Bear faced truth
The 5,000-word introductory text to The Book of Veles is a detailed and thrilling read. Renowned Magnum Photos photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen (b.1977) recounts his travels to the North Macedonia city of Veles which came to prominence in 2016 as a world capital of fake news. The Norwegian national roams around the squalid streets and derelict buildings to find and photograph people involved in the fake news business. He meets the tall thin mayor, Diokno, with a large moustache and bald head. He meets Goran, an internet troll, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and hoodie who has dark hair parted in the middle. Eighteen-year-old Bojan is dressed in a green and black striped shirt and brown shoes. Andras has a grey ponytail, shock of grey hair, small smile and a tattoo on his left shoulder that reads ‘Macedonia.’ There’s a killing, an attack and inspired interlude where Bendiksen interrupts his fake news investigation to find and photograph a sleuth of bears running amok. He parks his car and, with little regard for his own safety, walks into the forest of big trees with big branches.
The images in the book are classic Bendiksen, carefully crafted photographs in the style to which we have become accustomed from his archive of award-winning photo-essays. A young girl sits on an inflatable unicorn in
