This is a girl from the Gipsy family that lives in my neighbourhood. They have been here ever since. It's sort of an insane situation, this cardboard house is surrounded by modern buildings and there's even a police office 150 meters away. You can find houses like this all over the city. There are even some bigger comunities, so called "Cardboard Cities". Hundreds of Gipsy families came to Belgrade from Kosovo during the Nato and US bombing of Serbia in '99. In the old days Gipsies use to travel all around the world, hence the wheel as a symbol on the flag of their nation. The Gipsies don't have a country of their own but you can find a lot of them in the Eeastern Europe. That's because during comunism they were allowed to stay and build houses like this wherever they wanted. It stayed like that till now. It's their way of living and it's hard to start a different life. When you're born in a poor situation like this you don't have very good conditions to start a big life. Most of them make their living collecting old junk and cardboard and reselling it. The others are just begging in the streets. Most of the kids don't go to school so they don't have much of a future. The authorities always have bigger problems to solve and the Gipsies are on their own. The city tried to help but it's mostly no use. They give them a new flat, the Gipsies move in, sell everything from the flat they can (even the parquetry), sell the flat for some money and go back to the cardboard home and live like Gipsy kings with that money. It's a neverending circle.
The flashes of pink here add a lot of visual interest. I love how this is such a straightforward color photo without a ton of dramattc black and white post processing like you often see on this kind of shot. Congrats on the ribbon
I like the pic. the little girl probably doesn't know anything else so she doesn't think she is poor. It is a sad life though. We should consider ourselves lucky, I know I do when I see people who don't have what I do.
powerful work...your comments are an important addition...
really this is about so much more than winning a ribbon it seems silly to even mention it, simply very fine journalistic work...
holy crap, dude, grats on a well deserved win!!!
Quite ironic to finish off your "career" as a gipsy photographer by winning a blue in a challenge isn't it...;)
Excellent, emotive image! I feel so sorry for the poor kid (hope she's well loved by her family, that might make up for the rest). Congrats on your blue, it's well deserved.
This was a really MOVING shot! I am SO happy that it won a ribbon....first and foremost for your sake, but mostly because it may be one of the very few times that we will see an entry in here that doesn't necessarily have the "DPC, technical perfection, stock shot" look to it actually ribbon!!!
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR RIBBON AND YOUR TRIUMPH IN RIBBONING WITH A SHOT WITH TRUE MEANING...NOT JUST "THE LOOK"!!!!!
Wow, poor girl. What a disgusting place! I want to see a bit more of her face though, while still keeping the atmosphere. Not that I dock for the title, but I would think that this girl is too burdened for her childhood to be called carefree.
This is a hard life for any child. A cardboard and wooden house. It looks like it is ready to fall down in a bad storm. The garbage all around the building shows a slum for the poor. I see hope and sadness in this picture. Hope is that the young child is the future and sadness that she lives in such squalor.
This definitely says poverty. The child is so small in this. I'd like to either see her much closer to the camera or be closer or else zoom or crop in tighter so we can see her better.
Carefree childhood
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
