The Final Whistle....

 

For me, the 2010-11 football season ended as it began, with a Welsh team scoring four goals in the teeming rain in England. You can argue which game was more important: The New Saints win in the Champions League at their bucolic English ground, or Swansea City's dramatic elevation to the English Premier League via a Wembley play-off against Reading. Either way, this season showed the inexorable rise in the importance of money in the Beautiful Game these days, with clubs' owners, new and old, casting a shadow over football.

It was not the shadow of money, but rain clouds which accompanied me around most of the season on my various assignments for When Saturday Comes magazine. The ever-persistent threat of a drenching is something which sports photographers just get used to and when the sun does shine, it reminds you of those days in Glossop and Fraserburgh when the snow and wind competed for the ascendancy like a couple of battle-hardened midfielders.

For all teams, a new season sets off with optimism and hope. By the time the evenings are drawing in and the autumnal sunshine illuminates Recreation Park, Alloa, a different reality is setting in. I watch as the Wasps are swatted out of the Scottish League Cup at the hands of Aberdeen's Paul Hartley; by the season's end, both teams have endured miserable campaigns and the aforementioned Hartley is appointed Alloa manager. Quite a twist. Out of another cup, the FA version go Matlock. No cup romance for them, despite the romantic setting of their homely ground nestling in the Derbyshire Dales, beaten by Nottingham's Eastwood Town and their noisy band of fans.

My next stop is at Eastwood's more illustrious city neighbours Nottingham Forest, a club of great tradition and success, now desperate to recreate the Clough golden years, or at least something close to it. Despite a solid win against old boy Roy Keane's Ipswich, the season will end in another play-off defeat and another season beckons in the second-tier of English football. Indeed trips to Championship clubs treading water or in the process of descending become a theme of the season. The red dots around the half-empty Riverside point to declining audiences as Tony Mowbray steers his odd assortment of players away from relegation. Not so lucky for Sheffield United, who despite a rousing win against Leeds United, end up in the third tier in England. At least they can console themselves with a Steel City derby next season.

As the season wears on I see a couple of Indian businessmen looking bemused on a filthy Sunday in Blackburn. The reality of what they have just bought is etched in their faces. They do what every right-thinking football fan would love to do: fire Sam Allerdyce. It doesn't work and a grim season is finally saved from ignominy with a last-day win to keep Rovers up. Other managers in my spotlight are Tranmere’s Les Parry, performing miracles on the thinnest of shoestrings, whose team almost achieve mid-table obscurity despite defeat at Rochdale on New Year’s day. The perma-tanned Phil Brown isn’t so lucky: his Preston team twitches into life in March before being laid to rest in April.

As the season reaches it's climax I get a close up view of what a £35m footballer looks like, see Champagne in Halifax and burgers in Blackpool. Bewildering, I know, which just about summed up Alex McLeish's expression as his Birmingham City team plummeted through the trap door. The season ends in Dublin and London. The Carling Nations Cup provides the pub owners of Temple Bar with two chances to acquaint themselves with the Tartan Army, while on a bank holiday Monday in north west London, 40,000 Swansea fans go, quite literally, mental as they celebrate the prospect of a season in the Premier League struggling against relegation. But they didn't care, and had a party. Job done. Season over. Roll on 2011-12.

Finally, my awards ("The JKs") for the season gone by:

Team of the year: Borussia Dortmund. Great to see them German champions again. They’ll be celebrating in the Gaensemarkt all summer long!

Player of the Year: Charlie Adam, Blackpool and Scotland. What a season and what a left foot.

Manager of the Year: Peter Reid, Plymouth Argyle. Never liked the guy (small and very irritating), but the way he carried himself throughout a season when his club almost went bankrupt and his best players were all sold was so impressive. Docked 10 points, they almost stayed up. They deserved to. So did he, despite the people who ‘ran’ Plymouth Argyle.

To see a selection of images mentioned, please visit http://colinmcpherson.photoshelter.com/

After three years of sweat and toil, we launched Look11, Liverpool's first international photography festival last Friday.

Our big launch coincided with the city's annual LightNight event, where most of the city's major cultural venues remain open to visitors deep into the night.

We did our opening speeches at the Bluecoat, our festival hub and location for that weekend's 3rd National Photography Symposium, then scattered off around the city to visit some of the 15 locations which are housing our programme of exhibitions over the next six weeks.

Preliminary figures suggest the night was a huge success, certainly the buzz around Liverpool suggested that people were impressed and stimulated by the work on show. From Paul Trevor's recollection of Liverpool in the 1970s, through the Bluecoat's 'Confined' theme to the work curated by our Artistic Director Stephen Snoddy at the Art & Design Academy and CUC Liverpool, the 'call to action' theme was to the forefront.

With a rich mix of projects, competitions, workshops, participatory events and high quality exhibitions featuring many of the giants of recent and contemporary world photography, Look11 is seeking to establish itself as a festival to be taken seriously by visitors, critics and opinion formers.

The festival has been dedicated to the memory of Merseyside-born photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed in action in Libya, and laid to rest on the day of our launch. His work forms part of a group show at CUC Liverpool, curated by Paul Lowe and Harry Hardie entitled 'Collateral Damage'. The weekend drew to a close with a special screening of Tim's feature documentary entitled 'Restrepo', his film about a group of American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. It was a fitting tribute to a photographer whose work was both relevant to the festival and had a resonance beyond the confines of the photographic community.

Events continue over the next six weeks so if you are in Liverpool, be sure to check out what's on.

For further information, please visit www.look2011.co.uk

Unwelcome Guest

For those of you who care about the guest list at this Friday's royal wedding in London, there's one invitee who should not be welcome at any gathering, royal or not: Swaziland's absolute monarch, ruler and serial human rights abuser, King Mswati III.

There are quite a few ways you can register you disgust at this man's appearance in London as a guest of the British royal family. Start by signing this online petition: http://positivewomen.org/?page_id=763 - then write to your MP or elected representative - and if you are in London, take part in the peaceful protests organised by Swaziland Vigil against this man's visit.

More information is available here: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-23-anger-over-mswatis-plans-for-royal-wedding

Grand National Meeting

The photo above shows jockey Jason Maguire raising an arm in triumph as he passes the winning post on his horse Ballabriggs to secure a thrilling victory in the 2011 Grand National at Aintree.

I spent three days covering the Grand National meeting at the Liverpool course. From Liverpool Day on the Thursday, to the exotic colours and sights of Ladies Day on the Friday to the Grand National Day itself on Saturday, I joined the masses in a celebration of a great British tradition, one which has the nation glued to the telly, possibly indulging in their only bet of the year.

I was very pleased with the images I managed to get from the three day festival of jump racing: I thought they reflected the event well, were interesting, informative and maybe a little different from some of the other racing photos you see.

Tired, but happy, I made my way home through crowds of inebriated race-goers on Saturday evening, pleased to have captured in good detail the the final moments of the big race, the elation of jockey and owner, the cheering crowds, the elated and deflated punters.

So here's the rub. When working to deadline, head down in an atmosphere bordering on the frenetic, concentrating on your photographs and the story in front of you, you quite often miss the bigger picture. And the bigger picture was the story that emerged and lead the news in the wake of Grand National Day: Two horses dead, a jockey in a coma and the winning jockey banned for excessive use of his whip as he powered his way to victory on the home strait, prompting calls for the race to be banned and people flooding phone-ins with counter points of view.

I was, therefore, a little disappointed that I could not have communicated this aspect of the story. But the rules are strict when covering horse racing: no photography 'behind the screens' as it's called. Which means you won't see the dead or dying, the critically injured, the doctors, ambulances or vets. You'll see a sanitised version of events. But you'll hear a different story.

Made me think.

Here is a small selection of the work I did over those three days: http://colinmcpherson.photoshelter.com/

Swaziland Uprising - Please Help!

While the eyes of the world have been on the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, and the bloody events surrounding the post-election conflict in Ivory Coast have come to our attention, there are conflicts and struggles for democracy taking place elsewhere which need our urgent attention.

In Swaziland tomorrow (Tuesday 12th April), a day of uprising has been planned by activists, trade unionists and those seeking justice and freedom for one of Africa's most repressed - and most forgotten - peoples. The struggle for basic rights, an end to economic discrimination and access to the country's wealth will bring the people into direct conflict with the omnipotent King of Swaziland, who has already shown himself to be ready to use extreme force to prevent any unrest in his impoverished kingdom.

It is worth remembering that Swaziland is one of the world's poorest countries, which has suffered greatly from the HIV/Aids pandemic which swept through sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Life expectancy is amongst the lowest in the world, and while the monarch and his cronies enjoy unrivalled wealth and power, the people of this tiny country continue to be denied the basic rights which everyone in this country takes as read.

So what can you do? Well, as this is a former British colony, people here bear some moral responsibility for the system we left behind just 43 years ago. Our first priority should be to ensure that the UK government makes it clear to the Swazi authorities that it is monitoring the situation there and will hold to account anyone who uses force and violence to deny the people their right to protest for change.

Please write to your parliamentary representative, or directly to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, and request that the British government takes appropriate steps to protect innocent people.

Next, please put additional pressure on our politicians to lobby for change in Swaziland. The people there deserve to be heard and listened to and they deserve a chance in life.

Since my visit to Swaziland in 2008, I have become involved in helping individuals support themselves to try to make a better life for themselves and their families. I have received great assistance and support from people in this country and abroad who have aided my efforts to raise money and awareness. I should stress that none of my engagement with Swaziland or its people has been on a political level, and that none of the people I support are activists.

I hope you will take just a few minutes to become more informed of the situation in Swaziland and that you will take whatever action you can to protect the people of this wonderful little country.

With best wishes,

Colin.

For more information, please read: http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-04-11-activists-arrested-as-swaziland-gears-up-for-12-april-uprising

Format Photography Festival

Just a couple of days before it finished, I managed to squeeze in a visit to the East Midlands for a day wandering around the exhibitions at Format, Derby's international photography festival.

Format was established in 2004 by Louise Clements and Mike Brown, and is now one of the UK's leading non-profit international contemporary festivals of photography and related media, it states on its website (http://www.formatfestival.com/). The theme of this year's month-long event is street photography in all its guises, under the strap line 'Right Here, Right Now' - exposures from the public realm.

Street photography is a branch of the religion of photography which is closest to my heart. The best examples of this genre illuminate the everyday and offer the viewer a personal critique of life around us. Street photography can be funny, poignant, informative, moving, bewildering and can reinterpret many of the aesthetics of the furniture of the city. It can act like a jigsaw, revealing small clues about what our  world is really like away from the polished perfection we are often presented. But street photography can also be irrelevant, whimsical, mundane and lacking in any sense of a narrative. It also lacks an intellectual heft, or, put brutally, a story. Snapshot is probably the word which best describes the genre, with all the positive and negative connotations which derive from that term.

But there's now also a second debate around street photography which is taking place. This revolves not only around its legitimacy as an art form, but also as practice. In recent years, photographers have started to feel a vice tightening around their work. Public concern about what motivates photographers and the all-pervasive nature of the internet which allows, almost uncensored, the distribution and publication of anything from the public space, has led to a backlash which, at its most extreme, has seen France enact privacy laws which ban the publication of almost all forms of what could be traditionally termed 'street, photography.

But there is a fightback. And ironically it is being led not only by the professional photographer but by the vast mass of people who are the children of the digital revolution and who feel inspired to pick up a camera and record in detail life around them. This is all part of the democratisation of photography, an oft-used, but still ill-defined term.

It is into this space that Format steps. And very successfully. Its city-wide programme of exhibitions shows off the many individual talents of photographers using the street to communicate. Also the collective is well represented. I run into Nick Turpin, an old colleague from the Independent who founded a 20-photographer collective named In Public. This international collective boasts quite a few well-known names from the world of photojournalism, and the show of work is interesting and valuable. As Nick pointed out to me, commercially, this way of working doesn't bring much, but as a creative exercise it is both rewarding and fulfilling.

The main hub of the Format takes place at the Quad, a multi-arts venue in the heart of the city. During the festival it is peppered with photography. Every available wall has something while the main gallery space displays work from across the globe. There are seminal works by Brian Griffin, Raghu Rai and Joel Meyerowitz; a standout contemporary commentary on England by Peter Dench and as one would expect, several series depicting life in China, notably a series by Zhang Xiao entitled 'Coastline' and WassinkLundgren's 'Empty Bottles' series, which is presented using the display of pages from a published book.

While Quad is the slick centre of Format, my interest in visiting photography festivals is usually sustained by what is somewhat drearily described these days as 'visitor experience'. I enjoy seeking out the often secreted venues and a bit like a treasure trail try to find hidden treasures. Derby does not disappoint here either. The remodeled city centre is pleasant to stroll through and as a response to the work on show I make some images for myself. Although not overburdened with prime exhibition locations and gallery spaces, Format is visible in Derby and even on a week day you can tell there's a festival going on. The Royal Insurance Building, resplendent with 'for sale' sign above it is just the sort of place I am thrilled to discover. Slightly shabby and anarchic-looking, it is busy with people: some looking at the work on show, some participating in a hands-on project labelling the locations in which they have made their street photography. A couple of lads with skateboards seem to be at the heart of it all, and it seems lively and interactive. Beyond them, the work by Rawiya, a collective of women photographers from the Middle East stands out.

Street photography has many forms: from Bruce Gilden's visual assaults (he was commissioned to work the streets of Derby; the results, on show at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery, are superb, although it made me grateful I wasn't in Derby at the time he took the photographs) to quiet, reflective work such as Orit Ishay's series of Israeli bomb shelters (at the Silk Mill), the street photography on show at Format reveals itself to be as interesting, and - well - diverse, as the streets of the world themselves.

To view my street photo diary of the day visit http://colinmcpherson.photoshelter.com/

Japan Tragedy Marked

The terrible events of last week in Japan, and the ongoing nuclear nightmare were remembered last night by the players of Liverppool FC and Sporting Braga and a crowd of 44,000 at Anfield Stadium.

A minute's silence was held prior to the Europa League second leg match in memory of those who had lost their lives and the many more who have lost almost everything in the earthquake and tsunami.

A small tribute in a far-off land but it shows that the victims will not be forgotten.

To see my photographs of the game itself which ended in a nil-nil draw and thus ended Liverpool's European campaign, please visit http://colinmcpherson.photoshelter.com/

The game marked the home debut of Andy Carroll, who with a transfer price of £35m, became England's most expensive player ever when he moved to the Reds from Newcastle United in January 2011.