Juan Carlos Hernandez - Life Photographer: colour

6/02/2012

"Shadows" + song inspired by my #photo by Liz Gilbert

Do you know Liz Gilbert ? I know her thanks to twitter, her nickname is @anodyne2art. A wonderful human being. Her heart doesn't know limits.

She wrote a song "Shadows" inspired by this photograph. Life is full of special gifts and someone feels sometime blessed with this one.

Liz Gilbert : "Shadows was recorded live, just me as is my wont, in a freezing cold studio after coming back from seeing a kid in a coma (after bad car accident he was in....I have been involved with a lot of kids here for over 20 years...the budding artist ones)...an intense time to say the least."

04 Shadows by Liz Gilbert

5/10/2012

Black sheep and UDC/SVP. Racism and Populism in Switzerland (originally published the 11/29/2009)

I published this text originally the 29th of November 2009 : "I photographied in 2009 these black sheep in Fribourg, Switzerland. Like this view first but then watching it, I realized that I shot a political photo not only something I believed as very beautiful. I explain me .. history . in 2007 Swiss People’s Party (UDC / SVP, an extreme right political party) has caused debate with the design of a propaganda poster. The infamous “black sheep” poster (you can here this creepy poster http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0709/postcard_pomy_0921.jpg depicted three white sheep kicking a black sheep out of Switzerland, accompanied by the caption “for greater security”, demonstrating again the party’s tendency to play on fears. The iniative was fortunately largely rejected by Swiss people. And 2 years after, I'm very pleased to see that black sheep are still quietly feeding on. For me, the real black sheep in Switzerland is this political party.

ps : if you want to know more about this story, please read this excellent article of Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1664269,00.htm l"

3/10/2012

Hypocrisy about illegal strangers in Switzerland + Manu Chao song #photo

I'm born and live in Geneva, Switzerland.

Switzerland is a very rich country but not full of rich people. Lot of us are common people with common incomes, like me and more are working poor (15% of the population)

I took this photograph on the 2009 summer during a the Peru National Holiday in my hometown Geneva.

The occasion for thousands of latino-americans from Geneva to have some good time.

This people work hard during the week and most of the time being "clandestinos" .. illegal strangers, living in the fear to be caught by the police.

So, with this simple image, I wish to pay tribute to this great people who raise our children, who clean our houses, who cook in our restaurants, etc.

It seems they are more or less 5000 (Geneva : 500 000 people).

Overall, it would be fantastic if we finish with some hypocrisy of right wing politics party and we, at last, legalize lot of them.

The multicultural Geneva is not only the Geneva of the United Nations but also and overall, for me, this Geneva. The Geneva I like really

Finally, an interesting link about the subject (in french but don't forget "google translator) if you want to read more about illegal strangers in Switzerland.

Thanks