by Kenan Malik
I rarely set explicitly out to photograph lines or shapes. But the images are often defined by them. Perhaps I only notice the lines and shapes around me when I later look at the photographs. Here, though, is a somewhat random collection of photos from over the years defined by lines and squares and other shapes. And I will leave you to work out where each is from.
Categories: Photos • Tags: photography
by Kenan Malik
Two of my favourite contemporary photographers are Yener Torun and Damion Berger. Each transforms the way we look upon the world by using colour in almost opposite ways. Torun is not a professional photographer but an architect from Istanbul, whose work I have published before on Pandaemonium. His shots of Istanbul, usually taken on an iPhone, are of the city as few will have seen it, not the Istanbul of ancient buildings, grand mosques and tradition, but that of modernist […]
Categories: Photos • Tags: damion berger, photography, yener torun
by Kenan Malik
The Latvian capital Riga has a long and turbulent history, one that is, in a popular saying, as complicated as the Latvian language, and constructed out of as many influences. There existed a settlement on the site as far back as the second century CE. Its modern history begins in the thirteenth century with the arrival of German mercenaries and missionaries. German merchants had established an outpost from around 1158. Then, in 1201, the newly-proclaimed Bishop of Livonia, Albert, landed […]
Categories: Photos • Tags: churches, gothic churches, latvia, latvian national library, photography, riga, soviet architecture
by Kenan Malik
Herengracht 401 lies at the heart of Amsterdam’s beautiful canal district. For more than 70 years it was home to the artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht, known usually just as ‘Gisèle’. During the Second World War it was a place of safety for Jews and others fleeing the Nazis. Today it is home to Castrum Peregrini, originally set by Gisèle in the 1950s as a literary magazine, but which has evolved into a space for exhibitions, discussion and […]
Categories: History, International, Photos • Tags: art, castrum peregrini, freedom struggles, morality, netherlands, photography
by Kenan Malik
Vienna has more than its fair share of magnificent, beautiful and historically significant buildings. The Hofburg Palace, the Belvedere, Stephansdom, Schloss Schönbrunn, the Secession Building, Staatstoper, Karlskiirche, Hunderstwasshauss, Maolika Haus. Along Helinganstädter Strasse, at the end of the U4 U-Bahn, stands a building that even its greatest admirers would not describe as magnificent or beautiful. It is, however, historically significant – though of a history that is often forgotten – and architecturally striking. The Karl Marx Hof, built between 1927 […]
Categories: Culture & Books, History, International, Photos • Tags: architecture, austria, left, photography, red vienna, vienna
by Kenan Malik
Neduntheevu is one of the remotest parts of Sri Lanka – a small, oval shaped island in the Palk Strait, off the northwest coast. It is still known, even to many locals, by its Dutch name, Delft. (The Dutch came in the seventeenth century, driving out the Portuguese who, a century earlier, had seized large parts of Sri Lanka). Delft is home to wild horses and boabab trees, the former introduced by the Portuguese, the latter by Arab sailors almost […]
Categories: Photos • Tags: photography, sri lanka
by Kenan Malik
It is not quite as strange as Orford Ness, that desolate and derelict, haunting and wild, edge of the Suffolk coast, of which I have written, and photographed, before. But Dungeness beach, on the edge of Romney Marsh in Kent, is strange enough. The largest shingle beach in Europe, it’s a bleak landscape flanked by the concrete blocks of a nuclear power station, adorned with two lighthouses, dotted with the rotting hulks of fishing boats and fisherman’s huts, punctuated with […]
Categories: Photos • Tags: dungeness, photography
by Kenan Malik
It is not often that I enter a room and gasp out loud ‘Wow’. But entering the caves of Dambulla, with with their magnificent statues of the Buddha, and their stunning frescos, was definitely one occasion. The second cave in particular, is one of the most spectacular, yet moving, works of art I have seen. The cave temples, near the town of Dambulla in central Sri Lanka, date back to the first century BCE. King Valagamba (also known as Vattagamini Abhaya) […]
Categories: Photos • Tags: buddhism, dambulla, photography, sri lanka
by Kenan Malik
The ghosts of war still haunt Jaffna. It is almost seven years since Sri Lanka’s brutal 30-year civil war was brought to a particularly brutal and bloody conclusion. Somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the last months of the conflict, as the Sri Lankan army penned the remnants of the LTTE (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), the Tamil insurgent army, together with tens of thousands of civilians into a tiny pocket of […]
Categories: International, Philosophy & Ethics, Photos • Tags: jafffna, photography, sri lanka, sri lankan civil war, tamils
by Kenan Malik
I publish the occasional photography post on Pandaemonium, but my main photography site is Light Infusion. You can see more of my photographs there, and in a larger format. You can order prints from Light Infusion, too (could be handy with Christmas coming up…). As an introduction, here is a slideshow of a few of my favourite shots.
Categories: Photos • Tags: photography
by Kenan Malik
Yener Torun is an Istanbul-based architect with a wonderful eye for the colours and forms of a city. His Instagram photos are stunning, revealing not simply what a city can look like, but also what we often do not see. Yener generously allowed me to republish some of his photos on Pandemonium. So here, through the eye (and lens) of Yener Torun, is Istanbul as few will have have seen it, not the Istanbul of ancient buildings, grand mosques and tradition, but […]
Categories: Photos • Tags: istanbul, modernism, photography, yener torun
by Kenan Malik
‘The modern city’, Alexander Rodchenko wrote, ‘has changed the psychology of the traditional perception to a great extent. It seems as if only a camera is able to illustrate modern life.’ There are few artists who have had a greater impact on modern photography than Rodchenko. Yet these days, at least in public consciousness, his name barely elicits a flicker of recognition. Born in St Petersburg in1891, Rodchenko was one of the founders of Constructivism and a key figure of […]
Categories: Culture & Books, Photos • Tags: constructivism, modernism, photography, rodchenko, soviet union
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