© John Vink / Magnum Photos

 

The verdict has fallen: Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, ex Khmer Rouge leaders, are found guilty of crimes against humanity. They join Kaing Keak Eav, alias ‘Duch’ for a lifetime term in prison.

So far five former Khmer Rouge have been brought in front of their judges and three got their sentence. Ieng Tirith escaped trial because of dementia, Ieng Sary by passing away.

The trial for ‘Duch’ is the subject of an ebook called ’30 Years for a Trial’. It can be read on the iPad and Apple computers running the Mavericks OS, with texts by Robert Carmichael and photographs by myself. The ebook can be bought at THIS LINK.

Three day family trip to Amsterdam… Not much time to take photographs: Larry Clark and Ed Van Der Elsken shows, museum visits, trying to explain where the light comes from on Rembrandt paintings to my daughter.

Always surprised at the way throngs of tourists appropriate art to themselves. I guess ‘being there’ is more important than looking, which anyhow is impossible to do serenely given the permanent stampede.

My first conscious attempt to put together a story with photographs, while being afraid of photographing people: we’re talking railway sations in Brussels in 1975 and 1976…

Part of an ongoing project called ‘This is not Belgium’. See HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE

Summertime is sifting through the old negatives to find unedited photographs and scanning time. For me at least…

These might end up in ‘This is not Belgium’. Or maybe not.

Part of an ongoing project called ‘This is not Belgium’. See HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE

The small city of Veurne turned very quiet for a couple of hours yesterday. The annual religious procession of penitents floated through streets lined with people sitting silently on chairs or whispering to each other on cafe terraces. The only sound comes from fake Roman soldiers hitting the street with their javelin or by young girls wearing a curly wig praising the Lord.

Part of an ongoing project called ‘This is not Belgium’. See HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE

The yearly agriculture fair is taking place again in Libramont. One of the biggest of its kind in Europe, it attracts over 200,000 visitors enjoying the food (i.e. mostly meat), the tractors and machines designed for giants and endless wheat fields, the breeders’ competitions exhibiting ‘Blanc Bleu Belge’ bulls scoring more than 1,300kg, pigs with reproductive organs worthy to be used as the object of desire for American football players (I mean the ball they badly want to carry to the other side), and reminding everyone that despite the traffic jams to get there, we all depend on nature and those who somehow master it to feed ourselves…

Part of an ongoing project called ‘This is not Belgium’. See HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE

The e-book for the iPad ‘Royal Silence’, available at the iBooks Store at THIS LINK for the price of a magazine, was updated with the photographs of last months’ ceremony for the late King Norodom Sihanouk.

The book, with texts by Abby Seiff and Pierre Gillette, and with 229 photographs about King Norodom Sihanouk, including those from his return from exile in 1991, can now also be read on your Macintosh computer if it runs Mavericks.

Belgium celebrates its existence on July 21st. On that day in 1831, Leopold Saxe-Cobourg swore allegiance to the constitution and became the first king of Belgium, putting an end to a revolution and institutionalising a de facto independence gained from the Netherlands after rioters were joined by opera goers (shortened version of Belgian history).

And that is when the fun began…

Part of an ongoing project called ‘This is not Belgium’. See HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE