stood up against Hitler and Mussolini. It is why our party has always stood up against the denial of human rights and for justice. And my view, Mr Speaker, is that we must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria. And that is why I ask my colleagues to vote for the motion tonight."

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Cheers Jez XXXX

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www.jezblog.com
]]> 2015-12-04T13:40:37Z 2015-12-04T13:40:37-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-11-10:/2142
Hunting Deer : On the Wooded banks of The Chattahoochee River : Georgia
Well, I have been meaning to photograph hunting for a while. It’s an important phenomena in America. Really a lot of folks make hunting a central part of their leisure time. More than that being a hunter is a profound aspect of your identity if you head for the wilderness with your gun on a regular basis. In fact hunting really is an important aspect of American culture for some. Hunters tend to be amongst America’s most responsible gun owners they take seriously their hunting and the principles and practice of gun ownership. So I have been thinking for a while its important I should go on a hunt with my cameras.

So, Matt has engineered it for me to go out with a friend and neighbor of his ….. Mike.

So its all going to plan the alarm goes off at 3-45AM. Its seriously dark and early and totally pouring with rain but I am rolling in Mike’s pick up by 4-30AM ……….. Mike is a great guy, an incredibly well informed interesting bloke …….. So we are having literally the most wide-ranging conversations about the ethics, politics, history, culture and the societies of different countries across the world …… Not what you might expect hanging with a hunting guy ‘down South'. Well, I had been vaguely expecting the classic stereo-type if I am honest, and Mike is certainly not that. As I was rolling in his pick up at this ungodly early hour I found Mike was totally fascinating and completely awake and on the ball unlike me. He was on it ... just great.

Hanging with Mike in the hide having whispered conversations and watching the wildlife listening to the river constantly flowing by was real privilege. Although it was a very long day it did not drag. He let many deer pass as they were does, he was hoping for a buck. In the end as the day was drawing to a close he decided he would take a doe after all.

He took one shot. It was totally shocking after the quiet of the day. The shot was incredibly loud in the hide, kinda devastatingly loud. It was an excellent shot the deer dropped almost instantaneously, later inspection revealed it to be the most clinical of kills. A single shot through the heart and lungs without even damaging the shoulder meat. A perfect shot.

But as we approached the deer I felt sad. Such a beautiful animal cut down. Now instead of moving gracefully and silently through the woods her carcass had to be dragged back to the vehicle at the top of the hill side.

At the top her carcass was expertly butchered by Mike with assistance from his friend Dan. Dan uses many French Charcuterie techniques to make all sorts of interesting foods from the venison meat so none is wasted. So there can really be no ethical challenge to any of this for anyone who is not fully vegetarian or vegan, and yet, I find again what I already knew, that I could just never do it. The killing and the butchering is something I could just never do as part of a leisure pursuit.

Mike and Dan and family would eat well tonight and for days to come, but I would not have the heart to eat any of the deer myself.

Cheers Jez XXXXXXX
]]> 2015-11-10T03:07:18Z 2015-11-10T03:07:18-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-10-20:/2141
Mirror and Sky : Rolling in Rhode Island : USA
Well, I am wheels up Flying from JFK New York City to BOS Boston ……. I only flew into JFK from London last night and now I am rolling again having slept one night and had one meeting in Manhattan ……. I’m up in the air again now ….. But on the tarmac before take off ….. I was WhatsApping with my brother in-law Feizel…. He is South African living in JoBerg he was laughing about the Northern Hemispheres departure from the Rugby World Cup …….. My sister also sent me a message from SA …. From The Free State where she was working at a gold mine …. I was using messenger to text with a me Ol’ mate Marc J in Bangkok telling me news of another mutual friend of ours in Scotland ….. And also on messenger swap silly emoticons to another friend in the far East ……. I sent a text to an artist friend in Paris ……. And also used messenger to reply to a photographer I know through my blog who lives in Mexico City ……. I see from Facebook a really old school friend Paul has been eating at the Marco Pierre White restaurant in Birmingham UK :-))) ……. I can remember a time when I was a kid at school with Paul …. People used to say modern air travel and communications were making the world smaller …… I couldn’t really follow the concept ….. it seemed a silly expression……. but now I think finally I really know what they were talking about.

Cheers Jez XXXX

PS …….After I landed at BOS I met up with Matt who had flown in from the big ATL. Then We rolled on from Boston by car to Rhode Island as the sun went down :-)))
]]> 2015-10-20T07:06:19Z 2015-10-20T07:06:19-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-09-24:/2140
Towering Figure of The Pope Arrives in New York City : 8th Av : Manhattan
David Beckham was up there in a state of undress selling his own brand of underwear at one point ....... and numerous women models in a similar condition of undress selling whatever they were selling ....... now a fully clothed Pope Francis selling whatever it is the Pope sells :-))))).

The city seems pretty excited for this Pope's visit as is the whole of America. President Obama met Francis off his flight from Cuba ......... The President does not generally drive out to Dulles to meet folks off their planes. The Pope is getting the red carpet treatment to match his slippers hehehehe :-))))) XXXXXXXX

Cheers Jez XXXXXXX
]]> 2015-09-24T01:50:40Z 2015-09-24T01:50:40-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-09-15:/2139
Light Gathering at the End of a Tunnel of Years : Taxi Driver in the Midtown Tunnel : New York City
Gosh Im back !!! Back in NYC and back on the net :-))) ....... I had almost a month of hanging in Europe and for some reason hardly even looking at Facebook and the blog and almost ignoring Twitter Instagram etc ...... You know its kind of relaxing ...... u should try it occasionally...... Just to prove you can do it ....... like a month without a drink ..... to prove you don't have a problem ..... hehehehe....... But its good to be back :-)))

Here is the yellow cab driver who bought me in from JFK ..... he was a nice guy and very knowledgable on how to get round locked up traffic ....... but when I asked him if he liked being a driver he smiled ruely ....... he feels that being a NYC taxi driver is ruining his health ..... pushing him towards diabetes with all the lack of excercise the bad diet and the stress ........ he only took up driving when he lost his warehouse job at the height of the banking crisis .......

Cheers Jez XXXXX

www.jezblog.com
]]> 2015-09-15T19:51:17Z 2015-09-15T19:51:17-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-08-15:/2138
Over the Sea to Sky : Ocracoke Ferry : Outer Banks North Carolina
Sorry for the radio silence ……. I have been kinda off the grid for a while ……. way out on the Outer Banks in North Carolina ……… I took a trip down there in the new …… well new is not really right for describing a twenty year old Beast truck ..... so ..... Anyway ...... well at least new to me …… Yeah a trip in the the Zombie Apocalypse Beast Van ……The ZA Beast Van rolled 2000 miles down the coast in all :-))) Starting in Pennsylvania and rolling through New Jersey up to New York City …… I parked it in Manhattan for a couple of days …… for free unbelievably ……. then rolled on out again through New Jersey and Delaware, Maryland ……. to DC……. then back into Maryland ……. down the Eastern Shore over the two giant Chesapeake Bridges …… one that is 27 miles long and has tunnels aswell as bridge ……. through Virginia (shortest way through Virginia obviously) ….. into North Carolina then out to the Outer Banks……. rolled down the amazing finger of dunes heading out into the sea that is the OBX ….. We rolled to the end of the road …… then took the ferry to Ocracoke Island …….. I shot this picture above on the ferry :-)) In the end after hanging out on Ocracoke for a few days we took another ferry a 2.5 hour trip on to Cedar Island ...... drove on through North Carolina, through South Carolina into Georgia …… the Beast Van is now hanging with the Beast car down at Matts place in Atlanta :-)) We are developing a whole new concept ..... The Beast Fleet hehehehe……..

Cheers Jez XXXXXX

www.jezblog.com
]]> 2015-08-15T00:57:23Z 2015-08-15T00:57:23-04:00 tag:www.jezblog.com,2015-08-03:/2137
Salt Water; Sweat Tears and the Sea : The Port of Calais : France
All these terrible scenes from the french port of Calais in the last couple of weeks ……. This morning I heard on the BBC that a child fell from a truck and broke both his legs ……. he was with his father and other economic migrants and asylum seekers desperately attempting to make it across the English Channel. The English Channel is the relatively thin but highly dangerous body of sea between the UK and France. Migrant people attempt to cling to the underside of trucks or train carriages in an attempt to pass on to Channel ferry boats or into the Channel tunnel to ultimately arrive in Britain. ……. It is so depressing for all …… and so highly dangerous for those attempting it ……

These people are fleeing war and violence in Syria Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan …. Or repression in places like Eritrea and Sudan and desperate poverty across the north of Africa ….. The chafing of the grim third world against the relative security and comfort of the first world is all brought into sharp relief at this pinch point ………. David Cameron the British Prime Minister used the unfortunate adjective ‘swarms' of migrants …… which did create a certain amount of controversy, with him appearing to equate these desperate people with troublesome massed insects attempting to gain entry …….

When I was there in Calais earlier this year I was shocked by the numbers of people living in the makeshift camp known to all as ‘The Jungle' …… I was appalled by the number of people lining up hoping to get some charitable food packages to live off …….. I did shoot photographs that reflected these large numbers of people …… but I also tried to make photographs that reflected the lives of individuals …….….. Of people driven through circumstance to attempt these desperate journeys.

Its hard to show the faces and write the names ….. As many undocumented people are afraid to be identified …….. But I did try to make pictures that capture something of individuals …… individuals just who want to escape poverty and violence ….……… Individuals with hopes and dreams ……… ordinary people from other lands but individuals and families with names and personalities …… People who seek escape and sanctuary …… individuals who seek and deserve ordinary justice and some measure of hope and dignity in their lives …….

In this picture this man from Syria is thinking of swimming across the Port of Calais to the Ferry dock …….. This is an enormously dangerous swim in the strong currents of the tidal race …….. he already knew of the fate of another man, a man from Eritrea, called Robiel Habtom who was swept out to sea and drowned having attempted the same swim.

Only a desperate individual escaping terrible horror back home ……. Only an optimist that things might get better …… Only a dreamer in hope of security and sanctuary………. Only a human being would attempt such a dangerous passage…. its important to think of the individuals, not lose sight of their humanity. or our own, in all the depressing talk of ‘swarms'.

Cheers Jez XXXXXX
]]> 2015-08-03T19:34:16Z 2015-08-03T19:34:16-04:00