unOrdinary Lives

Unordinary Lives, Afghanistan 2003 - 2009

2010-11-15T17:29:00.007+07:00

"While myths perpetuate of Afghans as war-mongering or ungovernable, these photographs serve to shatter those perceptions shed light on the lives of those devastated by the path and consequences of thirty years of conflict at the crossroads of three continents and a series of wars. These are the lives of people yearning for participation in a just order, to earn a decent living and access the most basic of services."

Clare Lockhart, co-founder and director of the Institute for State Effectiveness and co-author of the book Fixing Failed States

Finally, my work in Afghanistan, shot between the years 2003 and 2009, titled UNORDINARY LIVES, a sort of visual letters against war, a collection of stories of ordinary Afghans, that are not heard often enough, gathered in a book and an exhibition. The book for now only in Slovene language (published by Sanje publishers), but soon, inshallah, in English as well.

Dalai Lama in my lens

2010-08-08T04:47:00.005+07:00

I found this in my archive... it's from, well, the now seeming distant year of 2002, when the 14th Dalai Lama visited my little country under the Alps... it brought a smile upon my face, memories on my horizon and a thought for my mind:

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

Dalai Lama

Photo by MJ, Ljubljana 2002

With A Little Help from...

2010-07-24T19:33:00.003+07:00

... the summer gets magical...

Photo by MJ, Bohinj, Slovenia

Welcome to the real world

2010-05-12T18:03:00.005+07:00

Vivisectfest.org : Welcome to the real world

There may not be a big difference, not visible just now, but they certainly do make a difference. Check it out.

Photo by MJ, Exhibition part of Vivisect festival on human rights, Novi Sad, Serbia

Paris in Springtime

2010-05-06T16:05:00.006+07:00

I love Paris... in the springtime..

... when street musicians are everywhere, while wandering the streets on a pleasant Saturday afternoon ...

Photos by MJ

Slovenes in New York series Exhibition

2010-04-13T16:12:00.005+07:00

Slovene actor Klemen Novak, 31, in Central park, NY

Photo by: Manca Juvan

Series of portraits of Slovenes in New York that were part of my recent project are exhibited at Slovene Ministry of Culture in Ljubljana, Maistrova 10 (whomever is in Slovenia and wants to have a look). For others and those on the photos themselves are here on this link provided by the ministry.

Collateral Murder

2010-04-06T15:37:00.005+07:00

This is something we don't want to see, but we must.

How easy it is to kill, and get killed - especially if you are carrying a photo lens mistakenly identified as an RPG or a weapon, in Iraq. And more innocent lives are taken. Who is responsible?

Illuminations

2010-02-13T06:28:00.004+07:00

This was an unusual event. Father Andrew More O'Connor is an unusual man, an uncommon priest, a "fashion designer with an organic twist", an artist. His latest project was an illumination of facade that shows cosmology of the Church. Wearing the clothing which is then projected over the illumination in order to show the global relationships we share. As the concept intro explains: "It helps us feel solidarity with the Mayan as well as a unique binding of our 'social fabric' at a sacred place and a sacred time."

Oh, yes, such things... only in New York.. or so it seems.

Photo by MJ, Illuminations on St. Patrick Cathedral and Father Andrew

2010-02-08T11:20:00.002+07:00

There is Preseren's day celebrated here and there, in Slovenia and in New York. Songs are sang, poems recited and Slovene traditional food eaten. There is a crowd of actual Slovenes, Slovene descendants and Slovene spouses. They socialize and speak the Slovene language in all the funny ways it evolves with time, distance and mix of cultures.

Photo by MJ, church of St. Cyril, NY

The Soul Working Man

2010-02-08T07:15:00.000+07:00

Wow, The Soul Working Man, Slam Allen, on a live gig in NYC... music full of heart and soul, full of energy, woouw... a personal blues revival...

Photo by MJ, NYC

2010-02-03T00:35:00.002+07:00

Friends in NYC...

Photo by MJ, Madam Tussauds, New York

2010-01-25T22:58:00.001+07:00

Dorothea Lange, Kern county, California 1938

2010-01-22T22:25:00.002+07:00

These vagabond shoes

They are longing to stray

Right through the very heart of it

... ...., ... ....

F. Sinatra

p.s. not the view from my own roof, but sometime' s good to 'borrow'

Exploration

2010-01-19T21:30:00.004+07:00

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

T.S. Elliot

Photo by MJ

The Might Of Nature

2009-12-26T00:12:00.007+07:00

Christmas day. The nature showed its strength, with rain, rain and more rain. The waters rose, they flooded the ground. They spared some, not others. Instead of the whites that we all expected for the season, there's only the dirt gray streams left, reaching corners and places - borderless. The might of nature. Just the beginning. A Christmas gift.

Photo by MJ, Litija, Slovenia

Father Joe Maier- An American in Thailand

2009-12-10T18:18:00.005+07:00

Father Joe Maier. Heard of Him? I first read about this "urban guerilla priest" - as words of writer Jerry Hopkins in Bangkok Babylon describe him, upon my arrival to Thailand. I wanted to meet him and I did have a privilege to do so. A man in jeans and a T-shirt, a catholic priest, an amazing human character: warm, modest, humble and heart-felt, who IS making a difference. Thirty six years ago he co-founded The Human Development Foundation and the Mercy Centre (www.mercycentre.org), where he and the rest take care of street children, orphans, HIV infected, abused and trafficked children. They teach Mokan sea gypsy kids (with other muslim, buddhist and catholic children of Klong Thoey, the biggest slum in Bangkok) how to read and write and more, they teach them their OWN religion: how to respect their culture and beliefs of their elders. How to listen to others and how to be good. Amazingly so, it seems that in the 'mercy-land' individuals of different religious background ARE able to work together for the better tomorrow. It keeps me wondering why that isn't the case in the bigger world...

Photo by MJ

Roots, Stems and Branches

2009-11-27T17:06:00.003+07:00

They are so mighty. They are so full of life, of energy. They are. Prehistoric. Trees.

Sydney is a place full of amazing, inspiring and admiring roots, stems and branches.

The Mountain Took Him

2009-11-16T10:34:00.005+07:00

The mountain took him.

It was sometime in his youth when Tomaz Humar heard the call of the mountains for the first time, since then he became not only one of the most famous and accomplished Slovene mountaineers, his achievements placed him among the world's leading climbers.

I met and photographed him years ago, during a winter climbing exercise on an artificial ice wall in Slovenia, where he was climbing with no ropes, no protection, just he himself with crampons and an ice-axe. When a piece of ice hit his head and made him bleed, it was time for another round.

Yes, his handshake - which is something that people 'warned' me about earlier - was real, strong and powerful. His eyes were deep and full of light. His personality such a charisma, that made you stand in front of him in awe. It was his radiant love for life and fearlessness, and at the same time his humbleness, simplicity that struck me most.

His book "No Impossible Ways" , though not a climber myself, touched me profoundly.

He's gone now, one does not want to believe the call of the Langtang Lirung mountain was his final. In this life.

May he found peace.

Respect.

Photo by www.humar.com

The Third Sex: One, but not the same

2009-11-09T17:48:00.002+07:00

Finally I have uploaded on my web the recent project that kept me busy, while here in Thailand. It's about the kathoey or male-to-female transgender persons. They are more visible and more accepted here, than anywhere else I've been to, especially compared with the West or my little home-country Slovenia. Have a look: www.mancajuvan.com

Photo by MJ: Young kathoey

Mr Heart and his Horse

2009-10-12T12:45:00.004+07:00

It does not happen often that coincidence brings you to meet a person, an ordinary people, that stay with you long after that brief encounter. I will call him Mr. Heart, because, in a brief time spent together, he showed his openness to a total stranger, his warmth, love and respect... mind you that with a huge language barrier, which went me be amazed at how much it can be said even when - at best- only a couple of words of a common language can be shared and exchanged. But, this 47-years old man, who lost most of his teeth due to Thai boxing and who lost one of his three children to an accident, hasn't lost his horse. The moments of observation: the way he hugs him, kisses him, talks to him, buys water for himself and shares it with the horse, picks up a few rare grasses and offers it to him, and the way the horse responds to him, show there's a real bound between them. And there can not be other than a truthful bound between an animal and a man, when it comes to love. Either there is or there isn't. The animal's attitude proves it.

"Marco - my friend," says Mr Heart, introducing his horse while embracing his head and kissing the horse's forehead, "Number One."

Photos by MJ, Hua Hin beach, Thailand

Mythical Ogres

2009-10-07T11:57:00.009+07:00

These images of mythical ogres couldn't be but likable..... since they are, hmm, scary, but funny at the same time.... they represent characters in Ramakien - the Thai version of the Ramayana epic.... the murals itself are amazing work, full of mysterious, adventurous, exciting stories from a distant, faraway land... something we'd all want to live or we'd want at least daringly imagine it as part of our (hidden) adult life....

Photos of murals by MJ

Vertigo

2009-10-06T16:48:00.001+07:00

"No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness bellow us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."

- from 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' By Milan Kundera

E + P relationship

2009-10-04T13:47:00.004+07:00

It made me laugh so much, yes, because of the bitter truth that it reveals... for most of us, photographers, this editor - photographer relationship and some version... of the type of the dialog in this clip, is a daily basis reality. Makes you wonder why we do it?! Sometimes I wonder, too. Perhaps this time of no news&mag assignments is actually a bless.

2009-09-30T18:00:00.004+07:00

Do you believe? Do you give merit?

Good brings good and bad brings bad.

Photos by MJ - Thai Buddhist temple and Buddhist temple coins

Piece of art, ups, dessert

2009-09-15T11:29:00.005+07:00

Wow, what a piece of art, ups, dessert. Pure improvisation that enlightens the heart and awakens the senses. You never get this in a restaurant, you rarely get this at home, but what a pleasure it is when your spouse makes it just for you, especially for You. Mmmm....

Photo by MJ, Dessert Art by Chef Al

The Body

2009-09-11T19:37:00.004+07:00

The body. How many times have you looked at the human body without judging it? Just as a miracle of lines, of beauty... no matter the shapes it draws....it is unique, the body that caries our being.

Photo by MJ

The Purity Of Heart

2009-09-05T10:27:00.002+07:00

Just look at him, even if you don' t listen when he says things like "I don' t like labels" and "I'm just a being"....

Calypso

2009-08-31T14:24:00.010+07:00

A very famous (more so among foreigners) cabaret in Bangkok, where there's drama, comics, costumes, entertainment asian style and where... last, but not least... nobody is what/who it seems. Welcome among the Lady Boys.

Photos by MJ

2009-08-28T20:51:00.004+07:00

Late fragment

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Poem by Raymond Carver

Photo by MJ

Until When

2009-08-20T10:59:00.004+07:00

Afghans go to vote today - those who are courageous enough, those who can and those who must - the news has announced that the pools for the country's second presidential elections since the fall of the Taliban have opened.

But, I can' t seem to think more of the poem that I've read recently, written by an Afghan and one and only thing that ordinary Afghans really want, no matter under which president:

Until when?

Sighs and cries of Afghans until when

holes in the walls of our houses

trees and greenery of our motherland burning until when

our elderly, youth and children immigrating

intolerance and rivalry of people until when

the mothers with martyred children

tears falling from our beloved’s eyes until when

oh God, have mercy for this disappointed caravan

do something about its miserable condition

we are all waiting, waiting for peace.

(From a poem by Gholam Rabani)

Photo by MJ

2009-08-19T12:49:00.000+07:00

Woman Of The Future

I am a child

I am all the things of the past

I am the long brown hair of my mother

I am the blue eyes of my father

I am all I see

The sound of the waves splashing of the rocks

The birds chirping in the morning

i am all I hear

The rustling of the trees blowing in the morning

The loud sound of music from my stereo

I am all I remember

My first day at school

When I got my first bike

When I had the chicken pox

I am all I think

Secrets

Deep in side me

Because...

I am the woman of the future

Poem by Nicolle Marge Black, Photo by MJ

2009-08-18T17:54:00.000+07:00

They say it' s a must see. And there we went, avoiding being told: "You've been to Bangkok and you haven' t seen Jim Thompson's house?!"

"The charismatic Jim Thompson", an American architect who arrived to Thailand as a volunteer in the office that was a forerunner of today's CIA, and a founder of the world renowned Jim Thompson Thai Silk Company, has after 25 years of living in Thailand, mysteriously disappeared.

For one, he left behind his home - a 'talk of the town' - today turned into a museum. And yes, there is a beautiful art and antique collection to see, and yes, the house is amazing. Mr Thompson certainly had a good taste.

But, seeing all this comes at a price. And that isn' t the 100 Bhat ticket, it's the tourist anthill.

It is crowded, and you see what they show you at a pace they choose. Yes, you can walk around at the end, around the little garden, but mainly into the souvenir shops and into a restaurant, where glasses, napkins, books, all you can see - is branded, yes, you guessed it, Jim Thompson. And in spite of the cheese cake, which was undoubtedly pleasing my taste buds, it could not overlap the funnily resistant feeling that developed while walking in a group like a lamb and listen to the guide who offered badly 'studied' smiles after every other word she had pronounced: "Jim Thompsoooooo-eeeeeiiiiiii had mysteriously disappeared-eeeiiiii." We are very happy and smiling that he left this beautiful house behind, too bad we are not privileged enough to get the chance to really absorb its beauty.

Photo by MJ - Privileged is the camera that in a thirtieth of a second froze this moment of emptiness and monumentality and made it last.

A Beautiful Coincidence

2009-08-16T10:54:00.000+07:00

Intimacy. A contemporary performance that I saw yesterday in Bangkok. A universal language of movement, light and sound created a good story-telling about as universal subject: how we idealize our 'pyramid of love', how it cracks or brakes and we face reality and how we redefine, reconcile and rebuild it - the pyramid of LOVE. Relations. Life.

It was a beautiful thing all in all, and the way it happened: heading to visit Jim Thompson' s house in Bangkok, be stopped by a girl in front of a newly built Arts and Culture Center, handing you a leaflet and inviting you for a performance, looking you in the eye and say: "It starts in ten minutes. Please, come." And you are 'drawn' in a dark hall, waiting in an expectation... then something moves on the stage accompanied by the sound, then the purple light goes on and the whole thing rolls on... Interesting. And telling. Ending with a discussion with the author and the dancers, and a pleasant feeling of a beautiful coincidence.

Photo by MJ

Sebastião Salgado

2009-08-14T11:45:00.001+07:00

"I believe that most people can help much, not by giving materials, but rather by being concerned with what occurs in the world."

- Sebastião Salgado

Working Street Children

2009-08-13T10:39:00.000+07:00

Afghanistan.

“Afghan children are facing harsh reality. They were born during the war and they are growing up during the war.” - Mohammad Yousef, Aschiana

Romina, 12. Her father died in a suicide bombing explosion near American embassy in Kabul. Since then her mother suffers from mental disorder and she is out on the street working, trying to make enough to buy basic foods for the rest of the family. She sells plastic bags and earns around $2 a day.

She is only one among the growing number of working street children in Afghanistan.

Photos by MJ

2009-08-12T13:13:00.000+07:00

Wake up, my heart! The world is passing by;

Life froths and flows by, free for the asking.

Don't sleep in your body, oblivious,

As the caravan of life goes by your house.

#594: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi
Edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar (Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1988). Translated by Zara Houshmand

Photo by MJ

Smile To A Stranger

2009-08-11T12:24:00.000+07:00

Walking, walking and walking, looking at people's faces, looking away from them to the high-rises, surrounded by the greenery and bird sounds and looking straightforward when a smile approaches you. And then another. Asking yourself: Do I look funny today or what is it? But, it makes you feel, hm, cheerful.

Well, this beautiful thing called "sharing a kind smile with a stranger", didn't happen anywhere else I recall, as commonly as it happens here, in Bangkok. Perhaps that's why from all the adds promoting tourism in Thailand, one thing that stays in mind is the phrase that sounds so overused by the time it suggests fakery, but there it is: "Land of Smiles." But, that's how my yesterday's walk felt like, smile upon a smile, sometimes exchanging "savatdika" or "Hello" and nothing more. No harassment - as it sometimes does happen to a woman spending time alone, repeatedly at some places - while walking alone on the long avenues or sitting alone on a bench in a park, just a bit of kindness. It feels damn nice.

Photos by MJ

You Have To Be Crazy

2009-08-10T12:35:00.000+07:00

To be a photojournalist today, he wrote "You have to be crazy." - That is Mr. Halstead saying in a NYT's piece "Lament for a Dying Field: Photojournalism"

Yes, it is crises time. But, yes, why we do it?

There is a 'crazy' man on that photograph above, he's from Afghanistan, where he's one in five inhabitants who suffer some form of psychological disturbances. Statistics say some thirty percent of population suffers from psychoses and ninety-five from psycho-social problems. All that as one of the consequences of thirty years of warfare in the country.

His name is Nazar and he comes from an Afghan province of Ghor. He was picked up on the street and taken to Asylum center, where conditions are far from flowery. He is one of the faces of war and poverty. Look at him, perhaps his look will speak to you. It spoke to me when I was doing a story on mental health issues as the invisible war wounds in Afghanistan.

Yes, I was there on my own expenses, yes I did sell the story once - to my Slovene newspaper that paid poorly - and yes, I knew it was not very likely to get published again elsewhere and yes, I lost money on it. So, why did I cover it, why did I shoot it?

Because of trying to understand other people's conditions, other people's lives and not get trapped in cliches. Trying to look at the other end of 'war', in spite of growing up in a country where all I knew was a 10-day war that somehow pass by me at that time. And If I have the interest of getting to know about that, there must be some others, too. Photojournalism is a perfect tool to share these real stories and to touch people's... minds, hearts, ... something... and make them stop for a moment in their busy daily lives... and perhaps think... about life that surrounds us, actions and their consequences, ... people and their lives.

Crazy?

Maybe.

Photo by MJ

The Storm Is Yet To Come

2009-08-10T09:59:00.000+07:00

Every now and then in life.... one gets into the "just before the storm" feeling and situation... when one realizes that the right plan is no plan at all and that the hardest is to remain true to oneself.... true to who you are... and learn how to trust that gut feeling... therefore it is never a bad time to honestly look into oneself and define and redefine... adapt... change... but, why it seems so damn difficult to follow what Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "As you cannot do what you want, /Want what you can do."

And the storm is yet to come. And ordinary is becoming unordinary and the other way around.

photo by MJ