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What you hear in the audio, is a National Guard Jet, being scrambled from Grand Junction, Colorado.
Its intent; to overwhelm a Targeted Individual (Me), a United States Citizen, on American soil. To get a true depth of the intensity, put on a pair of headphones and listen. I did not increase the gain, in the audio.
The 1st thing you hear, is me asking Koda, if he wanted to stay in. I was gathering my Half-wit Documentation Devices, before stepping out of our motorhome. This was 8:45 pm, 7-31-22. It was still light outside. I was bringing in our solar panels. I cut 1 minute 40 seconds, from the beginning, while I gathered my gear. I was outside when I said “They’ve been waiting all day for that”.
You can hear me ask Koda, if he wanted to stay in. He gave me the, Fuck Yes, Dad Look. He knew what to expect. Those involved in Gang Stalking (Domestic Terrorism), wait for this very moment. They will seize upon it; harassing Koda, and I, as I bring the panels daily. Sometimes they will use kids, motorcycles, remote toy cars, ATVs, vehicles; anything to generate a lot of noise. The noise and Village Idiot presence, are part of the Psyops; intended to overwhelm a target. These conspired acts are repeated day, after day. This, along with attacks from Direct Energy Weapons; will often push a Targeted Individual over the edge. The Target having nowhere to turn to, in the United States of America. This stimuli, just happened to be a National Guard Jet; scrambling from their Grand Junction, Base.
The base is only about 25 miles, by road. A lot less, in statute miles (by air). It only took the pilot a couple of minutes to get here. I had the Half-wit Documentation Device, setting by a window. I walked around the back of the motorhome, to gather my panels. I heard the Sonic Boom (about 40 seconds into the audio). It may have been covered by my voice a bit. I thought it was thunder at first. The Jet dove, directly at and over, our motorhome. You can hear it overwhelm, my voice. You can also hear me, not getting worked up over it. This has happened so many times, Koda and I expect it. It happened in Arizona, and Wyoming too. Even, a couple of times in California. This base just happens to be closer to our camp. It also shows I, like other Targets, am under 24 hour illegal surveillance.
Ask yourself; how many veterans, United States Citizens, will be overwhelmed by this? Is this why we need 880 billion, in Defense Spending?
Combine this, with daily doses, of continued noise, harassment, Direct Energy Attacks, and sleep deprivation. Combine this, with parents, using and teaching their children, to do the same. Combine this, with Law Enforcement turning their backs on you. Combine this, with medical and administrative staff; gaslighting, hatefully and vindictively, harassing you, preventing or intellectually delaying you from authorized care. Combine this, with career legislators, ignoring your plees, as they fill their coffers with riches. All of this happens to Targeted Individuals, in the United States of America, EVERY FUCKING DAY! This is Gang Stalking (Domestic Terrorism).
You won't hear CIA Director, William Burns, talk of this during his televised interviews. While, unknowing United States Citizens, are being used as test subjects, in the refinement of Direct Energy Weapons.
You won't hear this from FBI Director, Christopher Wray, as he criticizes other Nation for doing the same.
You won’t hear this from Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs Denis McDonough. As veterans lay dying, waiting for vile, vindictive, medical and administrative staff; to provide the care they were promised. You won't hear this from president after president; as they send our men and women to war. Then, turns their backs on us, when in need.
This is the Real United States of America! Don’t let anyone, I mean anyone, tell you different.
I don’t want your pity, your money, or fame. I want you to know the truth about what we call Leadership, or lack of. I want you to know what actually happens to Veterans, Citizens; that dare to speak out against the monstrosities, committed daily, by our government agencies. I am a Patriot. I love this country. I hate what the controlling powers are doing to it, and its people. Knowledge, Truth and Exposure are powerful tools. Expose the Truth!
All photos and content in my photostream are free to download, copy, print and share. All I ask, is you maintain my copyright logos on all prints. Thanks for visiting our photostream
These birds are focused downward and have committed to the drop down to the pond in a steep descent... more a free fall drop (i.e., parachute) than a glide-in. This shot against a cloudy western sunset sky results in a silhouette view of the crane against the sky... but if you're familiar with these birds such shots offer no difficulty regarding their ID. The sky colors deepen so rapidly, and the bird groups continually arrive... you need to be constantly shooting to capture the ever changing spectacle! All of the subsequent shots this evening will be of silhouettes of the Cranes against the sky background.
IMG_8457; Sandhill Cranes
Committed to Ilford HP5+ using a Leica M3 and 50 mm Summilux ASPH lens. Developed using Ars-Imago FD as per the Massive Dev chart and scanned with an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion and contrast done with Negative Lab Pro.
Committed to expired Kodak Ektachrome 100 using a Hasselblad 503CX and 100 mm f3.5 lens. Developed using an E6 kit from Ars-Imago and scanned using an Epson V850 using Silverfast.
Name: Reginald Stains alias Brown
Arrested for: not given
Arrested at: North Shields
Arrested on: 4 December 1915
Tyne and Wear Archives ref: DX1388-1-262-Reginald Stains AKA Brown
The Shields Daily News for 15 December 1915 reports:
“NORTH SHIELDS FALSE PRETENCES CASE. ACCUSED COMMITTED FOR TRIAL.
Reginald Ashley Staines (30), chief steward, of 23 Milton Terrace, was brought up on remand at North Shields today, charged with having obtained by false pretences on the 22nd Nov. from Joseph Randell, the sum of £15 and on the 23rd ult. a further sum of £7 from Joseph Randell and Ed. Perris and on the same date in a like manner, the sum of £5 from William Manson Bews, with intent to cheat and defraud. Mr Frankham of Newcastle defended.
Joseph Randell of 40 Drummond Terrace stated that in the early part of November last defendant came to his shop and made reference to some previous groceries and wanted to open an account. On the 22nd October he ordered goods to be sent on board his ship. On the 22nd Nov. he wanted to cash a cheque for £15. He said he had got married and wanted to go to Liverpool and witness gave him the £15. Next day he again came to the shop and asked witness to cash another cheque for £7 and he said he would send his account from Liverpool in settlement for some goods. Witness cashed the cheque. He presented the cheques on the 22nd and 23rd Nov. and they were returned on the 24th and 25th.
Mr Frankham: Defendant has had other dealings with you for groceries and provision? – Yes.
Mr Frankham: Have you cashed other cheques for him? One, for £10, which was honoured.
Mr Frankham: If he had asked for the loan of a certain sum, would you have give him it? – No.
Mr Frankham: He never attempted to conceal where he was going to? – No.
Mr Frankham: You made no effort to get in touch with him? – Yes. Mr Perris went to his mother’s and could not get his address.
William Manson Bews, a tailor residing in Linskill Terrace, said that on the 23rd October the defendant came to his shop and ordered a frock suit, a jack suit, a double-breasted suit and a cap. He was dressed in a naval uniform and said the things had to be delivered to the Northumberland Arms. On the 22nd November he again came to the shop and asked for his account. He told witness he was a little short of cash. Witness gave him £5 and the defendant made out a cheque for £22 12s, in payment of the clothes and the money. The cheque was presented at Farrow’s Bank, Newcastle on the 24th and returned on the 26th. Witness still had all the clothes with the exception of the uniform.
George Graham Campbell of Farrow’s Bank said that no the 24th November the cheque produced, for £15, was presented and returned, marked ‘N.S.’. On that date the defendant only had £3 19s 6d in the bank. On the 25th November cheques for £7 and £22 12s were presented but the defendant only had a balance of £1 19s 6d then.
Detective-Sergeant Radcliffe stated that from certain information received he went to Brighton, on the 3rd inst. and took the defendant into custody from the Brighton police. He was brought to North Shields and when questioned replied “The only thing I can say is, the cheque must not have been met”. When charged later he made no reply. The defendant pleaded not guilty.
Mr Frankham said the defendant had not the slightest intent to rob anybody of money. He had a banking account and being newly married and unwell, had gone away and given these cheques. He had about £16 on board the ship and the officers were owing him about £30. The defendant gave a cheque for £1 on the 13th November as a donation to the YMCA. He had not tried to cover up any tracks and the officers on board HMS Satellite knew where he was.
The defendant, in giving evidence on his own behalf, said he was chief steward on HM Yacht Medusa II. The ship came into port on the 19th November and he had leave granted because he had been ill and he was going to be married. After the marriage he went to Liverpool and was there two days and he then went to London and Brighton. He sent his medical certificate to HMS Satellite. When he got the money from Mr Randell and Mr Bews he understood he had sufficient money in the bank to meet the cheques. Money was owing to him on board the ship but he could not say how much. He had no intention of defrauding the people.
The defendant was committed for trial at the Quarter Sessions”.
On 6 January 1916 at Northumberland Quarter Sessions Reginald Staines was acquitted on a charge of obtaining money by false pretences from tradesmen at North Shields.
These images are taken from an album of photographs of prisoners brought before the North Shields Police Court between 1902 and 1916 (TWAM ref. DX1388/1). This set is our selection of the best mugshots taken during the First World War. They have been chosen because of the sharpness and general quality of the images. The album doesn’t record the details of each prisoner’s crimes, just their names and dates of arrest.
In order to discover the stories behind the mugshots, staff from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums visited North Shields Local Studies Library where they carefully searched through microfilm copies of the ‘Shields Daily News’ looking for newspaper reports of the court cases. The newspaper reports have been transcribed and added below each mugshot.
Combining these two separate records gives us a fascinating insight into life on the Home Front during the First World War. These images document the lives of people of different ages and backgrounds, both civilians and soldiers. Our purpose here is not to judge them but simply to reflect the realities of their time.
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.
Committed to Ferrania P30 using a Leica M3 and 50 mm Summicron dual-range lens. Developed using Ars-Imago R9 (rodinal) 1:99 in a semi-stand process for 80 minutes and scanned with an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion and contrast done with Negative Lab Pro.
;-) Texto en castellano mas abajo ;-)
Excuse me the many mistakes that sure I have committed in the translation, I hope that it is understood regardless!
Conclusion of the trilogy blog – pride – persons.
Third and last part of this trilogy that I dedicate to explain, and to explain myself, because I use the captions (feet) of my photos as if they were my personal blog.
Always I have been a crossdresser girl, an innate tendency that thankfully did not produce many concern to me, it was there, but separated from my habitual life. It was dominating my fantasies and dreams, but was not leaving trace in the "real" life. It was appearing in the moment in which one was giving an opportunity and was vanishing without leaving trace, as if it had never happened at all. I was never planning anything, never thinking about it except in my dreams, only… was arising occasionally, sometimes with many frequency, sometimes with long periods of inactivity. Until that came one day in which I wanted more, I started having concern, started having desires and this part of me that was living in my dreams until that moment, started emerging in my reality. It was then when I started investigating the subject, in the easiest and more safe way … Internet. I was lucky, found at the first attempt the suitable sites, far from the topics and the habitual image of the "transvestite" with which I was not identifying. I found heterosexuals crossdressers who understood the subject of similar form to how I was feeling. It was good for me, I could see from out, in other persons a sort of reflection of what I was, or I wanted to be. In this reflection I saw persons and saw pride, not because they wanted to transmit it deliberately, surely they were not thinking it, but it was what I saw, and I liked it. Different and complete persons to who the crossdress factor, was not limiting them and was not determining for entire. Crossdress was alone one more characteristic and they were not left to trap for a hackneyed role that really was not reflecting their true personality, except when wanted to do it. A characteristic that they were taking of natural form, with precaution against the dangers, but with the implicit pride of the one that does not make nothing bad. Yes, I was lucky, if instead of find initially the correct persons I had found the typical image of the transvestism, surely I had stopped searching soon, convinced to be totally atypical. And surely not had changed anything, probably my path would be the same, but I had felt isolated and alone in this. Because of it I would like to contribute to put my two cents in to give the image that I received in that moment. Flickr is the temple of the image, is not the appropriate site to write, but it is, probably, one of the first sites that visits a beginner crossdress girl, or someone interested in it… almost certainly, end up passing through Youtube or Flickr, and if fortuitously find my gallery, I hope that they see a gallery that, though it belongs to a silly and ugly girl with a low level of crossdress, it transmit the values that I liked to find so much. This one is not the reason for which I upload photos and videoes, but it is the principal reason for which I try to transmit my personality in what I do, because of it, even though it is not the suitable place and be so ephemeral as to construct sandcastles, I write whatever I think in every moment, things related to the crossdress and things that not, silly things and deep issues, my tastes and interests, my culture … because it is the gallery of a person … that among other many things, is a crossdresser girl and is proud of it.
Conclusión de la trilogía blog-orgullo-personas.
Tercera y última parte de esta trilogía que dedico a explicar, y a explicarme a mi misma de paso, el porque utilizo los pies de fotos como si fueran mi blog personal.
Siempre he sido una chica crossdresser, una tendencia innata que por suerte no me produjo muchas inquietudes, estaba ahí, pero separada de mi vida habitual. Dominaba mis fantasías y sueños, pero no dejaba huella en la vida “real”. Se manifestaba en el momento en que se daba una oportunidad y se desvanecía sin dejar huella, como si nunca hubiera pasado nada. Nunca planeaba nada, nunca pensaba en ello excepto en mis sueños, solo… surgía de vez en cuando, a veces con mucha frecuencia, a veces con largos periodos de inactividad. Hasta que llegó un día en que quise más, empecé a tener inquietudes, empecé a tener deseos y esa parte de mí que vivía en mis sueños hasta ese momento, empezó a emerger en mi realidad. Fue entonces cuando empecé a investigar sobre el tema, de la manera más fácil y segura… Internet. Tuve mucha suerte, encontré a la primera los sitios adecuados, lejos de los tópicos y la imagen habitual del “travesti” con la que no me identificaba. Encontré a crossdressers heterosexuales que entendían el tema de forma parecida a la que yo sentía. Eso fue bueno para mi, pude ver desde fuera, en otras personas una especie de reflejo de lo que yo era, o quería ser. En ese reflejo veía personas y veía orgullo, no porque ellas lo quisieran transmitir expresamente así, seguramente ni lo pensaban, pero era lo que yo veía, y me gustaba. Personas distintas y completas a la que el factor crossdress, ni limitaba ni condicionaba por entero. El crossdress era solo una característica más y no se dejaban aprisionar por un rol tópico que realmente no reflejaba su verdadera personalidad, excepto en los momentos que sí que querían hacerlo. Una característica que llevaban de forma natural, con precaución ante los peligros, pero con el orgullo implícito del que no hace nada malo. Sí, tuve suerte, si en vez de dar al principio con las personas correctas, hubiera encontrado la imagen típica del travestismo, seguramente hubiera dejado pronto de buscar, convencida de ser una bicho raro totalmente atípica. Y no es que hubiera cambiado nada, probablemente mi trayectoria sería la misma, pero me hubiera sentido aislada y sola en esto. Por eso me gustaría aportar mi granito de arena en dar la imagen que yo recibí en su momento. Flickr es el templo de la imagen, no es el sitio adecuado para escribir, pero sí es, probablemente, unos de los primeros sitio que visite una chica crossdress principiante, o alguien interesado por el tema… terminas pasando por Youtube o por Flickr casi seguro, y si por casualidad dan con mi galería, espero que vean una galería que, aunque sea de una chica tonta y fea con un nivel bastante bajo de crossdress, transmita los valores que a mi tanto me gustó encontrar. Esta no es la razón por la que subo fotos y videos, pero sí es la razón principal por la que intento transmitir mi personalidad en lo que hago, por eso escribo, aunque no sea el lugar adecuado y sea tan efímero como construir castillos de arena, lo que se me ocurre en cada momento, cosas relacionadas con el crossdress y cosas que no, disparates y temas profundos, mis gustos y aficiones, mi cultura… porque es la galería de una persona… que entre otras muchas cosas, es una chica crossdresser y está orgullosa de ello.
PS. Si quieres ver videos con este look (If you want see a videos with this look) :
In Youtube (recomendado, se ve mejor / recommended, it looks better):
(black version) www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7ZCsLKcOQs
(blue version) www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lzDtTeAte4
In Flickr:
(black version) www.flickr.com/photos/61410455@N08/6884139200/in/photostream
(blue version) www.flickr.com/photos/61410455@N08/7177731536/in/photostream
PPS. También disponéis de una versión alternativa de esta foto con un estilo cómics en la siguiente dirección: / Also is available an alternate version of this photo, in a comics style, at the following link:
www.flickr.com/photos/61410455@N08/7308970340/in/photostream
Estoy muy orgullosa de esa versión, así como de la original que estáis viendo aquí. / I am very proud of that version and also the original photo you're seeing here ^_^
Today I committed to doing a film image. With the rain starting just as I started to shoot I figured the universe was encouraging me to shoot a portrait. The light in Luc’s room is the best in the house. It faces south, has floor to ceiling windows with the bottom half diffused with translucent coroplast. Aubrey was deep into Roblox but Luc was nice enough to give me a bit of time. So up came a piece of black foam core and away we went.
I actually missed focus on this frame but I don't mind as this is by far the strongest image of the set. I fudged the error with some liberal sharpening on the eyes in Capture One.
Shot with my Mamiya C220 and chrome 80mm f/2.8 lens wide open at 1/60 of a second, developed by hand in the upstairs bathroom and digitized with my Fujifilm X-T3 and old manual focus Nikkor 55 micro... all in the same day.
Expired Delta 100 Pro (2014) developed in Ilford DD-X in a Patterson tank for 11:30 minutes. Conversion from negative, spotting and some dodging done in Capture One Pro.
I just love the look of medium format film.
178/365
I'm not sure a bird can be anymore stretched out and committed to catching that fish than this massive eagle is. With the talons extended out front and the wings fully in the back position ready to apply as much force as possible to striking and clamping down on that fish, this eagle means business.
I’m competitive. My worst opponent is ME! When I compete against ME it is a knock ‘em dead, throw off the gloves, get down and all out dirty competition. I am my own worst enemy!
I never played sports like my other siblings. I was the ‘Artsy’ one.
However, I learned quickly the art of the committed Mama, cheerleader when our son played sports - though my husband, sometimes, chose not to sit with me. I remember the tension in one of the games our son played. It was a tied score with only a few seconds left on the clock. In that moment nothing else in the Universe mattered. I couldn’t take it. I got out of my seat and I summoned up with all my being the years of learning projection as a Drama Major at University and I yelled out to my son and made him a monetary offer he couldn’t refuse if he got the winning point. He moved as if in slow motion and with the stealth and ease of a honed athlete made the buzzer beater point.
Our side of the gym was giddy with laughter.
What does that have to do with the Lynx? Well, again, I was driving -
and again, Philip had the long lens. He was doing something with his camera when I slammed on the brakes.
This is the part of photography that I need to faithfully exercise. More discipline. My brain knows what to do but my emotions,
my voice and the adrenaline can get the better of me. I know I need to breathe. I know I need to practise more restraint. In my defence, I get so enthralled with seeing something so incredibly beautiful.
A couple of weeks ago I was the first to spot two of the largest moose that I had ever seen. I know they didn’t see me but they heard my squeals of delight. I was still in the jeep. They did not stick around to see what all the excitement was about…
Philip was totally unprepared but managed to jump out of the jeep when he too, spied the Lynx.
The Lynx appeared amused at the people who broke the humdrum of his otherwise boring day. It sat and watched the scene unfold…
The man was fumbling with something long and shiny as he got out of the vehicle. He cautiously moved closer and closer to him. Then the woman got out of the vehicle.
The man appeared agitated and was saying he had the wrong
settings - whatever that meant. The woman started pleading with the man. She claimed ownership and said it was her Lynx. She said she wanted the big long lens. The man kept pointing that thing at him.
The lady was emotional and started crying. She went back to the vehicle and brought out another big shiny thing. She pointed that thing at him too. Now two things were pointed at him but he just sat there, amused, waiting to see what other tricks they could do.
A few minutes later, the man gave the long thing to the lady. She stopped crying but then she started saying words he never heard before. She asked the man if he had the Extender on the lens.
The man said no, and she said she couldn’t focus. She was really mad. She said something about the photo of the year. Then the man took the long thing from her and he pointed it again. Then he said something about the focus point had been moved to the left and that’s why she couldn’t get the focus right. Now the lady was crying and laughing at the same time! These humans! They were so comical! He would stick around for a few more minutes and give them his best smile.
Even though the Lynx graced us with his presence for a good fifteen
minutes, we still did not get the shots that we should have gotten.
A comedy of errors that we need to learn from. I knew before I even checked that I did not get the shot. I was devastated. We had been given a gift and messed up the opportunity.
I was miserable for the rest of the night. I played the experience over and over again in my head as we drove the next four hours home. How could we have missed those shots? We were so close we could have pet him!
At the end of the day I have to reconcile that we were incredibly fortunate to have experienced a visit from a Lynx.
We do feel the necessity to save and invest in another lens. In the meantime though, I am relieved and feel very lucky that my husband still loves me and that despite my shortcomings, he still enjoys going on adventures with me - even in the same jeep!
The character as well as the fortunes of the gospel is committed to the preacher. He makes or mars the message from God to man. The preacher is the golden pipe through which the divine oil flows. The pipe must not only be golden, but open and flawless, that the oil may have a full, unhindered, unwasted flow.
The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon. The preacher makes the sermon. As the life-giving milk from the mother’s bosom is but the mother’s life, so all the preacher says is tinctured, impregnated by what the preacher is. The treasure is in earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel impregnates and may discolor. The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.
Paul termed it “My gospel;” not that he had degraded it by his personal eccentricities or diverted it by selfish appropriation, but the gospel was put into the heart and lifeblood of the man Paul, as a personal trust to be executed by his Pauline traits, to be set aflame and empowered by the fiery energy of his fiery soul. Paul’s sermons—what were they? Where are they? Skeletons, scattered fragments, afloat on the sea of inspiration! But the man Paul, greater than his sermons, lives forever, in full form, feature and stature, with his molding hand on the Church. The preaching is but a voice. The voice in silence dies, the text is forgotten, the sermon fades from memory; the preacher lives.
The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher.
Edward M. Bounds, Power through Prayer (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1999).
These birds are focused downward and have committed to the drop down to the pond in a steep descent... more a free fall drop (i.e., parachute) than a glide-in. This shot against a cloudy western sunset sky results in a silhouette view of the crane against the sky... but if you're familiar with these birds such shots offer no difficulty regarding their ID. The sky colors deepen so rapidly, and the bird groups continually arrive... you need to be constantly shooting to capture the ever changing spectacle! All of the subsequent shots this evening will be of silhouettes of the Cranes against the sky background.
IMG_8110; Committed To Land
Committed to Ilford HP5+ using a Leica M6 and 50 mm Summicron v3 lens. Developed using Ars-Imago FD as per the Massive Dev chart and scanned with an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion and contrast done with Negative Lab Pro. Dust removal and further contrast adjustment in Photoshop.
Committed to Ilford HP5+ pushed to 800 using a Leica M6 and 35 mm Summicron v3 lens. Developed using Ars-Imago FD as per the Massive Dev chart and scanned with an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion and contrast done with Negative Lab Pro.
Three orthodox Jews protesting against Israeli atrocities committed against Palestinians. They had joined other demonstrators, who were angry at the failure of British authorities to arrest Ehud Barack, the butcher of Gaza, who was scheduled to give a talk at the Jewish Community Centre on Finchley Road to promote his memoirs.
[ Just in case anyone is interested I have attached a link to my research on British crimes against both Arabs and Jews in Palestine during the mandate period - 1919-1948. Use the following url and scroll down the list of countries alphabetically for Palestine - roguenation.org/choose-by-country/ ]
The police, instead of arresting Ehud Barak, had been instructed to protect him !
Barak was Israel's Minister of Defence during Operation Cast Lead (also known as the Gaza massacre) in 2008-9, during which, according to United Nations figures, 1417 Palestinian were killed, the vast majority of them (926) civilians including 344 children, 250 police officers, civil defence works and ambulance drivers.
A passing out parade of police officers was deliberately targeted in the opening surprise aerial assault on 27 December. Civilian infrastructure was also targeted. Over half of Gaza's hospitals were seriously damaged or destroyed as well as tens of thousands of homes, half a million people were deprived of running water and a million people without any electric supply.
It is interesting to note that recently Ehud Barak has himself accused the current Israeli government of having been hijacked by extremists. Last year he wrote a piece for the New York Times observing that "our country now finds its very future, identity and security severely threatened by the whims and illusions of the ultranationalist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
The demonstrators were however unwilling to trust a suspected war criminal now portraying himself as a moderate and they were also angry that two weeks earlier,
on Monday 14th May 2018, 61 unarmed Palestinians, including several children and a baby, were killed by the Israeli army, most of them shot dead by precision snipers during a demonstration close to Gaza's border fence, although some may also have been killed by the excessive us of CS gas.
Apart from the shocking number of fatalities, over 2,000 Palestinians were injured (including at least eight journalists) on the same day; over one thousand of them by live ammunition. On the same day, the United States had moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move which is a clear violation of international law. US president Donald Trump called it a "great day for Israel."
On the following day several hundred protesters had gathered in central London opposite Downing Street to protest against both the ongoing Israeli crimes against the population of Gaza and the West Bank and also British diplomatic and military support for Israel. Since 2014, the UK government has exported 445 million dollars worth of arms to the country, including components for fighter aircraft, helicopters and sniper rifles.
People in the demonstration on 15 May had expressed anger at the Israseli army's use of lethal force against unarmed protesters over the previous few weeks, which had resulted in the death of 111 demonstrators and thousands of civilian casualties. Needless to say not a single Israeli soldier had been injured and one of the Palestinians killed, Yasser Murtada, was a well respected journalist who had previously worked for the BBC, and was clearly wearing a PRESS jacket at the moment he was shot in the chest by a carefully aimed sniper's bullet.
He, like others, was also killed some distance from the illegally erected border/prison fence which isolates the population of Gaza from both their family relatives and any chance of gainful economic employment in wealthier areas. That's why the popular anology which compares Israel to South African apartheid is highly misleading because in South Africa, at least the white population needed the blacks as workers, even if they committed appalling atrocities, but in Israel the Palestinian population are neither needed nor wanted by Israeli employees.
Palestinians are treated worse than dogs, to whom humans tend to show some sympathy, but rather as unworthy of any consideration, so much so that past Israeli military operations against Gaza in which the planners know thousands of civilians are likely to die are given the military term "mowing the grass", because the Palestinian civilian population is considered of no more value in importance, than the ants one might tread underfoot when one ventures into the garden.
Committed to Ilford HP5+ using a Leica M6 and 35 mm Summicron v3 lens. Developed using Ars-Imago FD as per the Massive Dev chart and scanned with an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion and contrast done with Negative Lab Pro.
Three orthodox Jews protesting against Israel's continued construction of illegal settlements and its atrocities committed against Palestinians. They had joined other demonstrators, who were angry at the failure of British authorities to arrest Ehud Barak, the butcher of Gaza, who was scheduled to give a talk at the Jewish Community Centre on Finchley Road to promote his memoirs.
[ Just in case anyone is interested I have attached a link to my research on British crimes against both Arabs and Jews in Palestine during the mandate period - 1919-1948. Use the following url and scroll down the list of countries alphabetically for Palestine - roguenation.org/choose-by-country/ ]
The police, instead of arresting Ehud Barak, had been instructed to protect him !
Barrack was Israel's Minister of Defence during Operation Cast Lead (also known as the Gaza massacre) in 2008-9, during which, according to United Nations figures, 1417 Palestinian were killed, the vast majority of them (926) civilians including 344 children, 250 police officers, civil defence works and ambulance drivers.
A passing out parade of police officers was deliberately targeted in the opening surprise aerial assault on 27 December. Civilian infrastructure was also targeted. Over half of Gaza's hospitals were seriously damaged or destroyed as well as tens of thousands of homes, half a million people were deprived of running water and a million people without any electric supply.
It is interesting to note that recently Ehud Barak has himself accused the current Israeli government of having been hijacked by extremists. Last year he wrote a piece for the New York Times observing that "our country now finds its very future, identity and security severely threatened by the whims and illusions of the ultranationalist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
The demonstrators were however unwilling to trust a suspected war criminal now portraying himself as a moderate and they were also angry that two weeks earlier, on Monday 14th May 2018, 61 unarmed Palestinians, including several children and a baby, were killed by the Israeli army, most of them shot dead by precision snipers during a demonstration close to Gaza's border fence, although some may also have been killed by the excessive us of CS gas.
Apart from the shocking number of fatalities, over 2,000 Palestinians were injured (including at least eight journalists), over one thousand of them by live ammunition. On the same day, the United States had moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move which is a clear violation of international law. US president Donald Trump called it a "great day for Israel."
On the following day several hundred protesters had gathered in central London opposite Downing Street to protest against both the ongoing Israeli crimes against the population of Gaza and the West Bank and also British diplomatic and military support for Israel. Since 2014, the UK government has exported 445 million dollars worth of arms to the country, including components for fighter aircraft, helicopters and sniper rifles.
People in the demonstration on 15 May had expressed anger at the Israseli army's use of lethal force against unarmed protesters over the previous few weeks, which had resulted in the death of 111 demonstrators and thousands of civilian casualties. Needless to say not a single Israeli soldier had been injured and one of the Palestinians killed, Yasser Murtada, was a well respected journalist who had previously worked for the BBC, and was clearly wearing a PRESS jacket at the moment he was shot in the chest by a carefully aimed sniper's bullet.
He, like others, was also killed some distance from the illegally erected border/prison fence which isolates the population of Gaza from both their family relatives and any chance of gainful economic employment in wealthier areas. That's why the popular anology which compares Israel to South African apartheid is highly misleading because in South Africa, at least the white population needed the blacks as workers, even if they committed appalling atrocities, but in Israel the Palestinian population are neither needed nor wanted by Israeli employees.
Palestinians are treated worse than dogs, to whom humans tend to show some sympathy, but rather as unworthy of any consideration, so much so that past Israeli military operations against Gaza in which the planners know thousands of civilians are likely to die are given the military term "mowing the grass", because the Palestinian civilian population is considered of no more value in importance, than the ants one might tread underfoot when one ventures into the garden.
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In a nation criminalising dissent, these two protesters committed their "crime" in broad daylight: they held a sign. Their simple placards directly challenge a government that prosecutes peaceful protesters under terror laws while remaining complicit in an assault that has systematically killed over 63,000 Palestinians. They acted in defiance of a state that ignores the deliberate weaponisation of starvation which created a confirmed famine in Gaza.
Their stance isn't radical; it reflects a powerful academic and human rights consensus. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, and even Israeli human rights groups have all concluded that Israel is committing genocide. The deep, weary but determined resolve on their faces is a silent testament to a profound moral clarity, a refusal to be silenced in the face of the gravest of all war crimes - genocide.
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Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience
Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.
They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.
On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.
As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.
This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?
The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.
Direct Action and the State’s Response
Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.
Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.
That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site. Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers.
These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.
The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza.
For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”
Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.
By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence.
Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.
Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.
But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.
The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime. The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.
Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial
It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.
The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.
At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.
The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign. By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.
Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.
www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/
Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.
The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation. Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.
The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All
To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.
It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion.
For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.
The Price of Dissent
The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.
The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.
The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.
The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.
In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.
Committed to expired Fujifilm Superia 100 using a Leica M6 and 28 mm Summicron ASPH lens. Developed using a C-41 kit from Ars-Imago and scanned using an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion, colour and levels done with Negative Lab Pro.
I wanted a long and committed relationship with my Canon EF 200mm f1.8L lens, but alas, the lens didn't want that. I had it only a few years before the USM focus motor fried, with the distance setting fixed at 4.5 meters. Everything else still works. I can change the aperture, take a picture and it still came out tack sharp and beautiful as it has always been. But it won't AF or even manual focus, as the lens was designed as focus-by-wire that requires the ultrasonic motor to function in order for the lens to focus manually.
No parts to fix it. Even with parts, it would cost more than $1000 to fix.
It's a sad and costly love affair that didn't last. I still love the lens, and hope that I can find someway to get it to focus manually, like putting the lens on a focus helicoid as Ian suggested.
I committed to post 8 images of each model... I have 5 more after this one.. I hope you all enjoy them..
This image is a product of one of two studio sessions I participated in recently. One night we shot High Key and the next night we shot Low Key. I will post them with alternating styles and models.
One of my good friends here on Flickr didn't know what High Key and Low Key lighting was. I wrote him a quick description that he found very helpful, so I thought I would share it here for those who might be interested.
This is a quick overview... Both High Key images and Low Key images make an intensive use of contrast, but in a very different way. When approaching a shoot of a dramatic portrait, the decision of making it a High Key, Low Key or "just" a regular image has great impact about the mood that this picture will convey. While High Key images are considered happy and will show your subject as a tooth-paste poster; Low Key portraits are dramatic and convey a lot of atmosphere and tension.
Click here to visit Steve Page Photography on FaceBook
Click on image or hit your "L" key to View On Black
This photo is of Alex, a veteran and dedicated activist committed to progressive causes - here protesting against Assange's continued imprisonment and extradition.
Thousands of people gathered around the British parliament on Saturday 8 October 1922 to form the first ever human chain to surround the building to protest against Julian Assange's continued imprisonment and extradition. Many of the activists had travelled hundreds of miles - I met people who had travelled from Belgium, France and Germany.
The long line of people snaked around parliament's perimeter railings and across both Lambeth and Westminster bridges as well as traversing the south side of the river between St. Thomas' Hospital and Lambeth Palace, each person holding the hand of the person next to them. As a few people attached yellow ribbons to the railings by parliament they were immediately instructed by the police to remove them.
For the last eight months Julian Assange, who is being held in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison, has been kept completely isolated and without visitors, except for his lawyers. He been detained in appalling conditions and the former UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Neils Melzer, commented in 2019 that Assange showed 'all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture,' adding that 'what we have seen from the UK Government is outright contempt for Mr Assange's rights and integrity.'
www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2019/11/un-expert-torture...
The United States wants to extradite Julian Assange to the United States on a supposed charge of espionage. However, Assange's real crime is that he revealed US and Western war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. As the founder and chief editor of Wikileaks he has provoked Washington's fury by the publication of US Army intelligence files leaked by Chelsea Manning in 2010 as well as subsequent revelations which have embarrassed the American establishment, including Democratic Party emails which showed how senior officials in the party's national committee favoured Hilary Clinton over the more progressive and radical Bernie Sanders.
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel signed off on the extradition request earlier in the year, but that order is currently being appealed by Assange's lawyers, who are awaiting a decision by the High Court on whether they will agree to hear it.
As far as I understand it, the remit of the appeal has been restricted to examining the United States' claimed legal promises on how Assange will be treated, rather than to the wider issues of freedom of speech, the CIA plot to assassinate him, the extent to which the evidence against him has obviously been fabricated or as to whether his treatment in Belmarsh Prison has amounted to torture.
The former Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, attended Saturday's protest, as did the former leader of Unite, Len McLuskey, the independent (former Labour Party MP) Claudia Webbe, the comedian and actor Russel Brand and Mr Assange's wife, Stella. According to the Morning Star and the Evening Standard, Corbyn said
"I would say to MPs of any party, you're there to represent democracy and rights. That's what you sign up for. If Julian Assange is extradited, it will set forth fear among other journalists of doing anything to expose the truth. It becomes self-censorship of journalists all around the world. They'll say, 'hang, on, I'm not touching that, look what happened to Julian Assange.'"
morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/thousands-gather-human-...
www.standard.co.uk/news/london/russell-brand-julian-assan...
If Assange is convicted in the United States on the charges of espionage for exposing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as other wrongdoing by the United States and other governments, he faces up to 175 years in prison. Two days after the protest, it was reported that Assange had contracted covid.
109,000 miles at the last MOT and masses of fails and advisories in recent years.
A rare car which someone is obviously committed to keeping on the road, and that is always nice to see.
July 20th. Family is everything. I thought we'd do a family shot for the last pic in the theme of 'commit'. This is the first ever family jofolo pic on Flickr (and Ipernity) and also the first Mr jofolo shot. I should do more of these for the family album - they grow up so fast. It's hard to believe our eldest is now 15. We found out I was pregnant with her very early in our non married life, but you know when something is right. It was the push we both needed to settle. The next two followed very quickly and then we managed to get married before number four made her appearance. My lovely hubby and the kids (and the house, garden, and the dogs and cats and guinea pigs and frogs) are the biggest commitment I have ever made. And I love it!
Oh and after the serious shot we did the zombie shot in comments!
i have also chosen this as my weekly shot for the non themed 52s. week 29
Mais um livro novo: Committed - em português - Comprometida. Mesma autora de Comer, Amar e Rezar. (Bem mulherzinha, eu sei). Mais meu controle remote que chegou ontem. Já foi testado e aprovado! :)
Mais uma foto nos comentários!!!
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Books in Control
Another new book: Committed. Ok, very girly, I know! Also, my remote control that has arrived yesterday. I've tested and approved! So cool! :)
One more photo in the comments!!!
Committed to Lomography Babylon using a Leica M3 and 50 mm Summicron dual-range lens. Developed using Ars-Imago R9 (rodinal) 1:99 in a semi-stand process for 80 minutes and scanned with an Epson V850 using Silverfast. Positive conversion and contrast done with Negative Lab Pro.
Get Carter is a 1971 British gangster film, written and directed by Mike Hodges in his directorial debut and starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, John Osborne, Britt Ekland and Bryan Mosley. Based on Ted Lewis's 1970 novel Jack's Return Home, the film follows the eponymous Jack Carter (Caine), a London gangster who returns to his hometown in North East England to learn about his brother's supposedly accidental death. Suspecting foul play, and with vengeance on his mind, he investigates and interrogates, regaining a feel for the city and its hardened-criminal element.
Producer Michael Klinger optioned Lewis's novel shortly after its publication and made a deal with the ailing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to finance and release the film, making Get Carter the last project to be approved by the studio's Borehamwood division before its closure. The production went from novel to finished film in ten months, with principal photography taking place from July to September 1970 in and around Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and County Durham. Hodges, Klinger and Caine intended to create a more realistic portrayal of violence and criminal behaviour than had previously been seen in British films: Caine, who also served as an uncredited co-producer, incorporated aspects of criminal acquaintances into his characterisation of Carter, while Hodges conducted research into the criminal underworld of Newcastle (in particular the one-armed bandit murder). Cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky worked with Hodges to give scenes a naturalistic feel, drawing heavily on their backgrounds in documentary films.
Turning a respectable profit upon its initial UK release, Get Carter initially attracted mixed reviews. Critics begrudgingly appreciated the film's technical achievements and Caine's performance while criticizing the complex plot, violence and amorality, in particular Carter's apparent lack of remorse for his actions. American critics were generally more enthusiastic, but the film languished on the drive-in circuit, while MGM focused its resources on producing Hit Man, a blaxploitation-themed remake of the film.
Get Carter eventually garnered a cult following, and further endorsements from directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie led to the film being critically re-evaluated, with its depiction of class structure and life in 1970s Britain and Roy Budd's minimalist jazz score receiving considerable praise. In 1999, Get Carter was ranked 16th on the BFI Top 100 British films of the 20th century; five years later, a survey of British film critics in Total Film magazine chose it as the greatest British film of all time. A poorly received second remake under the same title was released in 2000, with Sylvester Stallone portraying Jack Carter and Caine in a supporting role.
Sir Michael Caine CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English retired actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films over a career spanning eight decades and is considered a British film icon. He has received numerous awards including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. As of 2017, the films in which Caine has appeared have grossed over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in five different decades. In 2000, he received a BAFTA Fellowship and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
Often playing a Cockney, Caine made his breakthrough in the 1960s with starring roles in British films such as Zulu (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), The Italian Job (1969), and Battle of Britain (1969). During this time he established a distinctive visual style wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses combined with sharp suits and a laconic vocal delivery; he was recognised as a style icon of the 1960s. He solidified his stardom with roles in Get Carter (1971), The Last Valley (1971), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), and A Bridge Too Far (1977).
Caine received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles as Elliot in Woody Allen's comedy Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and as Dr. Wilbur Larch in Lasse Hallström's drama The Cider House Rules (1999). His other Oscar-nominated films include Alfie (1966), Sleuth (1972), Educating Rita (1983), and The Quiet American (2002). Other notable performances include in the films California Suite (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Little Voice (1998), Quills (2000), Children of Men (2006), Harry Brown (2009), and Youth (2015).
Caine is also known for his performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), and for his comedic roles in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), Miss Congeniality (2000), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), and Secondhand Lions (2003). Caine portrayed Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy (2005–2012). He has also had roles in five other Nolan films: The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), and Tenet (2020). He announced his retirement from acting in October 2023, with his final film being The Great Escaper, which came out in the same month.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
The other Europe with Tsipras -L' altra europa con Tsipras- η άλλη Ευρώπη με τον Τσίπρα
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done for Working Towards a Better World ❤️ WTBW ❤️
Angela Merkel said:
The willingness to learn new skills is very high
Politicians have to be committed to people in equal measures
When it comes to human dignity, we cannot make compromises
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Notional sun of justice
and you glorifying myrtle
don’t please don’t
forget my homeland! (poetry by Odysseas Elytis)
Της δικαιοσύνης ήλιε νοητέ
και μυρσίνη εσύ δοξαστική
μη παρακαλώ σας μη
λησμονάτε τη χώρα μου (ποίηση : Οδυσσέας Ελύτης)
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This wasp committed himself to the Southern Baptist tradition of total immersion. I thought he was extinct. He might have been a lapsed Episcopalian. I flipped him out of the baptismal font with an olive fork. He shook his wings and flew for home. He was lucky that I was sipping Argentinian torrontes and not Mexican
tequila!
Stand by for leggings
If I post every day in November, at least seventy-five percent of the outfits are going to feature leggings. They are my favorite for days spent at home.
Paying the yearly hosting fees for this site caused me to pause and wonder if I even want to continue. Working from home, I rarely shower before noon, let alone put on “real” clothes. I need a challenge to motivate me to continue with OOTD posts, so I’ve committed to dressing daily for the month of November. I call it “Every Day November.” Expect a lot of leggings, hats, and inappropriate footwear.
Hat, Eddy Bros. (thrifted). Sweater, H&M (thrifted). Skirt, London Jean. Leggings, Mono B. Boots, Gypsy Soule x Ariat. Earrings, flea market. Belt, thrifted.
First one of 9 Combat Jumpers exiting the DC3 D-Day Doll airplane during the 2014 Wings over Camarillo Airshow. This guy even has a smile on his face!
Handheld pan shot from the ground.
This lone bird has committed to join flock feeding on the flattened corn is this field. Lots of flight action occurs in the early morning and late evening hours. The birds here are in continual movement between their feeding grounds and roost areas. Many flights are singles like with this bird, but they also often travel on short hops in small groups. The larger gatherings are generally for the intended longer flights or, perhaps when the entire feeding flock is spooked by something like a coyote attack.
IMG_9094; Sandhill Crane
Well I tried to do some Portraits of this group this year, and I did them in B&W as it fits their motif. This is my first time doing a portrait session like this, so I am grateful for the chance to do this.
Strobist info:
ISO 200
f 4
Shutter 1/10th
Ambient light to the right, a Canon 480 EXII flash to the left with a Firefly Softbox fired using a Hahnel Trigger.
BASICS: Nevada Youth Training Center, Elko, NV. Rated at 110 beds. At time of visit there were 91 kids there, all male. NYTC is a rural facility, with 30-25 acres next to the highway. Average length of stay is 6.5 months. Levels are defined by uniforms. The kids are taken out to clear trails in Lemoille canyon. The director, Joe Payne, says they love it.
PICTURED: youths lining up to go to lunch in a cafeteria. The orange jumpsuits designate flight risks.