Documentary Projects
So I finally meet with my subject for my final. I was told he was local Dj, but I came to find out that he was one of the biggest DJs in Kosovo. If you google Kosovo DJ he is one of the first people that pops up.
I actually got to get up on stage at the last night of beer fest to film him play. It was defiantly a trip to be on stage with him. I had scheduled the whole thing the day before. I never imagined any of this when I was planning for this project.
This week we met with the subject of our newborn project. Me and my partner went up to Mitrovica. Mitrovica was defiantly a different town to Pristina. It felt a little less polished and a bit more rough around the edges. It was not bad by any means.
We also finally meet with our subject and she was really nice. She showed us around Mitrovica and showed us her college campus. Last Friday she also showed me around the Serbian side of town. We went to her other campus and we got coffee.
I had the great fortune to be allowed the privilege of both viewing and filming the Kosovo Ballet’s performance of ‘Dasma’ (or ‘The Wedding’) at the National Theatre last Friday. It was an exhausting and emotionally gratifying experience of both witnessing a beautiful performance, and also organizing my efforts to capture it in all its gravitas. My hope is in the near future to further capture the behind the scenes nature of this ballet group for the sake of my final project. But for now, I only have images of the performance I can share here.
I was a little worried about finding a subject before we left for Kosovo but Ilire Lepaja who runs “Art e Zenat” just agreed to work with me on my final project! I look forward to working with her, the shop is small so shooting there will be challenging but I’ll find a way to make it work. Elion and I are also working to improve our newborn story too. Things are looking good for these projects.
JULY 4th
PART ONE — Written on the bus while waiting to leave Prishtina
I’ve learned to be very flexible yet very prepared when scheduling anything in Kosovo. Meetings get postponed, or you’ll unexpectedly make a contact and have to meet right then. Buses are never on time, but always in a rush when they arrive.
This morning, I planned on getting to the bus station in Prishtina by 7:45 to catch the 8:00 bus to Mitrovica. Nope. I arrived at 7:58. The 8:00 bus didn’t come, though. The next bus was scheduled for 8:15. Nope. I didn’t get on a bus to Mitrovica until 8:45.
When we went to Mitrovica three days earlier, the bus left immediately after we got on. On this trip, the bus sat outside the station until about 9:10, which was when I had planned on meeting up with Abide, our newborns subject, to start our day.
Luckily, Abide is both busy and understanding so we picked a new meeting time and place, and it all worked out.
PART TWO — Logistics
Photographing ‘A Day in the Life’ means photographing from the time a subject wakes up until the time they go to bed. Photographing ‘A Day in the Life’ in a village outside Mitrovica means photographing from the time you can get transportation out to the village until the time you can get back into the city. Getting out to Abide’s village is pretty difficult, so we met up with her at the IBCM campus at the start of the day and then took the village’s bus with her to get back to her house. That small bus makes a trip back to the bus station in Mitrovica around 6, so we were able to get back alone.
PART THREE — Welcome
Abide’s friends and family were so welcoming. After meeting up with Abide at her school, we went to coffee with her friends. They were such great people and they were very open to me photographing and asking them questions. Later in the day, when we were back at Abide’s house, her mother kept giving us food and asking us questions. In addition to shooting all day, I learned a lot just from talking to different people and seeing the area where Abide lives. I love that this work gives us so many opportunities to connect with new people and hear so many stories. Telling those stories is even more of a privilege.
PART FOUR — Reflections and Planning
The second day with Abide was spent photographing her daily life. It was very productive and I enjoyed my time there. I was able to get some good photographs but after looking through everything and working on the audio, Tereza and I have decided to go back and shoot more. We are going early this week to redo the interview and get some more information about the divide between North and South Mitrovica as well as the effect of the war on Abide’s family. As much planning and effort as it takes to get out to Mitrovica, I’m really excited to develop this story further and hopefully create something we can be really proud of.
On July 1, Tereza and I went to Mitrovica to meet our Newborns subject, Abide. Abide was so welcoming. She took us to one of her favorite cafes and showed us around the city a bit. After meeting with her and explaining our project, we went back to her village to interview her. The interview went well technically, although we will be going back to get some additional information about specific topics.
I am very excited about being in a poli. sci. class while I am here in Kosovo. In my first year at RIT, I was missing a lot of the debate that I got in my APs in high school. The Peace Keeping and Conflict Transformation course will allow me to gain a better understanding of peacekeeping operations, humanitarian aid, and the meaning of transformation. I can already tell this class will be extremely challenging, but I’m excited to learn something new. The work outside of class has been making sense to me and it is really thought-provoking. I hope the rest of this course continues to be as interesting. My reasoning for taking this course is to be able to be informed about these issues so that I could potentially document them in my future as a photojournalist.
The second section of our Balkan tour included visits to Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Belgrade, and Skopje. This part of the trip was also amazing in a different way. Most of our mornings were spent on the bus, our days were spent attending meetings with government officials or NGOs, and our evenings were spent exploring the different cities. This post only discusses a few of the meetings, but that is not to say other aspects of this portion of the trip were not meaningful.
In Sarajevo, we met with both the OHR and a women’s rights group. Although of these meeting were interesting, it often felt like we were only getting the kinds of answer a politician would give. The second meeting, however, did allow us to meet Jenni, the interpreter, and Alexis, an intern from Westpoint. The two of them showed us around Sarajevo and gave us some new perspectives on issues in Bosnia. It has been interesting to connect with so many different people during our travels.
I found both of our meetings in Belgrade to be much more informative than those in Sarajevo, partially because I could relate more to the people, and also because the organizations we met with in Belgrade seemed more willing to be candid with us. We met with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights. Perhaps, I could relate so easily to these groups because of my interests as well as the research I’ve done on this region. Each of these groups also focused on connecting young people within the region and trying to foster collaboration and understanding between other cultures, which I found very interesting. Sofija, my roommate, is from Serbia and works for YIHR in Belgrade, so it has been really nice to have her insight into different places we’ve been and topics we’ve discussed throughout the trip.
Last weekend, Bridget and I visited Mitrovica and started working in our Newborn project.
I got a quick 101-lesson; knowledge which I will use today when I meet the person for my final project. Thank you Boris!