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The latest from a recent trip to Auschwitz in Poland. Words fail me really, you have to go for yourself.

Auschwitz 1 - Images by Grenville Charles

Auschwitz 2 - Images by Grenville Charles

We Are One is published in hardback by Quadrille Publishing today and contains three of my photographs of the Kombai and Korowai tribes from West Papua. All proceeds go to Survival International to help tribal people all over the world.

Here is a link to some of the photographs in the book on the Gaurdian website

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2009/oct/14/ethical-holidays?picture=354256806

and here is a link to buy the book from Survival, remember all the proceeds go to help tribal people.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/weareone

"They Only Eat Witches, Don't They" is now available here. Take a look, you can preview the book on-line. Hope you like it.

They Only Eat ...

A Photographic jou...

By Photographs by Gre...

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Ellanden River Journey

In March of this year I took a trip in a dugout canoe up the Ellanden River in West Papua. I photographed from the canoe as we moved up the river.

The Ellanden runs from the Papuan highlands to the lowlands in the south and eventually in to the Arafura sea. I had started in Agats and was going up the river a distance of over 100 miles from where I would begin a treck in to the jungle to photograph the remote Kombai tribe.

Here is a selection of photographs taken from the dugout.

Ellanden River Journey - Images by Grenville Charles

Tramlines, Sheffield Music Festival

Here are some of the photos from last weekends music festival in Sheffield, my home town. I think it was a great success. Some great bands, some not so great too, but on the whole and considering the majority of them were unsigned there was some pretty good music, my personal favourite was Flatbush, who I thought were by far the best, of course Reverend and the Makers, local lads, didn't disappoint either.

Tramlines, Sheffield Music Festival - Images by Grenville Charles

Tribes of West Papua

This is a long term project of mine to document some of the many tribes of West Papua. I have been four times now, the first time was in 2004 and most recently in March of 2009. There is nowhere like it and I love it. I have photographed the Dani, the Mek, The Komorro, Korowai, Kombai and Asmat tribes to date and will be uploading more images from the trips. I will split the gallery in to individual tribal galleries when I have uploaded the majority of the work.
It may be of interest that Survival International will be publishing a book this year commemorating 40 years of helping tribal people, they will be using several of my images in the book, it is to be called "We are One". Two of my photos are also used in their diaries available from http://www.survival-international.org/
I also have a book publisher in Holland interested in publishing the work.


Tribes of West Papua, Indonesia - Images by Grenville Charles

Damascus- Portraits from a Taxi

Didn't have very long in Damascus as we were filming in Latakia in the north of Syria, it's very frustrating been in such a wonderful place with no time to take photographs. I did however have an hours Taxi ride in the city on our return from the filming and shot these portraits, some of them as we passed at very high speed, not ideal circumstances for photography but they have a certain quality about them that I like, something of a departure from my usual work but perhaps a step in the right direction.


Damascus Taxi Ride - Images by Grenville Charles

Film making in the Middle East

Just returned from three weeks in Syria, shooting stills for the director Najdat Anzour's new 30 part tv series to be aired during ramadam. Najdat Anzour is probably the biggest director in the whole of the Arab speaking world and is recognised everywhere, probably the equivelent to Steven Spielberg in the West. He is something of a tyrant, but in the nicest possible way. On the set of this latest film he shot a revolver at the feet of Kalib, his production assistent on a daily basis when he displeased him, but it was all done with great humour, and I liked him very much. He works exceptionally fast in comparison to working on a film set here in the UK, but even by Arabic standards I was told he was quick.
Najdat also has a feature film in the pipeline, it is set during the colonial rule of Libya by Italy in the 1930's and was written by Gadaffi. I was privaliged enough to see a teaser for this film and it was stunningly photographed and very beautiful. Najdat has asked me to do the stills for it when it goes into production, I agreed.


Syria - Images by Grenville Charles

The Damned United

Since the film "The Damned United"  is out at the moment I thought I would post up some of the stills from the making of the film.  The film is directed by Tom Hooper, about the football manager Brian Clough played by the excellent Michael Sheen. 

One of my favourite quotes comes from Brian Clough, he had an autographed photo of himself with Frank Sinatra, and when asked about it by a friend he said, "Yes, Frank Sinatra met me once". 

Here are some of the stills from the film, principally of Michael Sheen preparing for his scenes. I also like the blow up crowd.

The Damned United Film Stills - Images by Grenville Charles

World Snooker Championships

I just thought I'd put up some of the shots from the World Snooker Championships. Although the first championship was held in 1927 It's been held in my home town of Sheffield since 1977 and I've been photographing it since 2000. I tend to concentrate on the players backstage before the matches start. This gives me very little actual shooting time but I think it reveals a little something about the tournament and it's players that is seldom seen by the public, besides there are plenty other photographers photographing the actual play. Anyway I thought I would add some of the work here as the Championship starts at the Crucible in Sheffield tomorrow.

World Snooker Championships - Images by Grenville Charles

Asmat Tribe Trip

I have not long since returned from another trip (my fourth) to West Papua. I was there this time to photograph the Asmat tribe on the Southern coast and around the area of Agats, notorious for being the spot that Michael Rockerfeller went missing, presumed eaten, or possibly drowned. 

My own trip, although not nearly as bad as Mr Rockerfellers was not as succesful as I had hoped. The area is extremely difficult to get to and once there even harder to get around, especially on a budget, and I'm always on a budget. I arrived in Tamika and after two failed attempts to get to Agats by speed boat, the first attempt failed because the speed boat driver was drunk, the second attempt was slightly more succesful in that we actualy got out to sea but then had to turn back due to the weather. Then the speed boat driver did a bunk with some of my equipment and his fee for taking me to Agats, which I'd foolishly given him in advance. By this time I had spent four days in Timika, trying to get out. I wanted to make the most of my time there so I visited the prostitutes of Ten Kilo... 

Ten Kilo - Images by Grenville Charles

to photograph them. 

Ten Kilo resembles what I would imagine a wild west frontier town to have been like. It is basically a village of prostitutes, they were moved from the actual town of Timika because the workers from the Freeport copper and gold mine, the largest in the world, were spending too much time in the brothels and not returning to work. 

While photographing at Ten Kilo I received the news that a cargo boat captain had agreed to my hitching a ride to Agats  for a very modest sum. I returned to Tamika to collect my gear and then boarded the cargo boat, I found a spot between some crates, that turned out to contain some very smelly pigs, and tried to get some sleep. I was finally on my way albeit very slowly, the journey took two full days but it was good to finally arrive in Agats, I think the pigs thought so too.