black and white photography by rob gardiner.

On Kawara is a Japanese conceptual artist famous for his ‘One Million
Years (Past)’ books- 10 bound books, each 200 pages long, containing a
list of the years from 998,031 BC to 1969 AD. ‘One Million Years
(Future)’ lists from 1981 AD to 1,001,980 AD. A bullet proof glass box
(large enough to fit several David Blaines) has been constructed in
Trafalgar Square, London. Taking turns, performers will read from the
books continuously for the next week, loudspeakers broadcasting to the
square. This is a 20 year exposure.

The work is supposed to challenge our sense of time, but in this
historic location it is the sense of space as much of time that is
under scrutiny. For the time I was there (22,222 AD to 22,242 AD) more
than 100 people stood on and watched, none closer than 20 feet. A small
child ran to the box and was hastily called back by the father. Dozens
climbed on the lions at the base of Nelson’s Column. I moved within
several inches to take this photograph and moments later security was
in my ear, demanding to know what I was doing ("Passing time"). Then
there is the fact that people are trapped in a tiny box in a location
famous for its open displays. It will be interesting to see how the
crowds react as the week passes by.

One year since the Iraq war began, tens of thousands of people gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to remember the year that has been and protest the UK’s continuing involvement in the war.

I was in New York this week last year, witnessing often violent demonstrations (March 22nd, March 20th, March 19th). The mood of the protestors one year later on this blustery rainy day in London was much more somber, and I hope some of that emotion comes through in the photographs.

There have been a series of interesting articles in the Guardian over the last week on photography and how the ease of digital manipulation is leading society to question the truthfulness of photos.

Spread over a news article and an interview, the artist David Hockney argues that photography can’t be trusted- “You’ve no need to believe a photograph made after a certain date because it won’t be made the way Cartier-Bresson made his. We know he didn’t crop them - he was the master of truthful photography. But you can’t have a photographer like that again because we know photographs can be made in different ways.”

But as Citigroup Photography Prize Winner for 2004 Joel Sternfeld says in today’s Guardian, “photographs have always been convincing lies“, the digital world has just made it less convincing. Even Cartier-Bresson manipulated the truth, by choosing the angle and composition and dodging and burning in the darkroom. Personally, I’ve always subscribed to Susan Sontag’s view that “Photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are“.