As much as we might like them to be photographs are not answers, they are questions. When I began chasing the question of how Europe is changing as the European Union expands I never expected to encounter an answer. Instead I sought to challenge my own assumptions about this place and its diverse people.



Monument. Budapest 2009

Long time no speak!


Singing the song. Brittany 2008.

So what have I been up to you ask? Well this and that is the real answer. Teaching, thinking and of course constantly applying for grants and fellowships not to mention plotting my return to Europe. I’m aiming for mid April, if not sooner. My goal is to make the transition as stable as possible and of course that takes resources so like a bear getting ready for winter I’m working hard and stocking up. Stay tuned…

I had a chance to visit the Kephas church in Vienna during my stay in that fine city and here are some images. Unlike many other parts of Austria society the worshipers at Kephas really believe in a diverse society and the benefits that brings. The congregation is multinational and there are many mixed race couples there as well. It’s an interesting peek into what might be the future of Europe…


Praising His name.



The power and the glory.



Jesus is the rock.



Music plays an integral role in services.



Lost in prayer.



Dancing for Jesus.



Looking upwards.




Hand to God.

Vienna

But where are the photos? That is what people always ask. Working in film and in black and white means that I can’t just show someone the photo I’ve taken five seconds later. It takes time. Days, weeks even months later I produce the “results.” While I certainly do enjoy the end product as an artist it’s actually the action of taking the photograph, the experience of being in a place at a certain time that is even more interesting. The film will be there if I develop it the next day or the next year; it is the experience of living and working in a place that really makes this craft interesting, at least to me.


Foreign influences. © Damaso Reyes

The photograph is a document, a reminder of what has been but it is nothing but a shadow of what was, even if it is a lovely shadow. I would never trade the experience of making the photo for the actual photo itself because for me the act of creation is what is interesting. Walking down a city street, waiting in an office, simply being in a place or meeting a person you otherwise would never encounter is what appeals to me as a photographer. The camera imparts a freedom that as a young poor child in Brooklyn I could have scarcely imagined. Today the only limits I have are those I place upon myself, thanks to my camera cum passport.


Generations of song. © Damaso Reyes


To that end I make my images available (both to myself and others) when I damn well feel like it. The nice thing about not having a deadline is that you don’t have to rush; you can reflect, relax and actually think. But eventually you do want to see what you’ve done so here are links to images from Brittany that I took last year. While I rather like many of the images, of course I’d like to go back and do more work; such is life. But there are some real stars in these galleries so take a look…


Circus performer. © Damaso Reyes

Vienna


Student protester. Vienna 2009

Do real leftists wear Che shirts?

In order to know where we are going it is important to think about where we have been. Twenty years ago the wall between east and west Germany began to fall and a new chapter began. Now all we have are the remnants and our memories, not to mention our history, which follows us around like a shadow. Sometimes it’s good to stop and look at the shadow…


The end of the wall. Berlin 2006. © Damaso Reyes

Vienna

Well it’s snowing right now in Vienna which should give you an idea that I am no longer in the warm embrace of the Mediterranean coast. It just can’t all be beach days and sunshine, can it? Vienna is much as I remember it from my trip last year. The smell of wood burning in fireplaces is a welcome sensation. These first few days have been slow; acclimatizing to the city again and figuring out what I want to try to accomplish while I am here. Just walking the streets in this city is a real pleasure and I am having a good time shooting. Don’t worry, there will be some organized photography as well, in fact last Sunday I returned to the Jewish cemetery here where a volunteer day had been arranged to help clear some of the creeping vegetation. Here are a few images from the past five days…


Local produce.



The carnivore option



The past in the present.


The Wild West.

Barcelona

It’s been an interesting month here in Barcelona. I have certainly gotten to know the city much better, which was one of my strategic aims. Often photography is not actually about taking photos; it is about laying the groundwork so you can take pictures. That having been said I did shoot a whole lot of film, mostly street photography but I managed some organized shoots as well.


Shadow and light. Barcelona 2009

I do feel like this is the city for me and I look forward to returning next spring to set up a base of operations. The town has a wonderful energy which is difficult to describe but I found the people warm and open, just the kind of place I want to live. Now it is upwards and eastwards towards Vienna!

The Europeans Inc. has a new home! Please visit http://www.europeandebate.org/ when you have a chance. Here anyone interested in what is happening in Europe can engage and share their thoughts. The website is very new but over time it will develop into a multi-media, interactive playground fro those interested in Europe.

For those interested in the photographic documentation of the changes Europe is experiencing you can stay right here!

The British have a term for intrusive, heavy handed government: the Nanny State. It seems like the government is taking the term to a whole new level as we learn from the Daily Express.


We’ve got our eye on you…

“The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes. They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals. Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.”

It is hard not to be in favor of government helping families, especially those facing challenges. But what the British government is proposing, they’ve been dubbed “sin bins,” goes too far. The country that produced Orwell should be more sensitive to Big Brother like programs and it is doubtful that all this monitoring will actually have the intended effect. If anything it will most likely make people feel resentful. And of course watching someone on a video monitor does not actually help them become better parents. It is the easy way out for government officials who want results but don’t want to put the time and resources in to change the underlying circumstances…

What happens when a country has to change its perception about what it does best? In America that did happen in many ways as the economy shifted from manufacturing to a more service oriented economy. Right now it looks like Germany, long known for its precision manufacturing, is starting to have the same conversation.


I’d rather build it…

“In recent months, two big computer chip makers slipped through Dresden’s fingers, challenging the notion that an area that likes to think of itself as “Silicon Saxony” can continue to churn out high-technology devices by the millions. But not every inhabitant of this picturesque city considers that a bad thing.

“The loss has fired a debate over whether the future of Dresden, in what was once East Germany, should lie more in research and design, rather than manufacturing, and few are more passionate about the intellectual side of the chip-making business than the young entrepreneurs at Blue Wonder Communications. Barely four months old, the company is angling for a piece of the lucrative business in designing chips for the next generation of wireless technology.”

It is very healthy that Germany, along with much of the rest of Western Europe is spending an increasing amount of time looking forward towards the future. It is all too easy to simply keep doing what one is good it, it takes far more effort and risk to begin to transform what is at the heart of your identity. Of course this same conversation should be happening in many other areas of German and European society, namely immigration. But the talking has to start somewhere….

The British have a term for intrusive, heavy handed government: the Nanny State. It seems like the government is taking the term to a whole new level as we learn from the Daily Express.


We’ve got our eye on you…

“The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes. They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals. Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.”

It is hard not to be in favor of government helping families, especially those facing challenges. But what the British government is proposing, they’ve been dubbed “sin bins,” goes too far. The country that produced Orwell should be more sensitive to Big Brother like programs and it is doubtful that all this monitoring will actually have the intended effect. If anything it will most likely make people feel resentful. And of course watching someone on a video monitor does not actually help them become better parents. It is the easy way out for government officials who want results but don’t want to put the time and resources in to change the underlying circumstances…

The class barriers that many Europeans, especially the British, face is nothing new. But just how pervasive a roadblock is class in the U.K.? Marketplace.com explores this issue in an excellent report.


What chance do I have?

“The government there is out with a new report on social mobility in the UK. It says lower-class Brits are routinely excluded from the top jobs. And professions like medicine and law are increasingly closed to all but the most affluent families.”

It is a startling report that is well worth listening to. The real question becomes what will British society do to reverse this trend? Do ordinary people see this as a problem or do they simply accept this as the way things are?

Part of what we are trying to do here at The Europeans is give voice to those who are all too often ignored by the main stream media. Well sometimes the MSM gets it right and we turn to the Guardian to see how it is done.



Through a window, darkly…

“The subtle images of seemingly mundane yet commonplace locations in the city shed light on the women's hidden lives and social exclusion. Lacking a visible red light district, women working in the sex industry in the north-east of England are particularly concealed. Many sex workers in Newcastle have been sexually and physically abused in their working lives. There is also a high level of substance misuse.

“Working with French-born photographer Magali Pettier, women involved in a weekly drop-in support group called Girls are Proud (GAP), at the homeless charity Tyneside Cyrenians, learned about the technical aspects of taking and developing photographs. They then took the images and used the project as a means of escaping from their covert activities, says Laura Seebohm, manager of women's services at Tyneside Cyrenians. "We work to develop confidence and self-esteem within this group. We decided a creative project such as photography was perfect."

The power of photography to empower people is almost hard to overstate. I highly recommend checking out the web gallery and seeing these images for yourself, they are very powerful…

If the course of true love never runs smoothly can we not say the same thing for great science? We learn more from The New York Times.


We’re working on it!

“After 15 years and $9 billion, and a showy “switch-on” ceremony last September, the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, has to yet collide any particles at all.”

If you ever have a chance to visit CERN I highly recommend it. When you go there you can really get a sense of the scope of what they are trying to do. We should not be surprised that they have faced some serious challenges as they try to push back the frontiers of knowledge. What should impress us far more than the massive scale of the experiments is the level of cooperation not just between European scientists but from investigators and engineers from all over the world who have come together in the spirit of scientific advancement. When things get up and running it will be just one more example of how far Europe has come in the past fifty years…