Election Day

Voters crowd the registration table in a polling station in Dedoplistskaro raion, Georgia, during the Presidential election January 5, 2008.

Election days are always interesting. Yesterday I visited about 8 polling stations in small villages in Kakheti oblast. Some precincts were quite good — really, the best run I've ever seen in the former Soviet Union — while others had blatant problems.

Speaking broadly, election day problems fall into two categories. Technical problems and corruption. Technical problems are common, and we saw many of these in Dedoplistskaro yesterday: an overcrowded polling station, equipment not working, polling station staff not following procedures.

For example, in Georgia, voters are supposed to get their thumbs sprayed with invisible ink, and a staff member is to check each voter's thumb with a UV light when they enter, to be sure they hadn't already voted elsewhere. In one precinct, staff were forgetting to spray the ink about 1/3 of the time. In another, the woman at the entrance seemed only to haphazardly check voters; when I had my thumb sprayed and tested the UV light, it turned out she (1) didn't even know how to turn the light on and (2) once on, the light barely worked. These technical problems are typically due to poorly trained staff and overly complex procedures. Observers take note in the hopes that problems can be resolved in the next election.

Corruption is common but takes close scrutiny to notice. In my years observing and photographing elections, I've seen more ways to cheat an election than I ever dreamt possible. Ballot box stuffing, multiple voting, changing numbers during the count, stealing ballot boxes, intimidating voters, bribing voters, threatening election commissioners, arbitrarily arresting candidates... the list goes on and on.

So, in Dedoplistskaro yesterday, we witnessed little corruption ourselves but saw signs of it and heard complaints. In Kvemokedi village, government "coordinators" had been intimidating and coercing voters for two hours but stopped as soon as we arrived. We heard reports of 70 border guards who were being bussed from one village to another to vote repeatedly. The oddest moment was in Zemokedi, when two police officers (who are not allowed to be in polling stations unless specifically called in) were in the polling station when we arrived. They escaped to a back room when they saw us, and apparently escaped out the window!

Often much of the cheating happens during the counting, or in the District Election Commission where votes are tabulated and relayed to the capital. We spent the night in the Signagi DEC, where some suspicious activities were going on. Unfortunately, we were unable to determine what was being hidden from us. We were repeatedly prevented from observing in the fax/computer room, although a large number of brutish unauthorized men were hanging out in there. At least some of them were campaigners for President Saaksahvili. It appeared that the preliminary turnout figures were being changed after the fact; this could enable those non-existent "voters" to "vote" later.

What we observed was fairly mild compared to problems I've heard about elsewhere in the country.

Georgian Presidential Primer

“These are the first competitive elections ever in this country,” OSCE Ambassador Dieter Boden said yesterday.

The Presidential election in Georgia is on Jan. 5. The last presidential election in 2003 resulted in the toppling of the government, so there has been broad international interest this time. Here is a little background:

Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze talks with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev in 2000.

Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, was President of Georgia from 1992 to 2003. After an election with massive fraud and corruption, widespread protests culminated in the peaceful “Rose Revolution.” Protest leader Mikheil Saakashvili was then elected president in a new election in January 2004.

Campaign posters for President Saakashvili are visible everywhere in Tbilisi.

Now, four years later, some Georgians are dissatisfied with Saakashvili, there are accusations of corruption, and no one really has any idea what will happen on election day.

I am about to leave for a few days near the Azeri border, around the hilltop fortress town of Signagi, so I will write more later.

Old Tbilisi

In Tbilisi, Georgia, a crumbling window in the Narikala Fortress, built in the 4th century, frames a view of St. Nicolas church and the old part of the city below.

I had a few hours to wander around Tbilisi today. Lovely city. Too bad we don't have 2,000 year old buildings in America.

Happy New Year!

"Who does not love wine, women and song
Remains a fool his whole life long." – Johann Heinrich Voss (1751–1826)

Happy new year from Tbilisi, Georgia. I'm here for 10 days covering their Presidential election. With a pause today for a little celebrating.

I joined 15,000+ Georgians in Freedom Square to blast in 2008. New Year's Eve celebrations here consist primarily of wine, music, wine, dancing, wine and firecrackers.

(Oh, did I mention the wine?)

Though it was crowded, I didn't take many crowd shots, but lots of pictures of sweet cuddly couples. Amidst all the hullaballoo, I was missing my sweetheart, regretting that we have now spent at least 33 out of the last 35 years apart at New Years.

May you all have a joyous and peaceful 2008!

Here are a few more shots from the festivities. (Click to see larger).



Gregorian choir. Girl watching fireworks. Girl with sparkler. Dance troupe Rustavi.

traveling

Hi all,

I've been too busy working to post any photos lately.

I'll be traveling in late December and early January. First in Maine with family and then I'll be on assignment in the former Soviet country of Georgia during their Presidential election.

I'll be back in Madison and accepting assignments after Jan 8. You can best reach me by email.

Happy new holiday christmas year merries!

Artists are so fine

Nell and Laine Curtis, UW undergraduate senior dance majors and identical twin sisters. 2002.

I've added a new group of photos to my portfolio: artists and the arts. Dancers, musicians, painters, writers. I love shooting this kind of stuff – it's always fun to work with other creative people.

P.S. A note to the curious: no digital manipulation was used in the above photo. Just a plain, old multiple exposure recorded on a piece of film. (Remember film?)

Living high on the Ogg

I recently shot photos for UW University Housing of the new Ogg residence hall. This new dorm opened in August to replace the old Ogg, the 42-year-old, 13-floor dinosaur across the street. We shot three groups of students studying, hanging out, and playing games in their dorm rooms. 3 rooms in less than 3 hours.

My background is as a photojournalist. Usually I tend to shoot in a very documentary style, just waiting for events to unfold and getting myself in the right place to capture them. Working this way takes a lot of time and patience, waiting for the right moment to arrive.

For this shoot, it was a fun change of pace to work with an art director. (Jared Wold of University Housing, who was great to work with, by the way). We got the students where I wanted them for my shots, but after that I just encouraged them to relax and be themselves. The result, I hope, is photos that are well-lit and well-composed but still look fairly natural.





In this last photo, actually, we had just finished shooting in a room when a hallmate wandered in, offering cupcakes she had just baked. She was suprised to find herself in the middle of photos!

(Compare these new photos to some truly documentary photos I took in Sellery and Smith res halls in 2005 and 2006 during Move-in, and at the other end of the spectrum, see photos University Housing has used in the past, some of which look too posed for my taste.)

getting churched

This photo amuses me so I thought I'd share it with you.


This is a mistimed shot from a story I did for today's Wisconsin State Journal, about a new evangelical church in Sun Prairie. You can find my better photos and the newspaper story here. I'll plan to post more thoughts and photos soon.

Wisconsin Bookfest

This month I had the pleasure of photographing the Wisconsin Book Festival. Book readings are like theater — they bring the written word to life in this wonderful, intimate way. Back when I was single and childless, I used to read perhaps 40 books a year. Now, sadly, I'm lucky to get through four. So I'm grateful to the Wisconsin Humanities Council for hiring me and introducing me to some fab new authors. After the festival ended I immediately went to the library and checked out books by Michael Cunningham and Zakes Mda.

Pictured are authors Chimamanda Adichie (above right) talking with fans; Ana Castillo and Luis Urrea, during a panel; TC Boyle signing books; and my own brothers Peter and Davy Rothbart, doing their Found show.

documentary photo class

I will be teaching a documentary photography course at the UW Memorial Union as part of their minicourse program. The first class is Monday October 22, 6:30 to 9 pm. Sign up here.

Telling Stories Through Photos

Description: How can you make your photographs tell a story? Do you (sometimes) take great photos but wonder how to make them add up to something more? Explore documentary photo techniques like finding your subject, storytelling and editing, while having fun experimenting with your camera. We will focus on photojournalistic approaches, but the skills you learn will be applicable to any type of narrative documentary, personal, or fine art photography project. Designed for those comfortable with basic camera handling who want to create great images. Bring camera and your story ideas to first class. Digital SLR useful but not required.

Course meets every other week so that you can work on a story project between class sessions, 10/22, 11/5 and 11/19. (No class 10/29 & 11/12.) 3 Meetings.

INSTRUCTOR: Michael Forster Rothbart, former UW photographer, just returned from 4 months photographing Chernobyl.

There are still seats open. Please spread the word!
You can sign up for the class here.
The minicourse home page is here.

the monkey house

Former primate researcher Amy Kerwin is founder of the non-profit Primates Inc., which seeks to build a primate sanctuary in Wisconsin for retired research monkeys.

I shot a portrait of Amy Kerwin for today's issue of Isthmus. It accompanies an essay she wrote, Confessions of a UW primate researcher.

The editor wanted a photo of Amy holding a monkey doll. However, Amy feared that would make her look unprofessional, so instead I made some simple portraits of her and her very orange kitchen wall. In a portrait, I usually try to include some relevant element of a person's work or life. In this case, we added a poster showing the logo of Amy's non-profit.

The Isthmus preferred the simple shot of just Amy and her orange wall. See the photo and article here.

home, sweet home (page)

I had lunch last week on Madison’s Capitol square. I looked around at the lush green lawn and the pedestrians ambling past, all of us enjoying the summery day. And I thought: gosh, what a lovely place this is, this city between the lakes. Who would ever want to leave such a bucolic town?

Yes, it’s nice to be home.

Now I want to show off my other new home: my new web page is now online at www.mfrphoto.com. Please come visit!

(We are still working out a few kinks, so if you break anything, please let me know what page you were on and what happened — or failed to happen).

Lord of the Rings

Film scholar Kristin Thompson.

My first paid assignment since returning to Madison was a cover story for this week's Isthmus, Madison's weekly newspaper. An interview with Kristin Thompson, a film researcher based at UW-Madison.

(Thompson gets an office but, as she told me, "I promise not to teach and they promise not to pay me.") She has just written The Frodo Franchise, about the marketing of the Lord of the Rings. She is a fascinating woman; if you're interested in film, check out the blog she runs with her husband David Bordwell: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/

I knew the above photo was too artsy for the cover, but I hoped they would use it inside. Here is what they actually used:


Read the whole Isthmus article here.

Lighting info: I used a digital projector to shine a LOTR image from my laptop on to the wall behind Thompson, then used an off-camera flash with a tight snoot, at right, to light her. Flash fired by Pocket Wizards.

worst polluted places

A dosimeter shows the current radiation level outside the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. In the background is Fourth Block of the plant, where the Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986 during an ill-advised late night safety test. After 21 years, the radiation outside the plant remains high enough that stopping here for more than a brief period is not recommended.

Today the Blacksmith Institute released their annual list of the worst polluted places on the planet. It should surprise no one to see Chernobyl on the list. I've been working with Blacksmith to prepare for this news release, and they wanted half a dozen of my photos to accompany the story. In the end, however, they chose a gritty B&W photo of a mutated boy in Belarus as the lead image.

People equate radiation with birth defects, but as usual, the truth is a lot more complicated. I've yet to find good statistics on the rates of birth defects around Chernobyl, but they are not as common as you'd believe after seeing such photos. In my 4 months around Chernobyl, I looked for but did not find a single mutant.

going down

We've now made it home to Wisconsin, where our yard is full of mosquitoes and our attic full of boxes.

Since our return I've been pondering what photo I could post to sum up our experience of life in the former Soviet Union. This is it.

It’s a typical scene from Kazakhstan. You walk into the entryway of an apartment building or an office building. The front steps are crumbling, the paint is peeling. It smells like something died in the basement. If there is an elevator, and if it looks like it works, you squeeze through the narrow doorway and the door bangs shut behind you.

The interior of the elevator is gloomily lit by a single orange bulb. In the half-dark you search for the floor you want, and discover that after five or six decades of grimy fingers, the numbers have long since worn off the white plastic buttons. You take a guess, hit a button and the light gets even dimmer as a motor shudders to life somewhere below.

On the way back down you take the stairs.

In this case, in an academic office building in Almaty, someone got fed up. I can imagine her, pulling a bottle of fingernail paint out of her purse and hastily scrawling numbers on the wall as the elevator creaks slowly upwards.

I did not notice the blank button below 5 until later, looking at this photo. Who, I would like to know, works on floor four and a half?