The Association of Photographers Gallery in Central London have invited me to put on a solo exhibition of my work. I feel incredibly chuffed at this - they have previously exhibited photographers such as David Bailey and Rankin - and as this will be my first solo exhibition, it’s kinda doing it in style.

So I am currently seeking funding, sponsorship and support to make this happen!

I’m fortunate enough to have recruited the services of Brianne Selman - who is not only keeping up the persistent funding research, but never chastises me whenever I pause to bang my head against the wall! Go girl!

As well as the luvvies, photography nerds, angry anarchos, prosperous philanthropists and bored unemployed, I’m aiming for this exhibition to reach non-standard photography audiences too. I’ll be inviting youth groups and schools and would like to suggest that they consider the situation of the Songo Agricultural Training centre for ex child combatants. They previously fought, as children and teenagers, in opposing factions. Now they sit side by side in the fields and classrooms, getting on as friends. Although they joke about who would have killed who had they come face to face, some of them are now setting up a farming cooperative to work together profitably.

I would hope to ask challenging, open questions that will relate participating youth, especially those who feel marginalised and who might not have normally connected with the arts, to enjoy and interact with the images they see, provoking thought and inspiration that might positively impact on their lives.

I have had interest from Goldsmiths University Photography and Urban Cultures Postgraduate Programme, and Prince’s Trust, both of whom would like to become involved in helping network the exhibition.

Watch this space - I’ll keep you updated as it happens!

Well I’m back in Blighty. I arrived on Friday, slept like a log, and woke up on Saturday morning to my Amazon delivery of books recent African history. My latest attempt to make sense of the crazy, beautiful Sierra Leone.

I learned a lot in Africa, but I also learned a little something in Dubai. In the UK it’s always been popular to ‘bash the rich’. Those working in professions such as banking are widely viewed with scathing cynicism. It’s convenient to pigeonhole people, it allows us feel safe, in control, and like we have a firm handle on our surroundings.

In Dubai I had some of those misconceptions blown away as I saw how some of those working in finance are actively involved in making positive change to the world through deeds and actions. If you work in that industry might not be unduly surprised, but the rest of us probably are.

And seeing that reaffirmed my faith in humanity, which, I must admit, had been getting slightly wobbly after a few weeks in Salone.

As if to confirm my own experiences, as I searched the bookstore of the lavish, marble floored Dubai Airport for something to read I saw all the very books I’d been browsing on Amazon - books on ending poverty and contemporary African history. The bookstore wasn’t huge. And the bookstore must know it’s market, surely?

Am I Growing Up? Selling Out? or just accepting that life is not always the black and white Malatesta manual I used to think it was? Answers on a postcard please.

Such high falutin’ ideas were far from my mind on the way IN to Dubai Airport however. When I arrived via Lagos a couple of weeks ago, I was hoiked into a scummy little room by a guard and told to empty my pockets. I was asked, repeatedly whether I smoked tobacco (?) to which I replied, and with equal repetition, ‘no’.

It was just the guard and myself in the room. The carpet looked like it had never been cleaned. The walls were filthy. He told me to take down my trousers. So I did. Then he motioned (English wasn’t his strong point) for me to pull the waistband of my boxers outwards. I presumed so he could peer downwards. I did. He then gave me a cartoon-like stare-of-death into my eyes to see if he could make me ‘crack’. Unfortunately it just made me crack ‘up’, loudly. Undeterred, he signaled for me to hitch up the bottoms of my boxers. It was 4:30am. I was tired. I’d had enough. So I dropped my pants completely, at which point all hell broke loose. He started waving his arms about, looking away and shouting ‘NO!’ very loudly. ‘What?’ I replied innocently..

Anyway he let me go after that. I lamented how simpler it would have been in Lagos - it only would have cost a few dollars to avoid all that hassle!

Now, safely back in London, I’m continuing my search for a gorgeous exhibition venue for the Sierra Leone Photos..Watch this space!

I’ve just posted a preview of images from my forthcoming photography exhibition ‘Fear The Lord - Sierra Leone in Peacetime’.

I’m currently looking for interesting exhibition space in Central London - so if you know of any venues please get in touch…

image and words © Jon Gee 2008

I’m in Dubai and it’s raining. I’ve been here for six days and I’ve only left the house twice. I’m staying with my friends who have recently adopted a beautiful four-year-old girl from Sierra Leone. Understandably it’s a difficult time for her. She currently veers between being a charming, possessed little princess, who loves dramatic poise (and the only the most sparkly sequins), to being a screaming hell-child, bent on aural destruction of anyone within a 500 yard radius.

My friend’s patience is heroic and I make a mental note to try to be as saint-like if I ever have children.

Since I arrived I’ve been glued to my laptop, typing up the story I want to tell about Ola Smart and the work he’s doing in Sierra Leone. I’m grateful Michele and Alan know Sierra Leone so well and can therefore understand my determination to try to make a difference. Their house is littered with books on how to end poverty and it seems the perfect place to calm down after the chaos of ‘Salone’. Even though I know many people in London, I can’t help feeling it will be lonely not having a shared experience of West Africa with anyone in my immediate circle.

And Dubai? I tried to get on my friend Danielle’s arts website www.artshole.co.uk and couldn’t! Blocked by the Emirates authorities. What filth are you peddling these days Danielle? Guess I’ll have to wait ‘til my return to the UK to find out.

Last night I went to Bar 44, so called as it is found on the 44th floor of a hotel tower. We ate olives and sipped cocktails looking over the overblown electric skyline. Dubai reminds me of those cars with blue neon lights slung below their body; brash, loud, showy and executed with little taste.

Everyone here is here to make money, and within the Western ex pat community they’re doing quite well at it. Hummers and Porsche four by fours pile up and down Jumeriah Beach Road, between business meetings and shopping malls, bars and beaches.

I wonder what Ola would think of this temple to the tyranny of capitalism. To me, this Mecca to money seems obscene after visiting one of the poorest nations in the world.

Yet still, I nibble the olives and sip the cocktails and look over the overblown electric skyline, thinking of how far away Freetown seems from here.

Maybe some photographers can get along with sunglasses. I’m not one of them. They either get knocked off my head or, if slung on a string, get hopelessly tangled up with my camera strap. Add that to the fact that I’m in a hot, poor country and I’m pushing through crowds trying to keep hold of anything valuable, they are just a liability. Especially as I seem incapable of buying the cheap ones, persuading myself that ‘my eyesight is worth it’.

So despite the 8 hour delay at Gatwick on the way to the budding paradise of Sierra Leone, I resisted the temptation to splash out on new shades. And I haven’t regretted it once. Until today that is. I woke up next to river no. 2. You might have seen it on the ‘Bounty’ adverts in the 80’s. Gorgeous girl slipping a lengthy chocolate bar between her lips to a background of endless white sands and palm trees.

The sand is so white it hurts the eyes. I’ve never minded squinting against the sun, fancying I probably looked like a young Clint Eastwood in ‘The Man With No Name’. The reality is these days I probably look more like a confused Timothy Spall. But self-delusion is far less painful.

I arrived at dusk on New Years Eve to find the guesthouse staff slightly the worse for wear. The drive to the beach had been long, hot and dusty but after arrival it still took 3 hours and 4 mobile phone calls to get a cup of tea. After 2 hours an old man turned up at my room, fell over drunk and smashed the flask he was carrying. I later heard he received 3 hard slaps from the boss for his efforts.

A midnight evangelical service was happening just a few steps from the beach. I wandered in to find around 50 people crammed into a small ramshackle hall lit by just one 40 watt bulb dangling from a piece of ancient electrical cable. The pastor was shouting and a few were listening and responding, others were drumming and dancing and starting their own chants and suddenly the whole cacophony of sound rose and fell together. And then rose and fell again, and it got louder. Shakers were shaken, feet stomped and bootys bumped. I couldn’t help but feel ecstatic. It was hard to make out the Krio but it sounded jubilant and happy…and I was right. After I left I got a transcription of the hypnotic words…

Happy New Year me noh die-o
Happy New Year me noh die-o
Tell God tenk e for me life-o
Tell God tenk e for me life-o
Oh-oh-oh me noh die-o
Oh-oh-oh me noh die-o

Or, in English.

Happy New Year! - I’m not dead!
Thank God I’m alive..
Oh-oh-oh. I’m not dead!

What better way to end the year? A total appreciation of the life we have. True of anywhere on the planet but especially poignant in a country where the average life expectancy is between 39 and 42.

After the service all previous incompetence on the part of the guesthouse staff was swiftly forgiven. A 6ft 4″guy who was dressed like 50 Cent made a concerted effort to make sure I got a cup of sweet milky tea at he end of the service. And that was no mean feat in the surrounding chaos. His size certainly helped.

I hugged the drunk, dapper old man and wished him Happy New Year. He apologised for breaking the flask and I reminded him that it was forgotten history- it was, after all, last year.

And to think it all started with a number 73 bus. I looked back today and thought about the journey that brought me to Freetown from London, England. After a sleepless night spent packing and repacking I began my journey that would last for another 36 hours, including train, plane, helicopter, car and 4WD Hilux. Between trendy Islington and tribal West Africa, ending 9 miles up a dirt track for a community meeting comprising of representatives from 27 villages which home 3000 inhabitants over a 20 mile radius.

Most of the villagers had been originally been displaced during the 11 year civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone. It’s been 5 years since tales of arbitrary amputations carried out by child soldiers caused Islingtonites to splutter into their frappucinos. Now the communities are working together cooperatively, guided and supported by the Sierra Leone War Trust For Children.

As my sleep deprived brain tried to focus on aperture settings I was intimidated, for once in my life, by the unlikely scenario of teenage mothers fighting cattily for my attention. Trying to slip away I fell upon a female drumming and dancing display. Excited at both the visual prospect in front of me and the opportunity to escape the teenage baby mothers, I began photographing the dust and the drama and then found myself fending off a clueless and very persistent local project coordinator who somehow thought it more important I be recording a recent delivery of new drugs for the clinic.

That was the start. Since then I’ve been experiencing multitude of colours, sounds, smells and characters that makes up the stunning Sierra Leone. And of course the joys of local taxis. 2 days ago I was stopped by drunk traffic cops asking for money. Fortunately they were more comical than threatening and when I politely but firmly refused they were very gracious. My only regret is I didn’t get a photo out of it because I was laughing too much!

When not getting stopped for ludicrous made-up reasons, taxis also break down a lot. Even when the journey is going amazingly well, and other traffic seems to have mysteriously vanished, something will happen. Like yesterday. I’d promised one of the kids at the orphanage I’d bring back some ice cream from town. By the time I’d finished my runnings the supermarket was shut. I was with my friend Willy, a super-sharp 18 year old who lives at the orphanage where I’m staying. He sometimes accompanies me into town and his help is really invaluable. My time is limited here and Willy’s assistance makes things happen (relatively) fast. So we decided to embark on what would turn out to be a 2 hour journey which included 3 taxis, an all night shop playing ear-splitting Jamaican Ragga, and a taxi driver who, when he broke down at around midnight, in the middle of a dirt track road, simply disembarked the vehicle and wandered off to buy, and nonchalantly eat, a large sandwich.

It reminded me of that scene in the film ‘Kelly’s Heroes’, when the tank has broken down mid-battle. The tank commander is questioned by his superior officer as to why he’s sitting down ‘catching rays and drinking wine’ His reply? ‘I don’t fix the damn things, I just drive ‘em…’

To be continued…

So I’m in Freetown. It’s hot. And it’s more beautiful, dusty and extreme than I ever could have imagined.

Lack of power and decent internet connection in the capital city are major issues. When you *can* find a connection, waiting for a simple webpage to load can feel like a ‘Onetel’ dial-up connection circa 1997. Smoky diesel generators run everything, when they’re not breaking down of course.

I haven’t stopped working since I got here. There’s just too much to see. I can’t wait to display the images, but for now it will have to wait. The man who runs this internet cafe looks frail and really doesn’t need to see me ranting at the impossibly slow upload speeds of his pride and joy broadband connection.

I’m staying at an orphanage run by Ola Smart, director of Kids Action SL. Ola is an incredible man. As well as shadowing him and photographing the projects he’s involved in, I’m also writing an accompanying article, which I’m hoping to get published on my return.

We set off yesterday in the pick up truck to do a second day’s shooting at Songo Agricultural Training Centre for Ex-Combatants. As we were about half way through a 2 hour journey and heading out of town Ola took a call. A close friend of his had just lost a relative in a hit and run accident. The body was lying at the side of the road and needed picking up. It was about 2 miles from our intended destination.

We turned back to pick up Ola’s friend Emma and found ourselves waiting 2 hours in the midday heat as she fought through Freetown’s congested traffic to meet us halfway. Doing anything in this country takes at least 4 hours, and I figured we were not going to have sufficient daylight time to do the Songo shoot, so I made the call to cancel and Ola phoned through to let everyone know they weren’t needed so could go home.

We arrived at the site of the accident at 230pm to find the distressed relatives wailing with grief and shock. As I stepped out of the 4×4 I saw Sherrif’s body, head covered by an old rag. I’d already asked permission to shoot, but I was still aware of being intrusive and was doing my best to blend in. As much as a white man can at the side of a rural African village with a few grand of camera equipment slung round his neck. I needn’t have bothered. One of the relatives seeing what I was doing motioned for me to wait – so she could remove the covering of the face to display what was left of her cousin’s head.

I snapped in the heat and the wailing got louder. I snapped from every angle until I couldn’t anymore. I stopped and motioned to someone to say ‘enough, cover up the face’ But he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, so I did.

The men loaded the body on to the back of the open topped pick up. The wailing relatives clambered in next to the body and we set off back to Freetown, to deliver the body to his aging Mother. We were stopped at a police roadblock. Ola leaned over me in the passenger seat and shouted at the officer in Krio that we had been stopped already by this road block and we had just picked up a body to take back to Freetown. The officer gave the corpse a cursory glance and waved us on.

As we sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the distressed relatives coming from the back of the truck, I heard Ola talking quietly to Emma in Krio. It turns out that after Sherrif was killed at around 11pm the previous night, the police had turned up and simply lifted the body a few feet to the side of the road, and thus out of the way of oncoming vehicles, before returning to their roadblock to continue carrying out random mundane paperwork inspections.

The relatives had been left sitting with the heavily disfigured body for 15 hours overnight and through the midday heat as they waited for one of their friends to make the journey into Freetown to contact richer relatives who might have access to a vehicle to transport the body.

A few hours later I was invited, and went, to a party at the Norwegian Consulate’s house. Those attending included a cabinet minister, a diamond dealer from New York and local fashion and media celebrities. It was hard to make the transition. Social small talk seemed irrelevant and despite my ivory coloured linens and two tone brogues I felt uncomfortable and out of place. I’ve lived my whole life dancing between extremes. To a certain extent it’s been my ‘raison d’etre’. But today’s whirlwind of sadness and anger had left me exhausted, and yearning for a good, solid night’s sleep to allow the days event to settle a little easier in my mind. And of course, to shake off the claustrophobic, Edgar Allan Poe-like morbidity that I felt had entombed me.

Sleep. That was all I needed.

image and words © Jon Gee 2008

I have just bought tickets to fly out to Sierra Leone on December 17th.

Thanks to an email originally sent out by Ms. Brianne Selman (and being passed on through 4 people!), the Sierra Leone War Trust for Children got in touch with me. This organisation has been working at a grass roots level since the civil war ended - giving practical and sustainable assistance. I will be covering their latest project - an agricultural training centre for ex-child soldiers. They have offered me a bed for a few days, some grub, a set of wheels and a guide to keep me out of trouble… (little does he know he’ll have his work cut out! ;-)

This trip remains predominantly self funded but I have received very generous assistance from AFX/Kirbys Flying Ballets (yes the famous ‘Kirby’s’ that make people fly through the air like Peter Pan!), Client Mr. Rod Ritchie and even a nifty from one of my clinics Natureworks!

So there’s *still* time to ask your business to get involved!

Thank you for your support in passing this message on - and remember I’m still looking for help with sponsorship / contacts / commissions and exhibition space for the resulting images…

Keep your eyes on this page for more updates!

The Story

Two of my friends who live in Dubai, Michele and Alan, have just adopted a daughter - Maya, 4 years old from Sierra Leone. They are currently trying to adopt her 12 year old sister as well.

Recently Michele sent me a newsletter from the charity she’d taken the photos for (she’s a keen amateur photographer when she’s not looking after Maya) the photos were lovely portraits and I had a look at the website (which Michele hadn’t done!) and guess what? Well…I figured they *could* be better…

Now last May, just after Danielle Horn and I had shot the cover for a fairly well known magazine…

I started an ongoing photographic project with a Down’s Syndrome group www.downrightexcellent.org

Within 1 month of me producing the shots they’d used the images to support successful applications for £20,000 of funding. Since then they’ve had another £15,000. Total £35k. Not all down to my images of course - but without a doubt they were a significant factor.

So I got to thinking - Why don’t I nip over to Sierra Leone this Christmas and try and use my photography to help out?

And then I can use these images as a photo story to raise awareness - whilst the charity uses them to raise CASH for the orphanage (who are currently struggling for basics like nappies and beds for the kids)

The Problem

The orphanage is getting evicted in December. Although they have a new place to move to it’s going to be hectic for them - so they can’t support my visit in terms of basic accommodation/a guide to assist my journeys into the slums. So I’m looking for sponsorship from businesses OR other charities/NGO’s in West Africa/Sierra Leone who I can undertake photographic assignments for.

The Solution

Do you know anyone who can help? I’m not asking for donations from individuals - (although you *can* give donations to the charity www.allasone.org ) - but I’m asking for businesses to sponsor me OR CONTACTS IN CHARITIES/NGO’s WORKING IN WEST AFRICA.

And what do the businesses get in return (apart from a healthy dose of good karma?) Up to 24,000 ABC1 individuals visit my websites www.citysportsmassage.com and www.jongee.co.uk every year. Business names and logos will be attached as being supportive of this good cause, as well as on any future exhibitions/books/related publicity of this story.

If you can help, or know anyone that can help please get in touch

Many many thanks

Jon
www.jongee.co.uk
+44 (0) 7973 524 201

*Please note names of individuals have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned*

Uhhh, so *how* exactly do you spell it?…John G Photography?, John Gee Photography?, or just plain Jon G Photography?…nope it’s *Jon Gee* Photography. You can check out the main gallery site here, Or just carry on reading the blog!