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New York, February 2004: On my way back to Dublin, I stopped in New York… There had been a blizzard but the Empire State beckoned… Completed in 1931 in distinctive Art Deco style- its roof height at 381 meters (with antenna included 443.2m high)- it’s still one of the highest buildings on the planet- at number 22.
Wellington, NZ, Dec 2012: I’ve donated this framed print, a one off monochrome version of “Solo”, for the Phil Jacobs Benefit Auction. As is the way, it looks a lot more impressive in print format (C-type) and framed. It could be yours if you bid for it on New Zealand’s version of Ebay. It would make a great, if belated Christmas present… Click this link to go direct to the auction…
I’ve known Phil for a number of years, he lives literally around the corner from me… He’s always been generous with his time, combining his incredible technical ability, with an infectious sense of humour. He’s helped me out on a number of occassion’s, one time fixing a Rolleiflex I had with a sticky shutter. Ten minutes later it was fixed – no charge…
“For more than thirty years Phil Jacobs has been Wellington’s pre-eminent camera repair technician. Almost every photographer who has worked in this city will have used his services at some time or another, and in an indirect but important way he has made a significant contribution to photography as an art form, a business, and a means of personal and social expression. Sadly, Phil is now seriously ill. He has had to cease work and we understand that his life expectancy is limited. This has put him and his family under major financial pressure.
As a benefit for Phil and his family we have organised a photography auction—both a live event that took place on Fri 30 November, and this on-line auction for which we have received generous support from TradeMe.
We have a large number of generously donated photographs. In bidding—and buying!—you will be supporting someone who in his own way has played an important part in our creative and professional lives over several decades.”
Thank you
James Gilberd, Mark Beehre, John Williams
Tataraimaka, Taranaki, New Zealand, September 2012.
Horowhenua NZ, Sept 2012: It’s virtually impossible to find any information about this place.
But what I do know, thanks to my father (who seems to know something about everything)- is that it was a former Catholic borstal/school for “bad girls”
It was created sometime in the 1950′s by an order of nuns.
I managed to contact the owner of the property in Australia, in the vague hope of gaining permission to document the site…
He was very hostile to my idea- probably because the site is an absolute disgrace- and gave me his answer as a definitive “no”…
Oradour-sur-Glane, France, 2004: The remains of the original village of Oradour-sur-Glane stand today as a memorial to one of the worse atrocities ever to occur in France…
On the 10th of June 1944 the 2nd SS Panzer Division (Das Reich)- heading north from Toulouse after the D-Day landings- sealed off the town and ordered all the residents to assemble in the village square.
The SS had confused Oradour-sur-Glane with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres, where the Resistance allegedly held a Waffen SS officer captive.
All the women and children were locked in the church while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to barns and sheds where machine-gun nests were already in place.
The SS proceeded to the church and exploded an incendiary device killing most of the women and children, the survivors tried to escape through the doors and windows of the church, only to be met with machine-gun fire.
Virtually the entire village was massacred, 642 innocent people lost their lives…
Oradour-sur-Glane in context is just one of many memorials to Europe’s recent murderous past- Bosnia being an ugly modern reminder…
