Rat Art Installation #7,352.

This is actually a fairly old one, but I came across the bottle while cleaning the studio, and took pics this time out. I had this on a high shelf, which a persistent and creative Angel finally managed to get to, mostly with persistence in scaling the wall. The food colouring had, of course, run down the wall, and when I first saw it, still mostly asleep, first reaction was “WTF, who is bleeding and how in the hell…” This evening, just picking it up, after it has sat for months, I got my fingers covered in red, which won’t come off. Damn stuff is a menace.

© C. Ford.

Amos Chapple.

Absolutely stunning photography, many photos with their own stories, too. Just a few here, although I’d happily post each and every one of them!

An illegal tusk hunter at a site where men extract mammoth tusks from the permafrost. Click here for my story on the Mammoth Pirates of Siberia.

For 61 years he’s sat here, legs dwindling to sticks as he thumps cooking pots into shape. His sons work beside him, three hammer blows occasionally falling together in synch, then scattering again into the random beat of the workshop.

I ask whether the girls admired his arms when he was young but he scolds me for rudeness. He’s more comfortable talking about the men with firebombs who drove his family out of their homeland. His father had made the decision to stay when Pakistan was formed around them, a Sikh clan in a new Muslim nation, but eventually the mob violence visited their neighbourhood and they fled.

Like so many who’ve lived through big history he’s nostalgic for the past. “Under the British we felt enormous pressure but we were innocent then. Now the people have freedom but we no longer love each other.”

But his old-testament face lights up when his grandchildren appear, they’re educated and will live a different life. He props a favourite onto his knee, “these little ones can choose their own lives and of course I’m happy for that”.

Finally, after the curious crowd have drifted away from us he leans in close, “you asked about my arms? My wife told me she always felt safe in these arms”. He rocks back and sweeps a hand over his children, his workshop, his little empire, “and she was, she always was”

These and so very much more can be seen at Amos Chapple Photography. Have a wander! And you won’t want to miss his feature on The Shepherds of the Tusheti Mountains, a gorgeous pictorial of a dangerous job:

Every autumn, a spectacular animal migration takes place in Georgia’s Tusheti region in the northern Caucasus Mountains. Radio Free Europe photographer Amos Chapple recently joined a group of shepherds and their dogs on what he refers to as a “deadly, boozy journey” from the steep mountains to the plains, as they brought their 1,200 sheep down to their winter pastures.

All images © Amos Chapple.