Very mild. Whatever you are doing, you can find our forecast at the website. Hello, this is bbc news. The headlines. The duke of edinburgh has left hospital in time to spend christmas with the queen at sandringham. The queen will use her Christmas Day message to say the past year has been quite bumpy adding that small steps can heal divisions. Thousands of volunteer firefighters will spend Christmas Day battling wildfires that are still ravaging australia. A warning from nhs england to parents keep button batteries the type found in toys, festive lights, and musical christmas cards away from children. Now on bbc news, a special programme featuring five women photographers who have offered glimpses into rarely seen lives in through the Lens Photography has the ability to shine a spotlight, giving us an insight into people and places we would never otherwise have seen. In this programme im going to introduce you to five remarkable female photographers working today who have captured worlds that are rarely documented, exploring hidden lives around the globe. Coming up, a photographer who befriended saudi women, offering a glimpse behind the closed doors of their homes. And thejordanian american whose images revealed the lives of palestinians in gaza and the west bank through moments of dark humour. But first, lets meet elina shenshoiva. She looked at how residents of norilsk adapted to living in one of the worlds most isolated cities, 400 kilometres north of the arctic circle, where each winter the sun does not rise for two months. You have a feeling that they will appear, and norilsk is a city situated above the polar circle in russian siberia. It is one of the most northern cities in the world. With a population of 180,000 people. My mother, she lived above the polar circle during her youth and she told me lots of stories about it, and i was really interested to explore, to understand how it is to live with the polar or polar day. And how it is actually the life, in these latitudes. I chose norilsk because it has an interesting history. It is situated in a kind of installation that isolation, because it has no ground links with other cities of russia. It is a very extreme place. For me, the main idea was to talk about the adaptation of this environment, to this climate. Almost in every building we can find a solarium and people go quite often there. It is not a luxury, it is needed. When there are stronger snowstorms, columns of buses are organised twice a day and workers are brought to the mines or the plants by these buses. Polar night, it comes very slowly. One moment you understand that there is no more daylight. For me, it is very important to see sun for a good mood. So for me, one moment, it started to be very hard and heavy, i felt psychologically not good. After two months i even started to have, like, this feeling, kind of a panic that the sun will never come back. Polar days are very beautiful times. People are so happy. They work, often until late, just enjoying this warm weather and beautiful golden light. It is hard, sometimes, to sleep. Because lots of people are not used to sleeping when there is daylight. It is quite contradictory, because the conditions of climate are quite extreme, but people are so friendly and so joyful, they have very wonderful sense of humour. I was surprised to meet several young people who told me that for them, norilsk, it is their zone of comfort, because they have everything, actually. They have long vacations. Good salaries. Regular salaries. But from the other side there are lots of people who are dreaming to go away from norilsk and to live in a more comfortable region. To meet certain people, and without being a photographer i could not actually be there. Elena chernyshova, whose images show what it is like to live in one of the coldest cities on earth. Sometimes culture, rather than geography, can mean certain groups are harder to reach. During 2009 and 2010, 0livia arthur spent time in saudi arabia, photographing scenes at parties and in a beach town, away from the eyes of the religious police. They have this very strong conservative islamic influence, as well as what has come with, you know, obviously the oil money. 0riginally i went to saudi arabia to teach a workshop for young women. Women i met there invited me to do houses to meet their families. Isaid, can i make a picture of you in your house, at your home . Something you are for some of them that they would be totally covered, others were 0k to be photographed if i didnt show their faces. I started making friends. I hung out with them and threw them at other girls. I stayed in a womens hostile one night, which is kind so we hung out together, i should do my work, they saw the sort of thing i was doing. They said, thats great, we would like to be in your pictures, but you cannot photograph us unless we are wearing our abayas. So i said, ok. It must have been one oclock in the morning, they all put on their abayas and niqabs. They sat around and started making a pretend tea party. I havent asked them to do that but in a way, we were just playing. It was fun. I took these pictures and they started playing around, this one, there is this little girl who has got a black goldfish. She stands there with her Goldfish Bowl and she says, look, my goldfish has an abaya. They kind of laughter. They were not laughing at themselves, we were just having fun. And at the end they said to me, thanks for that, that was great. We really enjoyed it. That was a great honour for me, that they would trust me and let me into their welds and i took that very seriously and i tried to understand that desire for privacy and what that meant. What they were ok with me showing, what they werent ok with me showing. Sometimes i take pictures and later the girls asked me not to show theirfaces. I make in some photographed them under a bright light. Thats great, one of them says, but cant you show a bit more of her eyes so that people can see how beautiful she is . It was a curious place, like a beach town, a little bit out of jeddah, about half an hour away. Lots of people go there on the weekend. It is privately owned, which means the rules of Saudi Society somehow dont exist, and that for me was very confusing. You can wear what you like, women can drive cars, women can ride bikes. Some women can swim in a bikini. Some women swim in an abaya, because they dont want to swim ina bikini. So this place captured a lot of the contradictions. I didnt really want to say life in this country is this way, or it is this way, it is one particular thing, because i realise it is way more complicated than that and that i didnt really have a proper insight, or a only had some glimpses. So what i tried to do was really give people my experience, just to help to explain to the viewer the stuff that was hidden, and also the kind of contradictory nature of it all. She comes up to us in a cafe. Do you want to come to a dj party . Im shocked. No, my friend tells me, it is one of those all girls parties. They have them in wedding halls, they are legal. At the party, the lights flickered on every five minutes to make sure nobody is misbehaving. In a way, laughing at myself for not understanding or not being able to make sense of what was going on around me sort of brings a lightness into what is, in part, quite a heavy story. That was what my experience was. It was not about women complaining about their lives. It was about, we are having fun, we are making the most of our lives it is intrusive, and these people are desperately private. But at the same time, there would be girls that you would say, show our world, show people our lives are not as bad as they think they are. 0livia arthur, whose friendships with young saudi women granted her access to private spaces whose cameras are usually shunned. Tanya was born injordan and raised between that and texas. Her images offer a nuanced look at those living in the occupied territories. Dont replicate exactly what is happening in the news. Find your way in that no one else can tell. And go deeper. I am working on a place that is one of the most hyper narrated places on earth. You look at the coverage there versus anywhere else, the coverage is vast. But i am bored by the majority of it and it doesnt represent the place but i know. And so i try to find the intimate. I try to find a unique entry point into any story, and i always try to go under, over, side door, around the corner. Because i am not interested in reproducing what has already been done and said, because what is the point . It needs to be something that has more than one dimension. I had married a palestinian and had children. Suddenly i was not a journalist coming in and out. I was the one sitting at checkpoints and experiencing this as reality, watching sometimes operatic scenes of ridiculousness and humour, to bypass orjust survive these situations. I started to look differently and think, what story do i want to tell . And that was occupied pleasures. There had been a wedding, i missed it, there was a woman who had come in in a Wedding Dress and had the Wedding Party because she had not been given permission to access gaza because of the blockade. And so i went and found her. She was not there. The husband was. He started telling me about his love story. He described finding her in the tunnel, i ran to her, i kissed her, it was like a bollywood movie. And then he paused and he said the most sobering, sombre thing. He said, you know, no matter what they do to us, we will always find a way to live, to love, to laugh. We didnt make it in time, they were going to their favourite spot, there were some roman ruins, it is an area settlers often try to come to discourage them. And they say that they love to go specifically to that spot for that reason, and that they looked at yoga as in a resistance. The parkour boys, they lived in one of the refugee camps and the things that they could do, it was beautiful. Flying, deftly using these ugly walls as a springboard of freedom. It was his remark on the absurdity he knew the joke that was being implied and he was playing at it. And its wonderful. In the middle east, its just as prevalent, and humour is it allows you surprising places. Whether you are dealing withjews, armenians, lebanese, black humour is very endemic to the region as a survival coping mechanism. So i succeed if it leaves you just slightly doubting your assumptions. I was born injordan and raised in texas. That is where my critique of mainstream journalism came from. Going betweenjordan and texas. How the news was received was very different. I went from going from how do you survive this, what is your take on it . There is black humour is something more obvious, i wanted something more personal, and how it occupies their minds to circumvent this reality and also simultaneously refused to let suffering be the definition of their existence. Tanya, who found that dark humour allowed her into surprising places. In 1973, pas was a teacher when general Augusto Pinochet overthrew the chilean government and established a dictatorship. Although targeted by the police, she defied the curfew to document marginalised communities persecuted by the regime. This brutal military way of activity, you work in metaphors, you work differently, and a way to avoid them, you know . At the end of the regime, with the coup, i had to stop my teaching at schools which was my work at the time. I had to work like a freelance photographer. In those days there werent many women photographers. You had to be very brave to do that. Things were complicated because of the curfew. In work, i had very young children, and a baby. The only way to do my things was to start investigating the street by myself. It was a way also to do sort of political resistance, but it was very scary because the police was always after hours. On that experience helped me a lot to move around and do sort out places to work, sort of, alibis, you know . And confronting the police that was heavy on us, you know, photographers in the street. Of course my house had been searched. So i knew what you had to hide and how, you know. It was a long essay, it took me four years to finish it. I was very interested in prostitution in general. I met a male prostitute, you know, transvestites. They were extremely keen on photography. They loved it. And that was fantastic, how they received me. In the first thing i did was meet the mother of two of them. I got very close to her, in fact i dedicate the whole work to her, and i say this we made a book, you know afterfour years, a book that of course was censored. The subject was like the underground, you know, my friend claudia, we went with them south to escape persecution. We stayed with them in the brothel they were working. Thats what we recorded, constantly, you know . Their lives, their experience, the beginning of the dictatorship and how badly they were treated, the ones that survived, even. So, we i felt very close to them and we were really good friends. You know, i been in touch with the survivors of this project. Which in fact is a very tragic situation, since of them died of aids. It was a very tragic experience for the whole community. You know, i have to show people or make people learn how to look. The margin is where power looks differently. Paz, for whom photography was a form of political resistance. Magnum photographer, dianas work is intensely personal. Her mother took her to the us without telling her father. Diana found him in armenia 20 years later capturing the reunion in picture. My mum woke me up and everything was packed. We had a tiny suitcase with us, my brother and i. And my mother said take all of your important things and we left. I never said goodbye to my father. My moms solution to forget him was simple. She cut his image out of every photograph in ourfamily album. Those holes made it harder for me to forget him. I often wondered what it would have been like to have a father. I still do. My work is often about my own family, about the past, about memory. This project is one of the first projects that really inspired me to look inwards. To start exploring my own family history. My parents met in university in armenia. My mother had just turned 21. Its strange to look at images of them together. They look so happy. So in love. All i ever knew was her disappointment. I was born in russia at a time when the soviet union collapsed and my family, like a lot of russians, became desperate overnight. My mom wanted something more for my life. She always did. She didnt have a relationship, she didnt have a family beyond my brother and i. And we left. I never thought we wouldnt see my dad again, never thought we wouldnt see my friends again, wejust left. And it took me two decades to go back. So this is a suitcase that my grandfather put together of things that he had collected over the last 20 years while we were missing. So theres a shirt from my brothers future wedding. Dozens of returned letters. A newspaper clipping. Its called missing point, and its as we were taken to america by our mum and he doesnt know where, and if there is anyone who knows anything, to come forward to him. I wanted to find my father, and i was separated from him when i was seven. Almost 20 years later i wanted as an adult to know who this man was. Ijust happened to be in armenia, my brother was with me and i rememberfinding his house. And we said, we were his kids and he said he didnt believe us. This was one of those days where i felt really lucky to be around my dad. We were on a boat and we were paddling together, he was teaching me. There are moments when he feels close but then all of a sudden hes gone. Collaborative photography gives way to better storytelling. I learned this with my father. The collaboration started not so much that he is going to take pictures, hes going to write, its more like hes going to think with me. Not everything was one story or one truth. And you have two parents, its the basic, isnt it . When you are not given that, you are always trying to make up for it. When i look at my dad, i think that he is the exact person i needed in my life. 0ur relationship has really become one of love. Diana markosian on finding her father and really finding their relationship. And thats all from through the lens from london. To see the rest of the series, go to bbc. Com throughthelens. The weather is going to settle down for Christmas Day with plenty of sunshine. Right now, umbrellas at the ready, there are some showers out there. Some glimmers of sunshine. Earlier, quite a festive view from east sussex. This is the radar picture with lightning as well so far today. We have seen some thundery downpours and parts of wales and southern england. Still some heavy showers to come this afternoon. There are showers to be found elsewhere. Not a huge amount of sunshine. Look at this, for Christmas Day, a ridge of High Pressure giving plenty of sunshine. The break in the rain doesnt last long because as you go to boxing day, we are going to bring more rain oui day, we are going to bring more rain our way and the wind will pick up once again. Lets take a look at the next few days, starting with the rest of this afternoon. A fair few showers out there with a good deal of cloud, some sunny spells if you are lucky. The heaviest showers across parts of southern england, may come with a rumble of thunder. Quite a range of temperatures across the uk. Close to freezing in the cold est the uk. Close to freezing in the coldest parts the uk. Close to freezing in the cold est parts of the uk. Close to freezing in the coldest parts of northern scotland. Into double figures in parts of wales and southern england. Here we have the strongest westerly breeze. Some showers into this evening. A lot of them are going to fade. We will keep some on the breeze running ata will keep some on the breeze running at a north west scotland. As a skies clear, temperatures are going to drop away. We are going to see temperatures falling close to freezing for much of the uk. There may be one or two ago icy patches. It does take as own, remember that ridge of High Pressure i showed you, the quieter Christmas Day to come. Plenty of sunshine, just the odd shower. More special into the morning from the north and north west of scotland. If you are travelling on Christmas Day, looking pretty much in good shape. There is a colder air across southern britain. Bear in mind as we go into the evening, quite dense in places, across central and eastern parts of england in particular. To the west, cloud increases overnight. The wind freshens and rain moves in. On boxing day, the rain, with hill snow, in higher parts of the pennines in scotland, moving north and east across the uk. Temperatures into double figures for some of us. After that, staying fairly u nsettled. After that, staying fairly unsettled. But i think turning drier for england and wales over the weekend. Good afternoon. The duke of edinburgh has returned to sandringham in time for christmas after leaving hospital in london. Prince phillip, whos 98, spent four nights in the king edward vii hospital on the advice of his doctor. In her Christmas Day message the queen will describe 2019 as a bumpy year. Heres our royal correspondent nicholas witchell. Afterfour nights in the king edward vii hospital, the duke emerged this morning and walked slowly but without assistance to the waiting vehicle. Theres been no information about the reason for his stay at the hospital
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.