Archives de octobre, 2006

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Chadar – The frozen white carpet.

Up in the Himalayas, in the Ladakh region, the range stands tall, its name coming from the mighty river that runs through it, the River. In the winter the river freezes almost completely, the locals named it – Chadar – the frozen white carpet. As the river freezes it becomes the sole connection between the remote villages and the region’s capital Leh…

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Les chrétiens du Japon

Au XVII éme siècle, les shoguns interdisent les missionnaires, ceux qui refusent sont torturés, crucifiés ou brûlés vifs. La résistance s’organise et les croyants continuent à pratiquer dans l’ombre. Même si de nouveau le christianisme a été autorisé à la fin du XIX e siècle, certains perpétuent encore les rites des « chrétiens cachés »de peur de voir disparaître leurs traditions.

Le premier contact entre la France et le eut lieu grâce aux chrétiens et remonte à 1549. Cette année-là Saint François-Xavier débarque à Kagoshima et avec lui les évangiles. Au XVII éme siècle, les shoguns interdisent les missionnaires, ceux qui refusent sont torturés, crucifiés ou brûlés vifs. La résistance s’organise et les croyants continuent à pratiquer dans l’ombre. Même si de nouveau le christianisme a été autorisé à la fin du XIX e siècle, certains perpétuent encore les rites des « chrétiens cachés »de peur de voir disparaître leurs traditions. Aujourd’hui 5% des japonais se disent chrétiens. Petites églises où les bancs de prière font place à des tatamis. Des cathédrales comme à Nagasaki où les femmes pour la messe dominicale se couvrent de voiles en dentelles comme en Andalousie, églises futuristes de verre et béton où l’on peut suivre l’office sur grand écran ou encore des lieux plus intimistes où le prêtre n’est autre qu’un yakusa repenti et qui prêche la bonne parole au sein de la mafia nippone.

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Nouveau photographe diffusant par LIGHTMEDIATION: Jean Pierre Rey

… ses sujets seront prochainement sur le blog.

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Putin’s child soldiers

They are between the ages of 7 and 14 and come to learn how to fight in the ranks of paramilitary groups. These organizations, supported financially by the government, have multiplied in number since Putin came to power. Created in 1982 by veterans from the war in Afghanistan Cascade is Russia’s largest paramilitary organization for children. More than 8,000 child soldiers have already passed through the ranks of this organization. Officially, their objective is the education of « new Russian youth ». To create men of tomorrow by instilling real values in them: patriotism, and loyalty to the military. Their training is based essentially on a month of intense non-stop physical activity during the summertime. They train for more than 8 hours a day, stand watch at night, and have nocturnal drills and exercises. adopted in 2001, and which has the objective of restoring a disgraced army to its former glory. Because those who choose the army as a career are becoming more and more rare. For the past three years the number of draft dodgers has reached record heights. Poor treatment, murderous hazings, and the specter of Chechnya frightens away the draftees.

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The slaves of the sea

Thirteen years after the « moratorium » which prevented people from fishing cod in Newfoundland, the flotilla of trawlers fit for -fishing has almost completely disappeared. « Grande Hermine », a 65-meter long trawler began her career in St Pierre and Miquelon on big shoals around 20 years ago. It was the ultimate chapter of an adventure which lasted for over three centuries. The whole history of fishing in Normandy, Brittany, the Basque Country and of course Saint Pierre et Miquelon was built around trawler fishing and their departures for the Newfoundland shoals. The seamen have known for a long time that they are the last representatives of a profession which is doomed. They usually go fishing above the polar circle, in the Barents where the Norwegian coast guards keep them under strict control. There they are fishing, from 12 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, spending two to three months on some of the most hostile seas in the world, attracted by the « white gold » but above all passionate about a job that most of them have been doing since they were teenagers.

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©Teddy Seguin / LIGHTMEDIATION


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In the orchid’s factories

To transform a rare flower into bulk product, the Dutchmen did’nt hesitate to industrialize its culture. Visit of the European leader, close to Amsterdam, where 30 million orchids use to be born each year . The country of the tulip passes to the orchis. Kings of the horticulture, the Dutchmen deployed all their know-how to manufacture the orchis in great series. Result: a flourishing business. An incredible boom. With a sales turnover which increased by 35% in 2004, to reach 180 million euros, the Dutch orchis already monopolize the quarter of the flowers’s sales of the kingdom. Now, if anybody can find it everywhere in Europe, it is thanks to Kees Schone, young employer of the family company Floricultura. Its taste of the experimentation and its sense of the trade transformed a luxury flower into a bulk product.

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Juniors Sapper Firemen: when the dream becomes reality…


Who, in his youth, did not imagine one day becoming a ? A child’s dream which wont be very often a reality… Today, thanks to the creation young firemen sections, the dream becomes reality.

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Shipwrecks of the night

Hoping to find a better life in Europe, every year, dozens of men women and children die while tempting to cross the Strait of Gibraltar on board makeshift crafts, without anybody showing the slightest interest. Hardly twenty years ago, southern European countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece were exporting labor. During almost a century, these developing countries, who were experiencing a population explosion, pushed millions of poor people to move to the developed countries of Europe (France, Belgium, Germany, UK, Switzerland).The massive emigration was painful to families but beneficial for the countries’ economy. In the 1960s, the transfer of currencies of Spanish workers working abroad was, together with tourism, the first national resources. Today, these countries from southern Europe have become members of the EU and are part of the very select club of rich nations. They have reached a long-dreamt-of modernity and seem to have totally forgotten their past as lands of emigration as well as the humiliation and discrimination, which their citizens have had to endure abroad. For the past ten years, thousands of emigrants from western Africa and from the Maghreb are fleeing misery, under-development , wars… Risking their life, they cross deserts, a Straight and are the victims of dishonest smugglers, and end up as illegal immigrants exploited by slave traders of modern times who offer them illegal work, paying them a miserable amount of money, with no rights, no papers, no health care, no respect…It took me four years to make this photographic work and to better understand the route of suffering and fear which these men and women must take. I’ve followed and shared their journey on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, mostly in the cities and around Tarifa, Tangiers and the two Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla. For the thousands of candidates to the eldorado, the cities are the entry gates of illegal immigration to Europe.

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