A few days ago I came across a post from the Belfast Photo Festival on Instagram. To be honest, I don't usually linger and do what most people do, I just keep swiping through the never-ending stream of images that come my way. This time I got stuck in my thoughts and memories. I'm turning 60 this year, I've been taking photographs since I was 15 and Northern Ireland and Belfast are memories and experiences that in a way have made me the photographer I still am today. The next day I went to my studio and picked up all my vintage prints, including a large portfolio of 50x60cm prints that I had enlarged in several night shifts together with Tomo Muscionico for an exhibition we had together in the early 90s. I hadn't seen many of these pictures for years and only a few had been digitised over recent years.
A boy is passing by through one of the countless alleys and hallways connecting the different sections of Divis Flats. Belfast, 1989
The flats were the centre of much IRA through the Troubles. Rioters would entice soldiers to give chase into an arena from which their fighting could be viewed by hundreds of people on the balconies. Later joyriders used the space in the same way, to perform before an audience. Belfast, 1989
I started early in the morning, worked my way through the archive and reproduced the pictures that seemed good and interesting enough. I was unexpectedly struck by the idea that it might be interesting to be able to show these pictures 35 years later in the place where they were taken. Only a few of the photographs I took back then ever found their way to Belfast. I visited Northern Ireland several times over a number of years and occasionally brought a print back as a present to some of the people I was either staying with or I photographed. But the whole body of work was never published or exhibited outside of Switzerland.
Night view of a section of the Peace Line, separating Republican Lower Falls from Unionist Shankill Road. Originally few in numbers peace walls have multiplied to around 60 located in Belfast only. Belfast, 1989
A group of boys carrying placards with the names of relatives who were members of the IRA and have died in their fight against the British occupation. Troops Out March, Belfast, 1989
I realise, of course, that Northern Ireland has been haunted by hundreds of photographers, just like me, and that there were important local efforts to document, represent and reflect on their own identity, history and memory with initiatives like Belfast Exposed founded in the 80s. Nevertheless, there are some decent images I have looked at for the past few days that sent me down memory lane and made me research the histories and details of some of the stories and subject I was pointing my camera to at the time. An insight into one's own history as seen by an inconspicuous outsider.
Encampment, Glen Road, Belfast, 1990
And an outsider I was. It was my first assignment as a photojournalist, not that I had one - I gave it to myself. I was really serious about it and I even quit my punk band. We had just released a record when I decided to definitely exchange my guitar for the camera and leave my musician friends behind. I realised that my ambitions in music were not compatible with my desire to immerse myself in the world of photojournalism.
I bought some packs of Tri-X bulk material and filled my film rolls myself. That was the cheapest. The money was just enough for the flight to Belfast where I stayed together with Tomo in the university halls. There you could rent a room cheaply during the half-term holidays. We were there for the Marching Season. It started for us with the Twelfth of July in Belfast, the most important and biggest event for the Unionists/Loyalists which celebrates the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Shortly after our arrival, we realised that we were not alone. Chris Steele-Perkins and Gilles Peress were both there (two magnum photographers who had already covered this conflict for two decades) and a little later James Nachtwey joined us, along with of course numerous other journalists and camera crews with lesser known names. Together with Tomo, I felt like a student and our classroom was the streets of Belfast. Many of the photographers of my generation are now making a name for themselves with workshops and so-called masterclasses to keep their heads above water - these offers are usually not cheap. Here I was able to soak it up for free.
I was suddenly standing next to Gilles Peress, there was probably no photographer at the time that I admired more than him. A copy of Telex Iran stood in a place of honour on my bookshelf at home, my photo book collection was otherwise rather modest. I was fascinated by the combination of French intellectual and photographer that was attributed to Peress. Here was a photographer with a background in political science and philosophy who, in the spirit of Jacques Derrida, was trying to deconstruct the language and the associated conventions of photojournalism. I probably only understood half of it, but I was entranced and felt an invisible connection with a kindred spirit. We didn't talk much.
I can hardly remember how we managed to get the necessary information and find out where to look, where to be, what was important and relevant. It was all about being in the right place at the right time. Essentially, our days consisted of long, hour-long walks and trying to immerse ourselves in a universe that consisted of two poles that were in close proximity to each other. Crossing the border between the Republican, Catholic area of Lower Falls Road and the Loyalist, Protestant Shankill neighbourhood beyond a partially visible but often non-existent wall was like a surreal act that was possible for us photographers, but denied or even forbidden to the people we were now photographing and talking to on a daily basis.
Following a demonstration on the republican side against the British Internment Act of the early 1970s, riots and skirmishes break out between demonstrators and the RUC and army in the New Lodge area. In the course of these clashes, an RUC shoots a plastic bullet at a group of people from a short distance. The bullet hits 15-year-old Seamus Duffy in the chest. He dies at the scene.
More than 150 officers were deployed after unrest in the area of New Lodge, but police later left the bonfire because of the "risks to innocent bystanders" posed by their presence - so they said.
Northern Secretary, Peter Brooke, made a public statement on plastic bullets in which he pre-empted any inquiry stating that: 'There are no grounds for suggesting their use last night was other than in accordance with the law'. The bullet that struck Seamus was fired, according to the pathologist, from a distance of 6 to 7 metres. The RUC statements, which were read to the court, said that they had been fired at distance of 43 meters.
The scene in the immediate neighborhood of the shooting was chaotic and tense. In the meantime I had hooked up with James Nachtwey. It was unclear if there was actual shooting with life ammunition between the lines and houses. People were shouting and screaming. Nachtwey seemed unshaken and was trying to convince people to go home and get out of harms way, as if he were the local chief coordinator of the Red Cross. The weather was lousy, cold and raining. My Barbour jacket started to leak in water and the cowboy boots I was wearing were soaking wet, uncomfortable and stupid.
Together we were forced to take long detours to avoid any RUC or Army checkpoint because we were both afraid of possibly having confiscated and loosing the rolls of film we had shot that night. There I was, the novice photographer together with Jim Nachtwey, walking alone through a dark, rainy Belfast night. He was already legendary among photographers, yet the height of his fame was still to come. I tried to strike a conversation and expected to hear incredible stories and details around the making of some of his images I knew. Deeds of War by Nachtwey was another book on one of my bookshelves at home. I was not convinced of it and I did not understand why the images in that book (some of them masterful compositions, using the entire register of christian iconography) were completely devoid of any context and information. Now was the chance, I thought, to get him talking and learn from an experienced photojournalist. It did not happen, he did not talk, and if he did, I do not remember a single word of what he had to say. After a few hours we said good-bye to each other, he disappeared into the warm lobby of the Europa Hotel in the city center while I continued for another 2 Kilometers to reach the University halls where I stayed.
The repercussions of this event in the middle of the Marching Season were severe. A public funeral was announced, both of Seamus' parents took a stand (Kathleen and Brendan Duffy became prominent campagners against the use of plastic bullets) and even more journalists came to Belfast to cover the young victim's farewell. The sad and solemn occasion became a media spectacle, the camera crews tramping through the flower beds outside Seamus' family home and me in the middle of it, part of it, repulsed by the reckless behaviour of some members of the media and yet I was there to take pictures too.
The dignified grief of the family and mourners at plastic bullet victim Seamus Duffy’s funeral was shattered by the intrusive and disrespectful behaviour of the international press corps. Ballycarry Street, Oldpark, Belfast, 11 August 1989
Baseball capped Americans and European camera crews were clutching for ‘photo opportunities’ as they swamped Northern Ireland for the two anniversaries. They clambered over mourners, over walls and over people in their blinkered attempts to pursue the best angle. Milltown cemetery, Falls Road, Belfast, 11 August 1989
I came back to stay for a whole month in the Divis Flats. With the set of images I did during my first trip in July and August of 1989 I could convince the editors of the only Swiss weekly magazine I wanted to work for to commission a story from me. They didn’t go for it, I had no real track record to show them, but they liked what they saw and seemed genuinely interested. Again I disappeared into into the darkroom with bulk film material and came out with 50 rolls of Tri-X, cheap and cheerful.
To be continued. How I ended up living in the Divis Flats. How I learnt to use a slow cooker. How I got beaten up by announcement. How I was later compensated by the British Government.
