Day 4: Babysitting duties with Nephew Flynn & Elwood this afternoon. Flynn 2yrs, and the younger of the two, climbs a cupboard to look out a window to watch his parents as they leave the house. Photo by Simone De Peak
BurnDiary is about to have featured 100 photographers in more than two years.
Personal stories, details, places, landscapes… all through the eyes of the photographers during their daily life that week.
We have chosen photographers from every continent asking not to show their work but to share their days and moments, using BurnDiary as a personal diary.
So many images and visions that now we are glad to show every now and then as glimpsed author by author.
Diego Orlando
During my Instagram takeover I tried to show Instanbul, my city.
I love traveling between Asia and Europe with the ferry almost everyday and take pictures from the routes of my daily life.
Good morning from Istanbul.
Let’s go back home from European side to Asian side to have some drink with friends.
Hello everyone! I’m Ekin @ekinik from Istanbul.
Twins.
Istanbul on a daily basis.
Blue mosque and the couple.
Friday night.
Pensive.
Haydarpasa , once one of the main train station in #istanbul , then burnt and now closed.. Waiting what the future will bring.
Under the bridge.
Galata Tower.
It’s all about the sea.
On the corner 00:30.
Galata Tower 2.
On the way home Kadikoy.
Storm is on the way , Galata tower.
I am glad to be here with you for one more day , Kadikoy fish bazaar.
Tourists.
This is my last post.
Nargile.
–
Ekin Kucuk’s Website
The week of my Burn Diary take over, was a representation of my daily life and surrounds here in my hometown Newcastle, Australia. Working as a press photographer, I find even in my everyday life myself naturally observing family, friends and strangers in their environment while waiting for a moment to appear to capture. Sometimes that moment is caught on a camera, and other times I’ll just soak that moment up for a memory that hopefully stays with me.
It was great experience to take a closer look at my hometown and share the daily slices of life I love about it with Burn Diary..
Day 1: With humid almost summer like temperatures this afternoon a group of friends enjoy a dip along the Cowrie Hole, in Newcastle East Australia…
Day 1: A trip to the Newcastle Ocean Baths for a swim after work this afternoon turned out to be fruitless. Normally a popular location for a swim on hot days, not a soul could be seen as the baths slowly started to refill after a sighting of the deadly blue-ringed octopus closed the ocean baths to be drained.
Day 2: After a coffee in Carrington this afternoon, I swung by The Carrington Barber Shop where Frank Martin has been cutting hair for the last 41yrs. As he cut Brenton a regular clients hair and Sam who has been going there since a toddler read the local newspaper while waiting, I asked Frank after 41yrs in business did he still love his job, to which he replied “It’s all I’ve ever done and you’ve got to love it to stay in it this long.” Words of wisdom right there, love what you do…
Day 2: Rain, hail, sunshine or in today’s case windy enough to blow a blue dog of its chain, Craig heads out onto Merewether Beach for his daily swim…
Day 4: Sunday morning stare-off with Puska the Cat. He was a stray that I fed about 10yrs ago, he pretty much rules the house now!
Day 3: The crowd at Redhead Beach wade into the surf to cool off as a coal ship on the horizon heads back out to sea from Newcastle Port…
Day 3: Roller Derby League night in Newcastle. From left Tootsie Turbo Zoom, Baroness Von Brutal, Chopper Weed and Red Hot Riot of the Maitland Roller Girls watch on from the line-up bench. The entire team are all Maitland girls who are a new league that started only a year ago in the comp, in the beginning some of them even had to learn to skate! Quick learners with loads of determination they won their bout 178 to 135 tonight against the Coastal Knockouts.
Day 4: Before today, Ross of West Wallsend hadn’t set foot inside a public phone booth since the late 1980’s back when there was one on almost every corner. Picking up the phone and hearing a dial tone, he was rather pleased that this one worked as he pointed out to me that most public phone booths are vandalised these days.
Day 5: The morning walk along Newcastle Break Wall…
Day 6: The reflection of Actor, Tibian Wyles captured in a window of a building at Fort Scratchley, Newcastle. I met Tibian today while on an assignment. He is one of the original cast members since 2013 from Black Diggers, a theatre production travelling around Australia which has just rolled into Newcastle at the Civic Theatre this week and is about Indigenous males who enlist in the Australian army bound for Europe when World War I broke out in 1914, banned by their own government from serving in the military, Aboriginal men had to hide their heritage to enlist. Tibian, 21yrs discovered his love of performing in front of a live audience while studying and hasn’t looked back as he and other cast members from Black Diggers tread the boards of the Civic Theatre later this week.
Day 5: Marlenn casts an eye over the waves at Nobbys Beach, Newcastle. He works for a surfing school, and manages to squeeze a surf in after teaching some students today…
burndiaryDay 7: The wonder that is the Bogey Hole, Newcastle, a very popular spot for locals to come and cool down on a hot and humid day. Pictured is Karen, on her weekly visit to the swimming hole. To her it is a place where you can connect with nature, the elements, and even more special if you have it to yourself like today…
Day 7: The Lawn Mowing Challenge: Mowing the lawn was on the agenda for the day! This is an image from an ongoing series that started as a joke between my father and myself when he sent me an image mowing the family 9 acre block in Fullerton Cove that hadn’t been mowed for quite a while. It showed Dad up to his waist in the over-grown lawn with barely the mowers handle poking out, he actually loves mowing and says it relaxes him. On the other hand as you can probably tell I’m not that fond of mowing, but when the lawn gets over-grown and wild I do enjoy competing with Dad for most outrageous lawn mowing photo!
Day 5: Hunter St, Newcastle East: Coffee and a soggy newspaper. Must be Mondayitis!
During my takeover week @burndiary I transitioned from black and white observations around our little farm in the rainforest of western Washington State into the first sketches of a new personal project exploring climate change, initially set in the semi-arid Okanogan region of north central Washington State, with a few diary entries of serendipity in between.
The haze of debate surrounding the reality of climate change is beginning to clear but do we have the will to mitigated its advance and impacts?
In my mind, this is THE issue facing the planet and humanity. With a background in environmental policy and journalism, I am working to bring my own personal perspective to the issue.
Day 1: Oops, I burned it. Hello everyone! This is Tom Hyde @itomhyde. I live in the Pacific Northwest USA, just south of the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. I’ll be sharing photos from our cabin in the rainforest and the Satsop River Valley before heading across the state this week to sagebrush country.
Day 1: Beans from the garden. It’s harvest time on the farm.
Day 2: How many photos do I have of this tree? Only a few miles from my home, this old grandfather still stands, apparently majestic enough that not even the logging company would cut it down. This valley was once filled with trees like this but now only this old Douglas Fir remains as a sentinel over the clearcuts and a reminder of what once was. I can’t help but be drawn to the stark contrast.
Day 2: Our Oasis in the Storm: The light here is weird today – soft, orange – as smoke from massive wildfires on the other side of the state creeps in, a reminder that all areas on this marble are connected. And tomorrow that’s where I’m headed, Okanogan County in Eastern Washington. The climate and the land is the opposite of here in the rainforest.
Day 2: At the diner, no one eats alone.
Day 3: On the road. Stuck in traffic.
Day 3: On the road. Pit stop.
Day 4: Okanogan, WA. Heavy smoke fills the air in this small central Washington town. This valley is surrounded on three sides by the largest wildfire in state history which has burned or is burning 400 square miles, now slightly larger than the previous record fire set last year in this same county.
Day 5: Weird light and back country roads in Okanogan, Washington.
Day 5: Under a blood red sun filtering through wildfire smoke, a Native American fisherman on the Colville Indian Reservation at the town of Omak, Washington fishes for salmon on the Okanogan River. These salmon, some of the first to return here this year, travelled hundreds of miles up the Columbia River through nine massive hydroelectric dams, and survived unusually high water temperatures to reach this river near the Canadian border. Salmon returns in the massive Columbia River Basin are in jeopardy now and in the future. Lack of snowmelt water and startling high water temperatures are killing salmon before they can return to their birthplace and spawn. Ocean temperatures are also unusually high. And the outlook of consistently reduced snowpack due to climate change threatens salmon survival in the future. Climate change is also extending the fire season and contributing to larger, historic wildfires like the Okanogan Complex fires burning now.
Day 6: Wildfire ran through the old cemetery at St. Mary’s Mission burning grass and sagebrush. Colville Indian Reservation. Near Omak, WA.
Day 6: I always struggle with the midweek wall. Slow down, breath, look up.
Day 6: Saint Mary’s Mission. Established 1886. Colville Indian Reservation. Near Omak, WA. The wildfire here came close to this historic church.
Day 7: At an undisclosed location – In a very small town in the middle of nowhere, in a housing development perched on a hill overlooking the valley, and in a nondescript garage next to his home, Sean rebuilds and restores classic sportscars – mostly British roadsters – for clients of means. This is the interior of a 1967 Sunbeam Tiger he’s working on. Its value is in the $250k range. When the work is done, the owner will be taking it with him to Monaco on vacation. “Careful,” Sean says as I step over four small curved pieces of metal trim on the floor. “That’s $20,000 worth of trim for the Austin-Healey.”
Day 7: The home John built for his mother in the Okanogan Valley of Washington State. Wildfire has burned through here twice in the past, once over the home itself. The earthtube construction, using the earth on site, some cement, and bags, provides a relatively fire safe home.
Day 7: John inside the home he built using earthtube construction.
Day 7: John dries a lot of food from his garden in a solar drier he built at his homestead in the Okanogan Valley. Gardening has to be done carefully since rattlesnakes come down out of the rocks into the garden starting in late spring, likely for water. The snakes came a month earlier this year with warmer than normal temperatures.
Day 7: A Horrible Beauty – A massive cloud of smoke rises from the Chelan Complex wildfires in Central Washington State. A few trees on the ridge line give a sense of the scale of this fire. This is a smaller complex of fires than the Okanogan Complex to the north where I was this past week. This was the view from Highway 99 that runs along the Columbia River north of the city of Wenatchee. The wildfire season in the western U.S. is now a month longer due to climate change. Drought here has made fire conditions explosive. Fire is a natural part of this ecology but the frequency, size, and unpredictable behavior of these fires is unprecedented in the modern history of this area.
Day 8: Worker on the elevator at Rocky Reach Hydroelectric Dam on the Columbia River. Dude’s got it going on.
Day 8: Fish ladder at Rocky Reach Hydroelectric Dam on the Columbia River.
Day 8: On the road rolling through Quincy, WA. Agriculture is big here, part of the Columbia Basin Project. Water from the Columbia River at the Grand Coulée Dam is diverted into irrigation canals and spread across more than 600,000 acres of farmland. It’s the largest water reclamation project in the U.S. Cheap power from the dams is also why large corporations like Microsoft and Yahoo put data centers here.
Day 8: Just now climbed out of the Columbia River Gorge and pulled into the rest stop to check out the wind power.
Day 9: Bird on a Wire.
FINIS
Tom Hyde’s Website
Bio
Ekin Kucuk:
Kucuk was born in Adana, Turkey and currently lives in Istanbul. Photography has always been part of her life as she has a few photographers in the family. Travel is essential part of Kucuk, both physically and mentally. It is “my diary, a way for me to document my journey.”
Tom Hyde:
With a background in journalism and environmental policy, Thomas Hyde is a photographer based in the Pacific Northwest.
His photos have appeared in Le Monde, The Sun, National Parks, and Burn Magazine. His conservation efforts helped to create one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, for which he was personally recognized by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and NOAA Administrator James Baker. Hyde is currently working on personal projects involving climate change.
Simone De Peak:
De Peak is an award winning Australian Photojournalist, specialising in editorial, documentary, portraiture and magazine work. Never one to venture anywhere without a camera, in her spare time she documents the everyday life of people in their surroundings of her hometown Newcastle, Australia.
An avid collector, she is currently working towards a book from her decluttering project where everyday for an entire year she took a photo of one her many beloved kitsch items from her collection in whatever surroundings she was in on that day before parting ways with it.
Follow Burn Diary on Instagram: @burndiary
And a good glimpse it is!
Lots of good stuff over at BurnDiary. This is a nice summary.
There are even shots of people laughing….wow….all bases are covered….
I am only been an ahole with that last comment but I couldn’t resist….
Anyways….good stuff!
Great presentation of burn diary, not to mention the exceptional photography.
Three photographers, consistently good photography; I really enjoyed all of the photographs.
Mike.
A bunch of photos/pictures beyond that I don’t see much point ……………
They are diary photographs.
And
A diary, whether written or photographic, over a period of time becomes more than the sum of its parts. It becomes an historical document, personal to the maker but also, because they have shared the time period with the maker, of great interest to other readers. A simple street snapshot taken 100 years ago becomes, today, a view of a a world now lost; the mode of transport, dress etc. – and all the more poignant for showing people who are almost certainly no longer with us.
This is the power of photography, in a way, it can stop time.
The best diary photographs can also stand alone as good photographs and some shown here do just that. Ekin’s photograph of the ferry and the one below it of Istanbul with the awnings in the foreground are very good photographs: his photograph of the man with the Rolling Stones tattoo is a good example of a photograph with historical context.
Mike R,
Ekin is a She ;-)
Carlo, Ekin, my apologies.
Mike.
Photography can stop time…. What a load of dribble.
Good morning Imants.
” in a way, it can stop time.”. Not literally, obviously.
Good night Imants, I’m off to bed.
The Rolling Stones are done and dusted and only there for the nostalgia freaks even the hipsters didn’t bother to revive them.
Imants…
It’s more than a bunch of photos and a “and”… Come on, isn’t it :)! Just as your photos on New Year’s Day you shot in BW a couple of years ago of some of your friends and family. Some as you mentioned at the time aren’t with us anymore, mean a lot more than a bunch of photos. BTW those photos were very good, kinda stopped in my tracks.
Photos need to be placed within some visual, social, verbal context and these only sit on a screen and end up in “like dislike” response world world. See responses here… good… great…a bunch of photos …. and very good
I don’t take photos socially as I prefer to participate than to record what I am not doing because I am too busy taking photos. Plus those photos have relevance to friends and family and to others they may rate a minor curiosity as at its best.
Look at David’d approach what he does encompasses his life and he places his work on social, commercial, worldly and private platforms as well as being very aware of the relationship between photographer…. audience… photograph… and world.
The work here does not The work here is essentially private and communicates “This is what I do” I am asking yes ok it is what you do well clarify and place it in some context.
I generally agree with Imants, though in my brief time paying attention to Instagram I notice that some photographers manage to elevate the genre. For example, I enjoyed Tom Hyde’s work in real time, as you could see a story developing, although I don’t think this edit does it justice.
But for the most part, I think these arguments miss the point. Instagram is much more about building one’s own brand through networking or advertising than it is a place to enjoy serious photography. If you are trying to break into the biz, there’s a possibility that industry bigs might discover you. If you are an industry big, more followers might mean more sales of whatever it is one is selling.
I fear that showing work in such a tiny format diminishes the art, and it certainly limits the range of what one can show. But no one else seems to care, so I say what me worry? Maybe it’s akin to movie previews that give away the surprise. Most people, it seems, would rather know what to expect than be surprised, so seeing a nice print or a photo in an online essay that one first saw on Instagram may be a better experience for most. Whatever.
I’m recovering from brain surgery and so when I saw how this is developing I thought I would just leave it alone. I seek calm, peace and tranquility right now. But what the heck:
As noted above, the point is “diary.” Just as David set it up to be. It must be working within his expectations or I doubt he would have posted this.
There is another point, too:
FUN.
A little online community, a family of sorts, has formed around Burn. Aside from whatever else it might do, the diary is a fun exercise. It is fun for those who practice it to reach out to the other members of this community and to say, hello, Burn community, this is where I was and what I did during each ones seven-day diary commitment. It is fun for the remainder of the community to be able to look and see what other members of their community did during their seven days.
Fun.
And to those members of the Burn family who dropped me a note of encouragement on Facebook or Instagram, or even just a simple “like” to show me they had taken note of my situation and were with me in that small way, I truly do appreciate it.
IMANTS
i can easily see where BurnDiary would not suit an artist like you…although the truth is i would love to see what you came up within a given week of shooting…one picture? two? that would be seriously fine with me…
BurnDiary is somebody’s visual adventure for a week..any value it that? for many out there in photo land who DO want to actually work in the business, this is a great testing ground and BurnDiary is seen by most significant editors of magazines etc….so for the photographer who wants to “produce on demand” it is a better way to show a portfolio to and editor than any way i can think of…proof of being able to make photographs in a short time span…which every working photographer must do…your favorite and mine Tamara did this for example….
some of course work out better than others…we can never know in advance how someone will do …and editors know this pressure…and they require someone who can be relaxed, shoot as they want, and yet still have pictures to see for a week of time….people paying commissions want the artist in you TODAY
not your cup of tea? i get that i really do…yet for me diaries are the most fun reading of all…and we surely have more viewers for BurnDiary than we do here on Burn…
so surely for a segment of our audience of mostly young photographers who apply for BurnDiary it means a lot….again, for those who want commissions/assignments or to attract a book publisher…i get more requests for “how can i get an assignment?” from BurnDiary than for any other single thing here on Burn…
it’s probably not for you….it’s not who you are as a photographer….still, the door is always open
cheers, david
It is just when isolated as here (A Glimpse of Burn Diary) that they get lost as there is no real context for them to work with. It all just becomes a bunch of pictures.
On the other Burn Diary works well as they are a snapshot, here today gone tomorrow and then we move on to the next one. We know the context where the photos reside….it is a week. Many use both visuals and text in Burn Diary to enhance their work and ideas thus it all becomes positive for the audience, they get a chance to participate.
Imants, stated as you have lastly stated it above, I find I basically agree with you. Laid out as a single spread to stand alone at the top of the pages in the form of a Burn photo essay, the impact falls short of what it did when the images were being posted almost as soon as seen, experienced and taken.
Still, as I always do, be they your absolutely unique images, David’s, Tom’s, MW’s, Tamara’s, Patricia’s or whoever’s images, I enjoyed looking at them.
WOW!!!!!!!
I hate to chime in for a third time but for quite some time now I have been of dull and drugged brain and the doctor tells me it will take me weeks to months to fully heal and regain all my capacities – BUT I took no pain killers today and I just now sat down, got a phone call and inadvertently opened this series back up as I talked…
WOW!!!!!!!
It was like I was looking at a whole new set of images I had never even seen before.
And they are good. Excellent, in fact. I more than “enjoyed looking at them.” I loved looking at them. It was exciting. It even filled me with a new level of hope.
I wish all the images were the same size as Tom’s. They do have more impact at that size – even with artifacts. I don’t know why they are not at least that big as original Instagrams are close to four times the size of Tom’s. I remember how Burn Diary started out posting pics that seemed to have been about that size and then later on cut down the resolution, perhaps for the sake of design. I think this may have been a mistake.
Ok.
Tavra. I have no more to say.
I have said enough.
I am finished now.
Carry on, Burn people.
I’ve never used Instagram and don’t have a smart phone but I was very impressed with Ekin’s photographs here: I loved her use of the square format.
Bill, good to hear that you are on the road to recovery.
Mike.
What is a diary?
I hope you’re feeling better, Bill
Thank you, Mike and Akaky.
I am doing much better – better than I thought I would be at this stage.
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