April 2012

Well done to 20-year-old Saira Tabasum from the Bradford Police & College Boxing Academy on taking gold at the British Universities boxing championships. See you in Brazil in 2016, Saira. And good luck to Nicola Adams, boxer from Leeds, as she heads to China for the women’s world championships and the qualifiers for London 2012. Indeed best wishes to all the girls in the GB team.

I also want to pay tribute to the women who work at BP Salt End chemicals park here in East Yorkshire. On commission from BP, I spent time with the female engineers and project managers, to photograph them in situ for a project and exhibition about women in industry. Our project aims to celebrate these women’s talents and achievements and also raise awareness of the incredible working opportunities available to women in an industry often seen as unglamorous and for men only. Women make up just 21 per cent of the oil and gas workers in Britain, would you believe. It’s early days for this new project – who knows where it will lead as there’s a lot we can say.

Finally, thanks to close friends who celebrated Easter with me here at the old ice cream parlour in Beverley. Here’s to more gatherings at this summer’s music festivals, exhibitions and picnics – there’s a lot coming up, so fill your glasses and pull up a deckchair. See you again soon.

March 2012 – Olympic Year

Stay tuned for full details of the Girls in the Ring photography exhibition tour – coming to a venue near you. Hoping all the female boxers get to see it at some point during the London 2012 year. Will be great to see you all there and hear how your bouts are going. Check out the new logo below. Also, I’m having a dedicated Girls in the Ring exhibition catalogue published too, as a keepsake of this historic year for women’s sports. Later …..

February 29, 2012

Grace Brown, head of the women’s boxing team in Sierra Leone, died this morning, aged 43. Cecilia ‘Sporty’ phoned me this evening and said that Grace was taken to have a bath and then have breakfast and then back to bed and she just didn’t make it. Grace was hoping to see her women’s boxing team have a go at trying for the Olympics London 2012 but it didn’t happen, for umpteen reasons. Grace endured a mastectomy and suffered a stroke. She was a mother, and a friend to Sarah and the rest of the team. She was a fine sportswoman who had a dream of seeing her girls make it, one day, to the boxing rings of the Olympics. How many talented and committed athletes are being ignored and not given the chance to pursue their dreams, purely because of their circumstances and geographical locations? And then it’s too late.

Grace Brown and Lee Karen Stow in the bout of the century

Grace Brown, boxer, in action.

February 2012

Many followers of the ’42’ project and Women with Cameras (indeed, all my work) will know by now that I was recently awarded an Honorary Degree – Doctor of Letters – from the University of Hull, the university of my birthplace in glorious East Yorkshire, England. The award came as a complete surprise to me. The lady who nominated me, who wishes to remain anonymous, has changed my life and has helped to shine the spotlight on our project and the condition of women in Africa. I cannot thank her enough, nor can I thank every single person that has supported our project in some shape or form, whether that be in cash donations or in words of encouragement. I couldn’t name everyone in the speech as I was given only five minutes to make my point, and to name everyone would have taken a week. I decided to devote my ‘five minutes of fame’ to the women of Sierra Leone – they need it more than me, and they need it more than us. I hope everyone who knows me understands my intentions and my thoughts. YOU know how much I appreciate every ounce of help you have given me, and them. My greatest thanks though, go to my parents, Maureen and Allan Stow. My Mother is my inspiration and the strongest, most beautiful woman I have ever known. My Father would make the angels in heaven swear! But one day I hope to understand that it was just ‘his way’. I expected too much from him. This entry this month then, is a tribute to the two people that made me. Because in making me, they have helped a few others. You can see the ceremony and speech on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL6r2ptzlMQ&feature=related

My parents, Maureen and Allan Stow of Hull, East Yorkshire, England. Photo taken by Angela Rowley 2011

January 2012 Olympic Year

Love and best wishes to everyone out there, in the UK and overseas. This year will be a busy one, I just know it. Whilst I’m editing and preparing for the exhibition tour for Girls in the Ring, the story of the female amateur boxers of Yorkshire to coincide with women’s boxing rounds for the first time at the Olympic Games, I’ll be looking ahead to return visits to Hull by Gladys and Francess from Freetown. It feels like an age since we were all together in Africa last summer. We still have much work to do, funds to raise and photographs to show. It will never end and I don’t want it to.

There may be a chance to visit China in May to cover the qualifying rounds of women’s boxing for the Olympics, and especially to photograph Nicola Adams, Yorkshire’s hope for Gold. Where travels will take me after that, who knows, let’s wait and see.

January is a time for getting ready for the months ahead, without forgetting what has gone before. One of the greatest and most prolific writers in East Yorkshire, Sue Mason, passed away this month. Sue was a colleague from our newspaper days and a friend, in fact a friend to many. I will miss you Sue, and will never forget you.

October-November 2012

A selection of images from 42 has gone up on the walls of WISE (Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation) and new images are currently being added to the exhibition at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. Over in Sierra Leone Francess is carrying out a photographic commission for the Commonwealth, Rebecca is shopping for a printer in order to undertake more school’s photography work (thanks to funds raised), and Gladys has begun her third year at University studying Public Sector Management. Unfortunately, we have received a report from Amnesty that the maternal mortality situation is not improving and that women are still dying needlessly in childbirth. All this goes on whilst I’m deeply involved in photographing the female boxers around the clubs and gyms of Yorkshire, ready for three showings of Girls in the Ring Yorkshire during the Olympic Year. I’m grateful for all the access and time these girls and their trainers/managers are giving me, and to Arts Council England which has supported me since day one. It’s a terrific project to work on. The whole history of Yorkshire is tied up within the walls of these gyms, many of them dating back to the 1940s. I was amazed to see the blood stains of old on the floor of a boxing ring in the bowels of Ernie Oxers club in Mexborough. We’ve had triumphs just lately including: Saira Tabasum from Bradford Police and College ABC has been chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Bradford, and Abbie-Jo Longley from East Hull ABC won her second bout in a show-stopping dramatic performance. The Women’s Championships are coming up in Manchester next month and fingers crossed I’m hoping to spend time in Sheffield to photograph an outstanding Yorkshire lass, Nicola Adams from Leeds, who is Yorkshire’s only female member so far in the GB Olympic team.

Bradford boxer Saira Tabasum - copyright Lee Karen Stow

August 2011

Francess completed a successful and inspiring visit to America, where she took part in a scholarship programme with the Pacific NorthWest Art School on Whidbey Island in Washington State. She studied first with National Geographic photographer Sam Abell, and then with renowned photography teacher Bob Stahl. Huge support and encouragement came from Lisa Bernhardt and family, participants on the photography classes, all at the Compass Rose guest house, our host Carol ‘Hilton’ Harrison, and the Soroptimists of Whidbey Island and Tri-Cities. Thank you everyone from the bottom of two, swollen and happy hearts. Francess headed back to Sierra Leone with more knowledge and optimism about her career and life in photography. Well done, Francess, you are a credit to your yourself and to the women of Africa.

Francess Ngaboh-Smart receives a certificate of achievement from National Geographic photographer Sam Abell.

July

A bit of news from Hull in East Yorkshire instead of Sierra Leone for a change, although what happens here is intertwined with what happens there. Girls in the Ring (Round One) the first showing in a bigger exhibition tour of images depicting the female boxers of Yorkshire opened at the James Reckitt Foundation Gallery in Hull. A huge thank you to Arts Council England, Mitch Upfold of Hull City Council, Inspire, the gallery itself and all the girls and women boxers in Hull who have allowed me to photograph them training in the atmospheric gyms that exist in the city. I’ve stumbled on an amazing world of skill, determination, drive, ambition, beautiful egos, passion and down-to-earth good humour that is just ripe for capturing with the camera, and deserves to be. This project is a warm-up to a great London 2012, so please keep following ‘Girls in the Ring’, especially when the boxing seasons kicks off from October. I’ll be down at the fights. You’ll see me, the photographer at ringside, swearing at the lack of light, wearing a t-shirt plastered with ‘Girls in the Ring’ across her back. If you’re a female boxer from Yorkshire, tap me on the shoulder, please. If you’re a punter, buy me a drink, please.

Meanwhile, ‘Fighting for Gold’, the story of the female boxing team in Freetown in Sierra Leone, and the campaign to try to get them over to the UK for a chance of qualifying for the Olympics, or at least having a good old training session with the women boxers of Hull, has moved up a notch, thanks to the Lord Mayor of Hull. So many people are behind these women now, urging them forwards to the Gold medal. It’s a glimmer of a dream, yes, but the Olympics might never return to the UK again in our lifetime, and if they do I certainly might not have the energy I have now to make things happen, and some of the Freetown women most certainly will not be around

Kimberley Brown, boxer, Hull Saints Amateur Boxing Club, Hull, UK

. Please, please, support me in helping these strong and forgotten women have the most amazing ‘bout’ of their life.

‘Fighting for Gold’ photofilm http://vimeo.com/21336948

June

Francess arrived in the UK mid-month for a physically and emotionally demanding, but informative and enjoyable, programme of photography, networking and visiting galleries and photography clubs. She presented slideshow talks on her portfolio ‘Nya Jee Salone’ and also promoted the early beginnings of a new body of work entitled ‘Back 2 Normal?’, which aims to document life in Sierra Leone ten years after the country’s civil war. She delivered talks to a few members of the Tackling Racism group at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool; the Yorkshire Photographer’s Network at the Pop-Up Gallery in Bradford; plus a number of schools and to members of linked churches and the Freetown Society. Francess’ photography grows stronger with each passing year. What she has achieved since picking up the small compact camera in 2007 is remarkable and deserves recognition. Sierra Leone is a beautiful and captivating country, but it is a tough place in which to work, especially for an independent female photographer with dreams, ideas and ambitions. Still, she has overcome obstacles and barriers to become a sought-after professional who is still at the beginning of her career and her life’s journey. Only Francess knows what the future holds for Francess. Well done Sista, well done.