Hello,
In light of some of the world events that have happened this year, an Arab Spring, a Tsunami and a Civil War; there has been a rush of photographers who have selflessly thrown themselves in to danger to report the story visually. Some of been badly injured. Some have died. But do all photographers who report on this kind of news actually know the risks involved and know what can happen to you if you get hurt in the line of work.
This article by Jay Malin is pretty revealing when it comes to just how expendable, and how vulnerable, photographers really are. I'm very found of photographers who can risk their own lives to report on dangerous stories, if it wasn't for them how would we ever know what things "look like" on the ground. But the risks, as we've learned this year, are absolute.
_____________________________________________________________
Copyright: PDN Magazine
ORIGINAL LINK
What To Expect If You’re Injured on Assignment
MAY 03, 2011
By Jay Mallin
[Editor's Note: This article was researched and written in March, weeks before the April 20 rocket attack in Misrata, Libya, which killed two photojournalists and also wounded two others. The injured were not on assignment. Thanks to help from many colleagues, the injured were evacuated and are now recovering; however, we believe the questions this article raises remain relevant.]
When Bangkok-based photographer Philip Blenkinsop returned home after having a bomb blow up a few feet in front of him while photographing in southern Thailand for Time Asia, he got a lesson in the sort of assistance and protection freelancers on assignment can expect from their clients.
“I had a lovely bouquet of flowers waiting for me when I got home,” remembers Blenkinsop. “And I was offered an extra day rate.”
To be fair, Blenkinsop, who had won recognition for his previous work for Time, says he did not ask his editors for any special consideration after the blast, and initial reports indicated his injuries were not serious. But the effects of the 2007 incident left him unable to work for about eight months. Of the flowers and the extra money, he says, “It felt a little like after carrying someone’s bags for 10 kilometers through the streets of Paris or New York, they’d tipped you a dollar, you know?”
With multiple wars, revolutions and a possible nuclear disaster, 2011 is shaping up as an unusually dangerous year for journalists. At least three photographers died in conflicts in the first three months of the year, while others suffered permanent injuries and hazards like kidnapping. Also on the minds of many is Joao Silva, recovering from a mine explosion that took both his legs in Afghanistan.
Incidents like Silva’s might be expected to spark discussions among photojournalists and their photo editors. Instead, many photographers and clients are treating the “what if’s” of a photographer injured or killed in the same way they always have— with silence.
“I don’t know how many years I’ve been working for different magazines [and] I’ve never seen anything in any contract that says anything about what happens if I get shot or killed or get my legs broken,” says Teru Kuwayama, who was injured in a car crash in Pakistan in 2009 that saw the driver killed and another photographer injured.
As for the clients, when contacted by PDN they were uniformly unwilling to talk. Editors and spokespeople either declined to speak for publication or were simply unreachable.
“We don’t discuss personnel matters,” said Daniel Kile, executive director of public relations for Time.
“They just don’t like me talking about it,” explained an editor at another publication.
At The New York Times, which has been praised for hiring long-time freelancer Silva as a staffer after he lost both his legs below the knees to a landmine, an editor was similarly reluctant to say anything.
Photographers themselves seem split between those who’ve never addressed the issue at all, and those who trust in a combination of passed-on lore (“use a platinum American Express card to qualify for free medevac”), half-remembered precedents (an anecdote that photojournalist Tim Page successfully sued Time magazine following his Vietnam-era brain injury), and faith in the compassion and camaraderie of their photo editors.
“[Photographers] assume—especially with publications that they have good relationships with—you make this assumption that they are going to take care of you if something happens,” says Ron Haviv, a photographer with VII Photo Agency who has covered conflicts around the world. “But I don’t think anyone knows in the end what will happen when you start getting people outside our circle involved, like lawyers and corporate people.”
Haviv has it right there, says one editor who was willing to discuss the subject, thanks to having moved on to a job in academia. Tom Kennedy, Alexia Foundation Chair Professor for Documentary Photography at Syracuse, has worked as director of photography for National Geographic and editor for Washingtonpost.com.
“I don’t know that there is an industry standard,” Kennedy says. “I think it’s very much company by company, and I think it is somewhat contingent obviously on what company practice is as dictated by lawyers.” Corporate lawyers may overrule photo editors who want to do what they can for colleagues.
“My experience is that the legal department and to some extent HR [human resources] tend to drive the contractual arrangements that an organization settles on,” Kennedy says. “Most organizations that I am familiar with that are working with freelancers regard them as independent contractors who are responsible for their own insurance, their own well-being.”
That was different at Geographic, he says, where contracts specified that the magazine did take on some of the risks. And conversations with photographers and editors who spoke off the record showed that in some cases, with some publications, magazines do take precautions like buying insurance for photographers being sent into unusually dangerous areas. But it’s often not discussed, and it’s not standard practice.
Veteran photojournalists say there has been an evolution in the industry’s approach to the problem since Operation Desert Storm in 1990. In the Nineties, the Balkan wars and Chechnya coincided with a decision by magazines to turn from assignments and day-rates to space guarantees. With a guarantee, a magazine pays the photographer a minimum fee (expenses are typically not included) in exchange for a first look at the photographers’ pictures. Many photographers believe the move from assignments to the more arm’s length guarantee arrangements made it easier for publications to cut loose freelancers in trouble.
That doesn’t mean they always were cut loose—photographers say there have been many cases where magazine publishing companies have helped photographers, even those who were not on assignment. At the same time, others on assignment found such assistance was not granted. (The local drivers and translators news organizations rely on in dangerous areas are typically paid by the day; provisions are rarely made in the event they are injured or killed in the line of work.)
Some photographers signed on for combat-zone training offered by former Special Air Service-types in Britain. A benefit of that training was it allowed them to qualify for specialized war-zone insurance at rates photographers could afford—Haviv remembers paying about $1,600 annually for coverage good in most countries.
He has since turned to insurance through Reporters Without Borders (http://en.rsf.org/), which starts at 1.4 Euros a day and increases depending on the country and the benefits desired: medical, evacuation, dismemberment, death.
Haviv believes the costs of such insurance should automatically be part of the conversation between editors and photographers, and added to the invoice like the costs of fixers and hotel rooms. In workshops he teaches for aspiring photojournalists, Haviv tells students: “You just have to make sure you are taking care of yourself in every way possible. You can’t really rely on a corporation, even though you are friends with the editor you are working with.”
How well that message gets out to photographers in the field is questionable. During the uprising in Tahrir Square and the intervention in Libya, for instance, the editor who asked not be quoted said he was flooded with e-mails like one he forwarded: “Dear [name of editor not even filled in], I will be in Libya from the 1st of April. I’ll be moving to the frontline from the East. If you have any interest, requests or ideas, feel free to let me know.”
He wonders how to respond: “Do I say, ‘Yes, I want to see your stuff! Fantastic! Exclusive material for us! And I don’t want to hear from you tomorrow—especially if you get hurt’?”
For a different model of how to handle the situation, American editors and photographers could look to European countries. Photographer Harald Henden covers armed conflicts for the Norwegian newspaper VG. Henden, reached on his way back into Libya, says the practice in Norway today was shaped by a 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul in which war correspondent Carsten Thomassen was injured.
“I found him a few minutes later and we basically worked very hard to keep him alive for like two hours before we were able to have him evacuated,” remembers Henden. Thomassen went into shock and died a short time later at a military hospital. Henden says that brought major changes to how Scandinavian publications handle war coverage.
“After this, no Norwegian publication sends someone to war zones without some kind of security and first-aid training,” he says. In addition, “anybody who goes into that kind of area for my newspaper [or others in the region] would be fully covered by a special war-zone insurance [paid for by the paper]. The editors take the responsibility of sending personnel into these kinds of areas much more seriously now,” and at VG, they normally refuse to send freelancers at all.
Henden and others like him have an additional safety net. In Norway and similar countries, if an injured photographer can just make it back to his or her home country, all medical expenses are covered by national healthcare.
Turning away work by freelancers—or at least uninsured free-
lancers—might be too draconian a solution for the American market. But ending the general silence on the subject of “when things go sideways”—as one photographer termed it—might be possible.
Peter van Agtmael, a Magnum photographer who was beaten in Tahrir Square this year while on assignment for the Wall Street Journal, says he never discussed the possibility of anything like that with his editor before rushing to Egypt. “The subject, ‘Hey, in case something happens, where does your responsibility lie,’ it didn’t come up.” After he was attacked, the paper quickly said it would take care of getting him out of the country and any medical bills, he says. But van Agtmael added, “I should look at the contract itself.
“I’ve always thought of it as an implied social compact, but I really don’t know. I’ve been lax, and relying on the good will of large media conglomerates to take care of this.”
_____________________________________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Showing posts with label Blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog. Show all posts
Friday, May 06, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Ryan Pyle Blog: The Gap Between Rich & Poor
Hello.
For anyone out there who has had this conversation with me, they will know that I feel very strongly about the destabilizing force that the gap between rich and poor is creating in China. Those who have moved in to the cities in search of a better life has more or less found some version of it, those who have stayed behind in rural China have fallen even further behind. The question is why?
China's political leaders have, for the last 30 years, have focused entirely on developing China's cities. And, for the most part they have done a good job. But their focus on China's urban centers has left behind some 70% of the countries population (rural residents) who still have to deal with an often kleptocratic and corrupt local government. So if the gap between rich and poor is so great and the life quality between China's urban and rural residents so large, how does China keep it's 700 million farmers happy? What keeps them loyal to the system that consistently see's them losing out to urban residents? It's a question I have never been able to answer.
One of the most interesting developments in China over the last five years or so has been the media's aggressive push to publish corruption scandals in Chinese newspapers throughout the mainland. In the past year alone there have been several full page spreads about massive corruption at China's SOE's as well as within the government ranks. Leading me to ask the same question again, what keeps this current system afloat? Stability? Fear?
Earlier this year, while 700 million Chinese were living day-to-day, the world learned that the Chairman and CEO of China's High-speed Rail Network at embezzled over USD 100 million and held 18 mistresses; a life style and an amount of money that could never be comprehended in rural China. To top it off his position was mainly a political posting in a publicly traded State Owned Enterprise.
With the gap between rural and urban residents getting bigger, how much longer will people stand for this kind of rampant corruption that exists in China? Perhaps the bigger question, beyond corruption, is just the blatant stupidity shown on a weekly basis by China's privileged class. Below is an article by Reuters that indicates a Sinopec Executive has been disciplined for spending over USD 230,000 on alcohol for a lavish party. Many of the bottles of local alcohol cost USD 1,500 each, as much as 5 times the annual income of a farmer in rural China. Another example of insane decision making by a privileged member of China's SEO elite.
At some stage the political and economic elite in China are going to have to realize that their jobs and careers, and perhaps this country's stability, are at risk because of the corruption, embezzlement and impotent legal system that exists in China. Institutions need to be stronger than the men/women who hold positions of power. Corruption by government officials and SEO executives is a slap in the face to much of China's 1.3 billion people who are striving to create a better life for themselves and their families.
Also make note of the story below: where did the executive get the USD 230,000 for the alcohol purchase? Was the party a corporate sanction party or a personal party? Was the executive using ill gotten corporate money or personal money? Is there a corruption inquiry going on? There are a lot of unanswered questions here. My guess, knowing how things work in China, is that this guy bought the booze using company money and it was sanctioned by corporate bosses and the alcohol was used for corporate smoozing. The equivalent of a big weekend in Vegas. But once the purchase popped up in online chat rooms someone needed to "take the fall" to save the public reputation of the company.
________________________________________________________________
Original Story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/25/us-sinopec-drinks-idUSTRE73O3VX20110425
Copyright: Reuters
April 25th 2011
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese oil refining giant Sinopec has demoted a top executive who bought 1.6 million yuan ($245,900) of wine and spirits after details of the purchase leaked onto the Internet and sparked an uproar over extravagance at the state-owned firm.
Sinopec, which is Asia's top refiner, said Monday that it had demoted Lu Guangyu, who was general manager at the company's operations in the southern province of Guangdong, for "seriously harming Sinopec's image."
The company also fined Lu an unspecified sum and ordered him to pay back 130,000 yuan for alcohol he and his associates had already drunk, it said in a statement on its website (www.sinopecgroup.com).
His purchases included 480 bottles of Moutai, an expensive Chinese liquor traditionally drunk at state banquets, Sinopec said, adding it had re-sold bottles which had not already been drunk.
Some of the bottles cost almost 12,000 yuan each -- far more than the average Chinese earns in a month.
State media and China's spirited internet users said the purchase of the alcohol, which was meant for internal company use, was especially galling considering how much gasoline and diesel prices had risen recently.
Many Chinese are also struggling to make ends meet as inflation climbs. Consumer prices rose 5.4 percent in the year to March.
Sinopec Corp is the company's listed arm. ($1 = 6.507 Chinese Yuan)
________________________________________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
For anyone out there who has had this conversation with me, they will know that I feel very strongly about the destabilizing force that the gap between rich and poor is creating in China. Those who have moved in to the cities in search of a better life has more or less found some version of it, those who have stayed behind in rural China have fallen even further behind. The question is why?
China's political leaders have, for the last 30 years, have focused entirely on developing China's cities. And, for the most part they have done a good job. But their focus on China's urban centers has left behind some 70% of the countries population (rural residents) who still have to deal with an often kleptocratic and corrupt local government. So if the gap between rich and poor is so great and the life quality between China's urban and rural residents so large, how does China keep it's 700 million farmers happy? What keeps them loyal to the system that consistently see's them losing out to urban residents? It's a question I have never been able to answer.
One of the most interesting developments in China over the last five years or so has been the media's aggressive push to publish corruption scandals in Chinese newspapers throughout the mainland. In the past year alone there have been several full page spreads about massive corruption at China's SOE's as well as within the government ranks. Leading me to ask the same question again, what keeps this current system afloat? Stability? Fear?
Earlier this year, while 700 million Chinese were living day-to-day, the world learned that the Chairman and CEO of China's High-speed Rail Network at embezzled over USD 100 million and held 18 mistresses; a life style and an amount of money that could never be comprehended in rural China. To top it off his position was mainly a political posting in a publicly traded State Owned Enterprise.
With the gap between rural and urban residents getting bigger, how much longer will people stand for this kind of rampant corruption that exists in China? Perhaps the bigger question, beyond corruption, is just the blatant stupidity shown on a weekly basis by China's privileged class. Below is an article by Reuters that indicates a Sinopec Executive has been disciplined for spending over USD 230,000 on alcohol for a lavish party. Many of the bottles of local alcohol cost USD 1,500 each, as much as 5 times the annual income of a farmer in rural China. Another example of insane decision making by a privileged member of China's SEO elite.
At some stage the political and economic elite in China are going to have to realize that their jobs and careers, and perhaps this country's stability, are at risk because of the corruption, embezzlement and impotent legal system that exists in China. Institutions need to be stronger than the men/women who hold positions of power. Corruption by government officials and SEO executives is a slap in the face to much of China's 1.3 billion people who are striving to create a better life for themselves and their families.
Also make note of the story below: where did the executive get the USD 230,000 for the alcohol purchase? Was the party a corporate sanction party or a personal party? Was the executive using ill gotten corporate money or personal money? Is there a corruption inquiry going on? There are a lot of unanswered questions here. My guess, knowing how things work in China, is that this guy bought the booze using company money and it was sanctioned by corporate bosses and the alcohol was used for corporate smoozing. The equivalent of a big weekend in Vegas. But once the purchase popped up in online chat rooms someone needed to "take the fall" to save the public reputation of the company.
________________________________________________________________
Original Story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/25/us-sinopec-drinks-idUSTRE73O3VX20110425
Copyright: Reuters
April 25th 2011
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese oil refining giant Sinopec has demoted a top executive who bought 1.6 million yuan ($245,900) of wine and spirits after details of the purchase leaked onto the Internet and sparked an uproar over extravagance at the state-owned firm.
Sinopec, which is Asia's top refiner, said Monday that it had demoted Lu Guangyu, who was general manager at the company's operations in the southern province of Guangdong, for "seriously harming Sinopec's image."
The company also fined Lu an unspecified sum and ordered him to pay back 130,000 yuan for alcohol he and his associates had already drunk, it said in a statement on its website (www.sinopecgroup.com).
His purchases included 480 bottles of Moutai, an expensive Chinese liquor traditionally drunk at state banquets, Sinopec said, adding it had re-sold bottles which had not already been drunk.
Some of the bottles cost almost 12,000 yuan each -- far more than the average Chinese earns in a month.
State media and China's spirited internet users said the purchase of the alcohol, which was meant for internal company use, was especially galling considering how much gasoline and diesel prices had risen recently.
Many Chinese are also struggling to make ends meet as inflation climbs. Consumer prices rose 5.4 percent in the year to March.
Sinopec Corp is the company's listed arm. ($1 = 6.507 Chinese Yuan)
________________________________________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, March 18, 2011
Ryan Pyle Blog: Being Gay in China
Hello,
I read an article by Nicola Davison a few weeks back on what it was like to be gay in China, and I thought the article was revealing and interesting and well worth sharing. Please be sure that while China has it's own problems with gay people, so does much of the rest of Asia, notably Japan and Muslim Indonesia.
For what my opinion is worth, I really enjoyed this piece by Nicola. I like how she followed the stories of a few people and showed the lengths that people will go to in order to hide who they really are. A copy of the article is below, as is the original link.
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright: SLATE
Original Store: LINK
Title: Gay Marriage With Chinese Characteristics. A visit to a Shanghai fake-marriage market, where lesbians and gay men meet to find a husband or wife.
Written By: Nicola Davison
SHANGHAI, China—"I'm here to find a lesbian, to be with me and to build a home," No. 11 says to the crowd clustered on floor cushions at a sunlit yoga studio in Shanghai. No. 11 is a muscular man in a flannel shirt and cargo pants, and he easily commands the attention of the crowd of 40 or so young men and women who are gingerly sipping glasses of wine and whispering to their neighbors.
"In my view, a 30-year-old man should start thinking about having a family, but two men can't hold each other's hands in the street. We're not allowed to be a family," he says. The crowd nods.
I'm at a fake-marriage market, where Chinese lesbians and gay men meet to find a potential husband or wife. In China, the pressure to form a heterosexual marriage is so acute that 80 percent of China's gay population marries straight people, according to sexologist Li Yinhe, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. To avoid such unions, six months ago, Shanghai's biggest gay Web site, inlemon.cn, started to hold marriage markets once a month.
Thirty minutes earlier, I triple-checked the address scrawled in my notebook. The studio—located in a high-rise apartment complex—seems an unlikely spot for a fake-marriage market. "The boss of the yoga studio is very kind to us," says Fen Ye, my guide. Slipping off my shoes at the doorway, I pad up stairs lined with Buddhas in the red plastic flip-flops provided. When Fen slides open a door to reveal men and women chatting quietly, conversation falters. "They weren't expecting a foreigner," he whispers, adding, "and don't tell anyone you're a reporter. I'll just say you're my lesbian friend." He bustles me to a cushion on the floor and hands me a glass of Chinese red wine.
Precautions are necessary for an event like this. Though there are an estimated 30 million to 40 million gay people in China—there has been no official count—even simple actions such as trying to access Wikipedia's "LGBT" page often result in a "This webpage is not available" message. Chinese society has adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. A 2007 survey by Li Yinhe found that 70 percent of Chinese people think homosexuality is either "a little" or "completely" wrong, and only 7.5 percent of respondents said they knew a gay person.
While past generations buried their sexuality in straight marriages, the people gathered at the yoga studio are trying a new approach. No. 8 (the men sport numbered buttons in a pleasing shade of blue, the women's are pink), a pretty 22-year-old woman with curly dyed chestnut hair, skinny jeans, and Snoopy slippers wants a fake marriage to ease parental pressure, but she doesn't want a baby. No. 15, a strikingly tall man with side-swept bangs, says: "I want to get married for my parents, but I think lying to them will make me feel terrible. So I want to have a fake marriage with a lesbian girl, but just for one or two years, and then I want a divorce to show my parents that I am not a marriage type." There's one constant: All the participants talk about pleasing their parents.
Influential Zhou Dynasty Confucian scholar Mencius said that the "most serious" way to be unfilial is to not produce an heir. It's an idea that still reverberates through China's family-centric culture. In contemporary slang, single women over the age of 27 are known as sheng nu or "leftovers."
"I could absolutely not come out to my parents. If I could tell them I was gay, I wouldn't have needed to get married," says my guide, 30-year-old Fen, as we sit in a converted Shanghainese shikumen lane house near the popular tourist spot People's Park. We're talking about his lesbian wife, whom he met on inlemon.cn.
"I had a big, traditional Chinese wedding. It lasted for three days, and there were maybe 500 people there. My parents were so happy," says Fen, who knew his wife for seven months before they married. "In your job, in your social life, and for family gatherings, you need to bring a partner. It's hard to do these things alone in China. My grandfather and grandmother … everyone was waiting for me to get married. The wedding felt like a task I needed to accomplish, something I needed to get through step-by-step, a bit like doing homework."
For many gay men, the chance to experience parenthood—and to provide a grandchild for longing parents—is a distinct advantage of these unions. At the yoga studio marriage market, almost every man says he wants a baby, Fen included. "[On the Web site] I said that I didn't want to have a sex life with my wife—absolutely none." Although he says he and his wife are not "very good friends," they have discussed having a child. "For a baby we will maybe use artificial insemination," he says.
Past generations did things differently. The Lai Lai dancehall, in a rundown corner of Shanghai's Hongkou district, is a refuge for gay but married men. Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, about 200 men crowd the dance floor in their mismatched suits, twirling together in the green light and cigarette smoke. When they're not dancing, they sit in groups around the edge, nursing flasks of tea, though beer is available for 75 cents a glass.
Zhang, who is 55 and married with children, goes every week. "You can find gay bars in every city, but a dancehall like this only in Shanghai," he says. While tinny speakers rattle out familiar patriotic songs, the dancing stays elegant and refined. Flirting is discreet, barely noticeable. "Older gay men feel comfortable in this place," Zhang tells me. "Because the dancehall starts early, they can go home to their families and keep it secret. Though sometimes the wives come to look for their husbands, and then other people have to persuade them that their husband is just dancing."
But 30-year-old Mu Mu knew that her husband was not "just dancing." Just after she became pregnant, Mu Mu's husband started openly dating men. "I knew he was gay before we got married," says the Shanghai resident over the phone to protect her anonymity. "But the word gay was really strange to me. I read that being gay is something you're born as, but other people said it's like a disease that can be healed. Because I loved him a lot, I hoped that maybe he would change." It wasn't until a year after the birth of their daughter, and after her husband brought home another man to live with them, that Mu Mu left him.
Mu Mu is one of China's estimated 16 million to 25 million "homowives"—or tongqi in pinyin (the word is an amalgamation of the Mandarin for gay and wife)—women who are married to gay men.
"The happiest time of our marriage was when I gave birth to our daughter," says Mu Mu. "That one week when I was in the hospital, he took care of me and the baby. Much of the rest of the time I felt abandoned."
For many women, speaking out about their gay husbands is more difficult than staying in loveless marriages, but in the last few years Web-based support groups have started to form. Li, 33, is a volunteer on a homowife support forum on QQ, a Chinese social networking site. Her job involves giving advice and answering questions, and she is often the only person the homowives confide in. "The women are desperate," she explains over iced tea on a busy shopping street in central Shanghai. "At first they feel shock, and they don't know what to do, because people don't know much about gay people. They think their husband is a disturbed person."
While it's relatively easy to get divorced in China, Li says, many women stick with the marriages for complicated reasons. "Some stay because they still love their husband. He's a good person, and a good father, and they want their children to have a father," she says. Another reason is social stigma. "Most of the women can't go to their friends, they don't think they will be able to accept it or understand. Which is true. I think in China people make a moral judgment about it. [The women] think people will think, 'Wow, your husband would prefer to be with a man than with you—what a loser.' "
But there are tentative signs of change. Pink Space, a Beijing-based sexuality research center, started a support group for homowives earlier this year—the first of its kind in China. Zhang Beichan, a director at the China Sexology Association, thinks the homowife "problem" is shrinking. "In 2005, a TV station put out a program about gay issues, and I introduced a homowife who talked about her problems. This was one of the first times this issue was introduced to the public. It had a very big impact—some gay men still share that program with their families when they are pressured into getting married. Also, there are more and more gay men coming out of the closet, and more awareness of gay issues."
Back at the fake-marriage market, Fen Yu and his friends see themselves as the "transitional" generation. While they can't come out to their parents, they can, at least, be open about their sexuality among friends, go to gay bars, and date. "For the generation after ours, it might be easier," he says, "Our parents have no idea what homosexuality is. It's very difficult, because it's just opening up."
If Fen becomes a father, his will be a different approach: "I might not be able to tell my parents," he says, "but when my child grows up, I will tell them the real story about why it happened and who I am."
__________________________________________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I read an article by Nicola Davison a few weeks back on what it was like to be gay in China, and I thought the article was revealing and interesting and well worth sharing. Please be sure that while China has it's own problems with gay people, so does much of the rest of Asia, notably Japan and Muslim Indonesia.
For what my opinion is worth, I really enjoyed this piece by Nicola. I like how she followed the stories of a few people and showed the lengths that people will go to in order to hide who they really are. A copy of the article is below, as is the original link.
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright: SLATE
Original Store: LINK
Title: Gay Marriage With Chinese Characteristics. A visit to a Shanghai fake-marriage market, where lesbians and gay men meet to find a husband or wife.
Written By: Nicola Davison
SHANGHAI, China—"I'm here to find a lesbian, to be with me and to build a home," No. 11 says to the crowd clustered on floor cushions at a sunlit yoga studio in Shanghai. No. 11 is a muscular man in a flannel shirt and cargo pants, and he easily commands the attention of the crowd of 40 or so young men and women who are gingerly sipping glasses of wine and whispering to their neighbors.
"In my view, a 30-year-old man should start thinking about having a family, but two men can't hold each other's hands in the street. We're not allowed to be a family," he says. The crowd nods.
I'm at a fake-marriage market, where Chinese lesbians and gay men meet to find a potential husband or wife. In China, the pressure to form a heterosexual marriage is so acute that 80 percent of China's gay population marries straight people, according to sexologist Li Yinhe, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. To avoid such unions, six months ago, Shanghai's biggest gay Web site, inlemon.cn, started to hold marriage markets once a month.
Thirty minutes earlier, I triple-checked the address scrawled in my notebook. The studio—located in a high-rise apartment complex—seems an unlikely spot for a fake-marriage market. "The boss of the yoga studio is very kind to us," says Fen Ye, my guide. Slipping off my shoes at the doorway, I pad up stairs lined with Buddhas in the red plastic flip-flops provided. When Fen slides open a door to reveal men and women chatting quietly, conversation falters. "They weren't expecting a foreigner," he whispers, adding, "and don't tell anyone you're a reporter. I'll just say you're my lesbian friend." He bustles me to a cushion on the floor and hands me a glass of Chinese red wine.
Precautions are necessary for an event like this. Though there are an estimated 30 million to 40 million gay people in China—there has been no official count—even simple actions such as trying to access Wikipedia's "LGBT" page often result in a "This webpage is not available" message. Chinese society has adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. A 2007 survey by Li Yinhe found that 70 percent of Chinese people think homosexuality is either "a little" or "completely" wrong, and only 7.5 percent of respondents said they knew a gay person.
While past generations buried their sexuality in straight marriages, the people gathered at the yoga studio are trying a new approach. No. 8 (the men sport numbered buttons in a pleasing shade of blue, the women's are pink), a pretty 22-year-old woman with curly dyed chestnut hair, skinny jeans, and Snoopy slippers wants a fake marriage to ease parental pressure, but she doesn't want a baby. No. 15, a strikingly tall man with side-swept bangs, says: "I want to get married for my parents, but I think lying to them will make me feel terrible. So I want to have a fake marriage with a lesbian girl, but just for one or two years, and then I want a divorce to show my parents that I am not a marriage type." There's one constant: All the participants talk about pleasing their parents.
Influential Zhou Dynasty Confucian scholar Mencius said that the "most serious" way to be unfilial is to not produce an heir. It's an idea that still reverberates through China's family-centric culture. In contemporary slang, single women over the age of 27 are known as sheng nu or "leftovers."
"I could absolutely not come out to my parents. If I could tell them I was gay, I wouldn't have needed to get married," says my guide, 30-year-old Fen, as we sit in a converted Shanghainese shikumen lane house near the popular tourist spot People's Park. We're talking about his lesbian wife, whom he met on inlemon.cn.
"I had a big, traditional Chinese wedding. It lasted for three days, and there were maybe 500 people there. My parents were so happy," says Fen, who knew his wife for seven months before they married. "In your job, in your social life, and for family gatherings, you need to bring a partner. It's hard to do these things alone in China. My grandfather and grandmother … everyone was waiting for me to get married. The wedding felt like a task I needed to accomplish, something I needed to get through step-by-step, a bit like doing homework."
For many gay men, the chance to experience parenthood—and to provide a grandchild for longing parents—is a distinct advantage of these unions. At the yoga studio marriage market, almost every man says he wants a baby, Fen included. "[On the Web site] I said that I didn't want to have a sex life with my wife—absolutely none." Although he says he and his wife are not "very good friends," they have discussed having a child. "For a baby we will maybe use artificial insemination," he says.
Past generations did things differently. The Lai Lai dancehall, in a rundown corner of Shanghai's Hongkou district, is a refuge for gay but married men. Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, about 200 men crowd the dance floor in their mismatched suits, twirling together in the green light and cigarette smoke. When they're not dancing, they sit in groups around the edge, nursing flasks of tea, though beer is available for 75 cents a glass.
Zhang, who is 55 and married with children, goes every week. "You can find gay bars in every city, but a dancehall like this only in Shanghai," he says. While tinny speakers rattle out familiar patriotic songs, the dancing stays elegant and refined. Flirting is discreet, barely noticeable. "Older gay men feel comfortable in this place," Zhang tells me. "Because the dancehall starts early, they can go home to their families and keep it secret. Though sometimes the wives come to look for their husbands, and then other people have to persuade them that their husband is just dancing."
But 30-year-old Mu Mu knew that her husband was not "just dancing." Just after she became pregnant, Mu Mu's husband started openly dating men. "I knew he was gay before we got married," says the Shanghai resident over the phone to protect her anonymity. "But the word gay was really strange to me. I read that being gay is something you're born as, but other people said it's like a disease that can be healed. Because I loved him a lot, I hoped that maybe he would change." It wasn't until a year after the birth of their daughter, and after her husband brought home another man to live with them, that Mu Mu left him.
Mu Mu is one of China's estimated 16 million to 25 million "homowives"—or tongqi in pinyin (the word is an amalgamation of the Mandarin for gay and wife)—women who are married to gay men.
"The happiest time of our marriage was when I gave birth to our daughter," says Mu Mu. "That one week when I was in the hospital, he took care of me and the baby. Much of the rest of the time I felt abandoned."
For many women, speaking out about their gay husbands is more difficult than staying in loveless marriages, but in the last few years Web-based support groups have started to form. Li, 33, is a volunteer on a homowife support forum on QQ, a Chinese social networking site. Her job involves giving advice and answering questions, and she is often the only person the homowives confide in. "The women are desperate," she explains over iced tea on a busy shopping street in central Shanghai. "At first they feel shock, and they don't know what to do, because people don't know much about gay people. They think their husband is a disturbed person."
While it's relatively easy to get divorced in China, Li says, many women stick with the marriages for complicated reasons. "Some stay because they still love their husband. He's a good person, and a good father, and they want their children to have a father," she says. Another reason is social stigma. "Most of the women can't go to their friends, they don't think they will be able to accept it or understand. Which is true. I think in China people make a moral judgment about it. [The women] think people will think, 'Wow, your husband would prefer to be with a man than with you—what a loser.' "
But there are tentative signs of change. Pink Space, a Beijing-based sexuality research center, started a support group for homowives earlier this year—the first of its kind in China. Zhang Beichan, a director at the China Sexology Association, thinks the homowife "problem" is shrinking. "In 2005, a TV station put out a program about gay issues, and I introduced a homowife who talked about her problems. This was one of the first times this issue was introduced to the public. It had a very big impact—some gay men still share that program with their families when they are pressured into getting married. Also, there are more and more gay men coming out of the closet, and more awareness of gay issues."
Back at the fake-marriage market, Fen Yu and his friends see themselves as the "transitional" generation. While they can't come out to their parents, they can, at least, be open about their sexuality among friends, go to gay bars, and date. "For the generation after ours, it might be easier," he says, "Our parents have no idea what homosexuality is. It's very difficult, because it's just opening up."
If Fen becomes a father, his will be a different approach: "I might not be able to tell my parents," he says, "but when my child grows up, I will tell them the real story about why it happened and who I am."
__________________________________________________________________
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, July 23, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: My 200th Blog
Hello.
Well, somehow over the last few years I've managed to coordinate my thoughts enough to write 200 blogs. They have been a mix of opinion, sharing new work, announcements and commentary on other people's writing and photography.
I don't have much clue as to how many people follow my blog or view it but for those of you who do write, or take the time to make comments I would like to say thanks. Every bit of feedback helps and I appreciate those who take the time to stop by the blog and read a bit.
Hopefully I can find the time to keep this blog moving along in the next few years. Fingers crossed.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Well, somehow over the last few years I've managed to coordinate my thoughts enough to write 200 blogs. They have been a mix of opinion, sharing new work, announcements and commentary on other people's writing and photography.
I don't have much clue as to how many people follow my blog or view it but for those of you who do write, or take the time to make comments I would like to say thanks. Every bit of feedback helps and I appreciate those who take the time to stop by the blog and read a bit.
Hopefully I can find the time to keep this blog moving along in the next few years. Fingers crossed.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, July 09, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: Tim Hetherington Interview
Hello.
Well, Tim Hetherington is a storied image maker. His new film, his dedication to documenting real life with both still and moving images is well regarded around the globe. I read this blog on the NYT and found it very insightful and important. I hope everyone can give it a read and take something from it. Tim is a real visionary, a passionate image maker and documenter of life. He has crafted himself a very special role. I can't wait to see what he gets up to next.
Original LInk to NYTimes Interview: LINK
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JJune 22, 2010, 12:00 AM
“Restrepo” and the Imagery of War
By MICHAEL KAMBER
Michael Kamber was covering the war in Liberia in 2003. He had a Hasselblad. A stranger pointed out that another photographer — this one accompanying the rebels — also had a Hasselblad. “I was sure he was mistaken,” Mr. Kamber recalled. ”Two photographers stupid — or impractical — enough to photograph the war in medium format? Impossible. But the stranger turned out to be correct. The other photographer was Tim Hetherington. We met later on, covered the civil war in the Ivory Coast together and have been friends ever since.”
The documentary “Restrepo,” directed by Mr. Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, will open Friday. Last week, Mr. Hetherington sat down with Mr. Kamber in Midtown Manhattan to talk about the film — and much else besides. Their remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q. Do you consider yourself a photographer?
A. If you are interested in mass communication, then you have to stop thinking of yourself as a photographer. We live in a post-photographic world. If you are interested in photography, then you are interested in something — in terms of mass communication — that is past. I am interested in reaching as many people as possible.
Q. Right.
A. If we are interested in the outside world and making images of it and translating it and relaying it to as many people as possible, then in some ways the traditional photographic techniques are really not important.
Q. Does that mean we can just Photoshop horses’ heads into a photograph?
A. Absolutely not. Authenticity and making a picture authentic is obviously important. I am not interested in traditional photographic techniques. I am not interested in putting a black border around a photograph as a way of saying that is authentic. You know, “protecting photography.”
Q. There is a whole community of people who are interested in trying to protect the genre’s integrity and the culture of photojournalism.
A. That’s because they haven’t found the answers to their questions.
Q. Which is what?
A. Which is how to make money out of it, to make it pay; how to succeed financially. And how to get it out there and reach an audience.
Q. Do you think they all just really care about money?
A. No, I don’t. But it all depends. We are all interested in the outside world. The heart of every deed is a selfish one. If you have to go out in the world and be effective, you have to make sure you are alive, healthy and strong. Agencies have to make sure that they are financially viable in order to go out and make commentary on the world that is useful to other people. My point about not being a photographer is that we can’t protect photography – forget photography – when we are interested in the authentic representation of things outside of ourselves.
Q. How does your Afghanistan work tie into what you just said?
A. I am interested in visually representing something in as many ways as possible, exploiting as many different forms as possible, to reach as many people as possible.
Q. And how did you do that in Afghanistan?
A. By working across the spectrum, by first saying, “O.K., I’m going to photograph for Vanity Fair.” And that is a platform that has, say, a two or three million readership. Then those images, because I retain the copyright, are syndicated worldwide. They appear in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Great, that’s another valid audience. The image that won World Press Photo gave another spotlight and went global in a way that could lead people to reach my other work. Then I made “Sleeping Soldiers,” which was a digital projection. It was an art piece, meant for galleries – but that’s still a valid audience. Then I made TV. For ABC News, we made two “Nightline” pieces. The first piece, I was told by ABC, reached 20 million people. And then using all that footage and making a feature film out of it. On our own money.
Q. “Restrepo”?
A. “Restrepo.” Working across all these editorial spectrums; not saying, “I am a photographer” or “I am a filmmaker,” just saying: “I am a person who goes out into the world and makes these images. And I want to reach as many different audiences as possible.” To do that, I have to reach into different forms.
Q. And now you have this book?
A. And now I have book coming out in October, with Chris Boot, called “Infidel.”
Q. Can you tell me about that?
A. The first time I went to Afghanistan, in 2007, the world was very much focused on Iraq. People had forgotten – and now we have come to accept – that the Afghan war was going out of control. When I got to the Korangal Valley, and there was lots of fighting going on, it completely surprised me. I was gobsmacked.
Q. Constant combat?
A. Yeah. At the end of October 2007, 70 percent of American bombs being dropped were in that valley, and the casualty rate was at 25 percent wounded. So the images I made were very action oriented. Photojournalism. Reminiscent of classical war photography. I did that because I wanted people to see that there was a lot of fighting going on. Anyway, I go back and the fighting sort of bored me. Because when you are in a lot of combat after a while, a lot of it — you know? If you are inside a base that’s being attacked, like “Restrepo” was, you are in a fairly good position. The likelihood of you being killed was pretty low, unless they put a mortar on you.
Q. Personally, I have yet to be bored in combat.
A. What got me really interested were the interpersonal relationships between the men. It was a facet of war I hadn’t really thought about. It is a big part of fighting and combat, as we know, yet it is rarely ever represented. A lot of the substance of the book brings the idea of male bonding to the front. It is a huge part of the war machine, if you think about it. That really is it. Why war exists is because mankind has worked out: if you take 15 men and put them together, that group, the number in a platoon, is the perfect number, the perfect group. It is like a hard-wired genetic code: if you bring a small group of men together and make them dependent on each other, they will kill for each other.
Q. Tell me what the pictures look like in this book, since we don’t have it in front of us.
A. The pictures show a different image of life in a very small outpost. They are very approachable. I spent enough time that, by the end, the guys were walking around like they were fighting in shorts and flip flops. I was photographing them in a state of undress. You can see the images of the guys, really bonding closely together. There is a lot of play fights and hugging. A lot of the guys would have their bodies tattooed. Part of the book shows you these tattoos. In fact, the title of the book comes from a tattoo. They used to tattoo across their chest the word “Infidel.” The book is about soldiers and their tattoos. You see them playing golf and fighting, and it seems very lighthearted. Then, in the latter part of the book, they go to war and it ends – as war does – in ways that are really upsetting and unpredictable. I totally respect people who go to Afghanistan and document the Taliban, civilian collateral damage and all that. My strategy is different. I thought that the easiest way into the American psyche is to photograph their young men and then subvert that.
Q. Why subvert that?
A. Because otherwise you are being predictable and confirming an idea they have in their heads. I am challenging people with photographs, as I hope the film challenges people.
Q. When does the film come out?
A. The 25th of June.
Q. It will be in theaters around New York?
A. In some theaters around the U.S. We are trying to build the theatrical distribution.
Q. And you really controlled the film; you never turned the footage over to a distributor and let them run with it?
A. No. In terms of the editorial control, we funded it ourselves. A lot of photographers are moving into video and, you know, making images is only part of the business now. It’s not just about image-making. It’s about how do we reach audiences with what we are doing. There is an overproduction of images.
Q. Right. I talked to Joao Silva in Baghdad and I said, “Do you think there are any great images to come out of Iraq, the way there were in Vietnam?” And he said: “The problem isn’t that we haven’t taken that classic image. The problem is that we have taken too many.”
A. We are making so many images, but we aren’t actually connecting these images. We aren’t exploiting what we have made. We aren’t mining it enough to make it into audiences’ minds. A strategy to hit people about this idea of Afghanistan across multiple forms – “Oh, I’ve read Sebastian’s book, “War”; I’ve read the Vanity Fair articles; then I saw the film and the film made me want to see Hetherington’s book” — is a multilayered thing. It is different than the images you see out there that are already lost.
Q. It is sort of a representation of what your experience was in Afghanistan.
A. Yeah. And to make that happen, you have to navigate through the business side of things. That isn’t easy. But if we see ourselves merely as photographers, we are failing our duty. It isn’t good enough anymore just to be a witness.
Q. What it was like to live on that mountaintop with those guys?
A. Being out there was a really unexpected and profound experience.
Q. How many guys were you with?
A. A platoon. So basically about 30 guys.
Q. And you were being shot at?
A. They were patrolling every day. It was continually having to push the enemy back. There were a lot of times there would be contact in the field. Occasionally, the enemy would launch a more direct attack on the camp and main base.
Q. Once, I had a very lucky time with a mortar. I got off a helicopter and put my flak jacket down. For some reason, I wasn’t wearing it. Suddenly, there was a mortar coming up to where you go to get water and stuff. By chance, no one was in there. And it was just shredded. And I was walking around without a vest. You know?
A. It was really basic conditions there. It was like the furthest outposts of the empire. It was on the side of the hill. South of where we were was bad-guy country. This place had no running water or electricity. When we first got there, we used to sleep out in the dirt. It was the edge of the empire. And that was a very interesting place to be.
Q. Tell me about juggling stills and video. How does that work?
A. I have no idea how I actually do it. Hopefully, in the future, we will have only one camera that just does everything. At the moment, I guess I decide that if the event is visually interesting enough, I will take a picture. If the event isn’t visually interesting enough on its own, then it’s probably significant for video, because it is contextualized with sound. So, usually, my default is video. I can be approaching something photographically, then know I’ve made the picture and pick up the video camera. It’s gotten pretty crazy; kind of like John Wayne. I used to attach the two cameras with carabiners to my jacket because then you can drop the camera and it won’t fall. So I would be hooked up and shooting. It’s pretty ridiculous.
Q. But it worked?
A. Yeah, it worked. But there was a lot of video of a camera swinging over my feet in the end of the tapes.
Q. You spent a year?
A. No, Sebastian and I spent about five months apiece, sometimes together, sometimes apart. In terms of coverage, it was about 10 months. The Army didn’t expect us to spend that long with a group of soldiers. When you go to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, if you go into combat with soldiers, you are usually there with them three months maximum. To spend five months with the same platoon is a pretty big amount of time.
Q. Do we need more of this kind of long form?
A. Yeah, we do. The problem isn’t that photographers don’t want to do it. It’s because the media outlets don’t seem to understand. The bean counters don’t understand. People who are being asked to judge quality photographs don’t understand. When you and I look at a photograph or watch a film, it’s all about time. It is the amount of time you spend. That is everything. That is what it’s about. Full stop. No short cut. Eugene Richards does not make amazing work because he is in and out. It’s because he lives it. That’s why the best work — we all know — speaks of time. But when you’ve got people making decisions about what is good and bad photography who haven’t spent the time in the street to know that call, they choose bad images. They don’t really know what they are doing. And they aren’t willing to put the money into it or to spend that time because they think that by filling the front page with a picture, their job is done — rather than asking if there is a better picture. We are all under financial pressure.
Q. Is the direction the business is going these days opposite what you’re talking about?
A. Absolutely and that’s the problem. That’s why when we talk about the vision of the film, we knew we had to carry it on our own. The only people who understood how to make that film was us. We had to make the film ourselves. We had to take control. Up until the point that the film was coming out, everybody else thought it was just not going to happen.
Q. Do you think that America wants to see the film? Is America ready to deal with this film? It’s a hard, hard film to look at.
A. We made a visceral war film; the kind of film that hasn’t been made before. Most of the people who spend a lot of time with soldiers are photographers. There are very few documentary filmmakers who do. We came to making this film after many years as war photographers. We understood what was required to make a good film.
Q. I remember at one point you were really broke and you put everything you had into this film.
A. Yeah. I was in a pretty bad way. I was in debt. It was a crazy thing to do during the recession.
Q. But going back to the question: do you think America wants this film? Or needs to see it?
A. Obviously, I am going to say yes. There are a lot of people out there interested in war. We all know that war sells.
Q. So the next question is: can a documentary film about war sell?
A. A lot of documentary films about war since the start of the “war on terrorism” in 2001 have had political standpoints. By stripping that out of our film, by not having a political standpoint, we ask people to be nonpartisan and experience what those soldiers experienced. As a platform to discuss war, I think that’s useful, because it doesn’t divide people. This country is already so divided about war, I think that’s a good strategy: to build a bridge to people, to get them to engage with the politics about Afghanistan, to see what we are dealing with.
Q. There are people killed in the film.
A. Most people are concerned about whether their wife needs to get the pills from her doctor, or whether they got the dog food, or did they do their health insurance. These are all important concerns. To weigh them down with some heavy guilt trip — “You should be interested in this because this is Afghanistan” — is not a constructive way to engage them. You have to think up more reasonable strategies. My strategy is, initially, to build a bridge to people rather than turn them off with really tough images that challenge them. By making a film about a group of soldiers you get to know — that you are intimate with, that you laugh with and end up crying with — is a way for you to engage with what is really going on. When they awkwardly come across a village where the villagers are all killed, you toss questions out like: How did the villagers die? Were the soldiers responsible? Is that what we are putting our young men through? I think Americans are ready to engage with Afghanistan. They just don’t want to wake up to it. They don’t know how to react to pictures like Abu Ghraib. “Wow. People are out there torturing in our name. This makes me feel bad. Stop reading the newspaper. End of story. I have to go pay for my wife’s health care.” As photographers, as image makers, we have to be realistic about who the people are we are trying to reach, rather than: “I’ve been to Kenya. The ethnic riots are really important. You must have a look at them.” “Well, I don’t have to look at them. I have to figure out how to get my kid to school on time.” I have to think about how I engage the right wing. If I go to them and say, “I’m a liberal and I hate war,” they are going to say, “I’ve got something better to do with my time.” I hope “Restrepo” is the kind of film that does that, that engages people from the left and the right. People have responded very positively to it. Those who have been stirred up are the people who think we should be doing overt political commentary. It makes them angry that we are not. The little bit of criticism we’ve had is from the right — about showing the dead body of an American solider or showing the U.S. military in nonprotocol situations — or the left, who think we should be outright condemning the war. The very fact they are riled up shows you that it is impacting them. They need, perhaps, to analyze why they feel how they do. How they can actually talk about the war in a way that isn’t so cemented? If we can engage each other in a nonpolitical and nonpartisan way, we may actually agree on how to move forward with the war.
Q. What about your personal view? How do you think the war is going?
A. Do I think the intervention in Afghanistan was justified? Yes, I do. I think that al Qaeda definitely was based out there and they went in and they killed 3,000 people here and it was necessary to go in and break up their network – unlike Iraq, which was based on a lie. So, yes. The war in Afghanistan was mishandled. We have seen that less troops have led to the situation now. We have yet to see what there is to see with more troops.
Q. Why didn’t you make the movie with the British?
A. I have never worked with the Brits. I have heard they are more restrictive than the Americans in terms of what you can file and so on. We weren’t really scrutinized by the U.S. press office. It was kind of incredible. We were given a lot of freedom. I was really surprised. Good things can come out of an embed system. In some ways, being an outsider is useful. Blue-collar American soldiers can’t place me. I was this tall British guy. And they were like, “This guy’s kind of weird, but he’s O.K.”
Q. Was it your first time with working-class American culture?
A. Yes, it was. And it’s super interesting.
Q. You get to Middle America and it’s like going to Iraq.
A. Yeah, and it’s probably easier to get around in Iraq than in Wyoming.
Q. What was your impression of America after?
A. If I am proud of the film, it is because it is an honest film. And it is an honest film because you can see that I also like the guys there. I don’t garnish over the awkward bits or bad bits. But I like them as people. The only people who really know about the war are the soldiers. So, of course, I end up respecting them. I had a hell of a lot of respect for them. They are young. They are out there on the American taxpayer dollar. And we ask a lot of them. Not only do we want them to fight, we want them to successfully engage hearts and minds. We are asking an 18-year-old guy from, say, Arkansas, who has never been out of his state before to not only go to Afghanistan, but also to learn Pashtu and Dari, and be empathetic with people who he thinks may be killing his friends. It is a lot for even the most aware person to deal with. We should maybe put some other training procedures into place, and be a little bit more supportive of what they are doing. I have a lot of respect for them, because I think we ask them to do too much.
Q. What do you feel is the future of traditional media? Where is this all going?
A. We who are working in the realm of photojournalism and documentary photojournalism have to focus on whom we want to talk to. We need to know who our audience is. That will help us figure out how to reach them, which language to reach them with. I don’t think enough image-makers do that. We are in flux. Certain contenders are emerging. The Times is still here. It’s been strengthened recently by its online version. It has a lot of viewership, and there are going to be photographers like yourself who have access to an important platform. It’s the equivalent of Life magazine. It is reaching millions of people and it’s an important outlet for what we do.
Q. You don’t think it’s over yet?
A. No, I don’t think it’s over yet. It is about reputation now, and reputation is not just about making stylistic pictures. It is about authenticity; about knowing what you are talking about; showing the ability to reach your audience. By working across the media, you can actually survive. The danger is to go to one area and stay.
Q. So you would encourage young people to do many different things?
A. Not necessarily many different things. I encourage them to look at many different forms. Not to say, “I am a photographer,” but to say: “I am an image maker. I make still or moving images in real-life situations, unfiltered and un-Photoshopped. I am going to look into how I can put this into different streams for different audiences; maybe some on the Web, some in print.”
Q. Earlier you said that traditional photography is dead. These traditional types of straight journalism – you made it sound as if they are becoming passé. But then look at the uproar over Julie Jacobson’s image from Afghanistan of the dying soldier. There are still images that really grab people.
A. But again, they are images. What I am thinking about is this idea that “Photography” is something that has this black border around it and is protected. You know? “I used to develop black-and-white pictures and that’s what photography is.” That kind of old-fashioned thinking is just for an art gallery now. Julie Jacobson shot in digital. What is important in that image is that it is a still picture. As we increasingly have technology that wants us to shoot moving pictures and contextualize with sound, we need to understand the difference. Why am I making a still picture? Why am I making a moving picture? The question you asked me about when I decide to shoot what — I need to be able answer that. Slicing stills out of the video stream means there will be even more images. Which means that the audiences’ expectations are going to change. It’s very difficult for me to know what that expectation will be in 10 years’ time because things are moving so quickly. Do I think people are going to pull 16 megabyte pictures out of video streams and try and print them? Absolutely, that is going to happen. What impact that is going to have on the media, I don’t know. That’s why I think the most important thing for our industry is not style, it is authenticity. It is: “I go to you because I know you have an authentic voice in the work that you have been doing.”
Q. Right. But the trend I am seeing is actually the opposite. What I am hearing is: “We don’t need the media anymore. We’ve got our own photographers because we have cellphone cameras.”
A. But you need to have professional witnesses, people who go out there and do this as a living. What you do – the way that you make an image, the way that you make a story – is different than partaking in that story, like citizen journalism.
Q. The trend seems to be towards citizen journalism.
A. Because it’s cheap.
Q. Even this newspaper is saying, “Send in your readers’ photos.”
A. Again, it’s about profit. It is not about good journalism. We all know that having professionalism in any field is important. We have a weird skill-set. Send us into a difficult circumstance and we will get out there and know how to find a story. That is what we do for a living. That is valuable. It is not part of the problem, it is part of the solution – in addition to citizen journalism, in addition to local photographers. The more, the merrier.
Q. We have a different role?
A. We have a different role.
Q. Are you going to continue to cover war?
A. I have no idea. I have no idea.
Q. Are you thinking about quitting?
A. I am just thinking about getting through “Restrepo.” There are different roles you have to do at different stages of life. Those will change. Maybe I’ll go back in. Or maybe I will be useful to the community in other ways.
Q. Why did you leave Britain? Why did you move to New York?
A. Because it rains all the time and you can’t get a cab and the girls are good looking here. Britain has 60 million people. America has 300 million people. It’s the math. If you are interested in mass communication, you are going to reach more people here. It is still the biggest player in the world. It is a very important audience. To get these people to understand what their military is doing is a natural place to be.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Well, Tim Hetherington is a storied image maker. His new film, his dedication to documenting real life with both still and moving images is well regarded around the globe. I read this blog on the NYT and found it very insightful and important. I hope everyone can give it a read and take something from it. Tim is a real visionary, a passionate image maker and documenter of life. He has crafted himself a very special role. I can't wait to see what he gets up to next.
Original LInk to NYTimes Interview: LINK
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JJune 22, 2010, 12:00 AM
“Restrepo” and the Imagery of War
By MICHAEL KAMBER
Michael Kamber was covering the war in Liberia in 2003. He had a Hasselblad. A stranger pointed out that another photographer — this one accompanying the rebels — also had a Hasselblad. “I was sure he was mistaken,” Mr. Kamber recalled. ”Two photographers stupid — or impractical — enough to photograph the war in medium format? Impossible. But the stranger turned out to be correct. The other photographer was Tim Hetherington. We met later on, covered the civil war in the Ivory Coast together and have been friends ever since.”
The documentary “Restrepo,” directed by Mr. Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, will open Friday. Last week, Mr. Hetherington sat down with Mr. Kamber in Midtown Manhattan to talk about the film — and much else besides. Their remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q. Do you consider yourself a photographer?
A. If you are interested in mass communication, then you have to stop thinking of yourself as a photographer. We live in a post-photographic world. If you are interested in photography, then you are interested in something — in terms of mass communication — that is past. I am interested in reaching as many people as possible.
Q. Right.
A. If we are interested in the outside world and making images of it and translating it and relaying it to as many people as possible, then in some ways the traditional photographic techniques are really not important.
Q. Does that mean we can just Photoshop horses’ heads into a photograph?
A. Absolutely not. Authenticity and making a picture authentic is obviously important. I am not interested in traditional photographic techniques. I am not interested in putting a black border around a photograph as a way of saying that is authentic. You know, “protecting photography.”
Q. There is a whole community of people who are interested in trying to protect the genre’s integrity and the culture of photojournalism.
A. That’s because they haven’t found the answers to their questions.
Q. Which is what?
A. Which is how to make money out of it, to make it pay; how to succeed financially. And how to get it out there and reach an audience.
Q. Do you think they all just really care about money?
A. No, I don’t. But it all depends. We are all interested in the outside world. The heart of every deed is a selfish one. If you have to go out in the world and be effective, you have to make sure you are alive, healthy and strong. Agencies have to make sure that they are financially viable in order to go out and make commentary on the world that is useful to other people. My point about not being a photographer is that we can’t protect photography – forget photography – when we are interested in the authentic representation of things outside of ourselves.
Q. How does your Afghanistan work tie into what you just said?
A. I am interested in visually representing something in as many ways as possible, exploiting as many different forms as possible, to reach as many people as possible.
Q. And how did you do that in Afghanistan?
A. By working across the spectrum, by first saying, “O.K., I’m going to photograph for Vanity Fair.” And that is a platform that has, say, a two or three million readership. Then those images, because I retain the copyright, are syndicated worldwide. They appear in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Great, that’s another valid audience. The image that won World Press Photo gave another spotlight and went global in a way that could lead people to reach my other work. Then I made “Sleeping Soldiers,” which was a digital projection. It was an art piece, meant for galleries – but that’s still a valid audience. Then I made TV. For ABC News, we made two “Nightline” pieces. The first piece, I was told by ABC, reached 20 million people. And then using all that footage and making a feature film out of it. On our own money.
Q. “Restrepo”?
A. “Restrepo.” Working across all these editorial spectrums; not saying, “I am a photographer” or “I am a filmmaker,” just saying: “I am a person who goes out into the world and makes these images. And I want to reach as many different audiences as possible.” To do that, I have to reach into different forms.
Q. And now you have this book?
A. And now I have book coming out in October, with Chris Boot, called “Infidel.”
Q. Can you tell me about that?
A. The first time I went to Afghanistan, in 2007, the world was very much focused on Iraq. People had forgotten – and now we have come to accept – that the Afghan war was going out of control. When I got to the Korangal Valley, and there was lots of fighting going on, it completely surprised me. I was gobsmacked.
Q. Constant combat?
A. Yeah. At the end of October 2007, 70 percent of American bombs being dropped were in that valley, and the casualty rate was at 25 percent wounded. So the images I made were very action oriented. Photojournalism. Reminiscent of classical war photography. I did that because I wanted people to see that there was a lot of fighting going on. Anyway, I go back and the fighting sort of bored me. Because when you are in a lot of combat after a while, a lot of it — you know? If you are inside a base that’s being attacked, like “Restrepo” was, you are in a fairly good position. The likelihood of you being killed was pretty low, unless they put a mortar on you.
Q. Personally, I have yet to be bored in combat.
A. What got me really interested were the interpersonal relationships between the men. It was a facet of war I hadn’t really thought about. It is a big part of fighting and combat, as we know, yet it is rarely ever represented. A lot of the substance of the book brings the idea of male bonding to the front. It is a huge part of the war machine, if you think about it. That really is it. Why war exists is because mankind has worked out: if you take 15 men and put them together, that group, the number in a platoon, is the perfect number, the perfect group. It is like a hard-wired genetic code: if you bring a small group of men together and make them dependent on each other, they will kill for each other.
Q. Tell me what the pictures look like in this book, since we don’t have it in front of us.
A. The pictures show a different image of life in a very small outpost. They are very approachable. I spent enough time that, by the end, the guys were walking around like they were fighting in shorts and flip flops. I was photographing them in a state of undress. You can see the images of the guys, really bonding closely together. There is a lot of play fights and hugging. A lot of the guys would have their bodies tattooed. Part of the book shows you these tattoos. In fact, the title of the book comes from a tattoo. They used to tattoo across their chest the word “Infidel.” The book is about soldiers and their tattoos. You see them playing golf and fighting, and it seems very lighthearted. Then, in the latter part of the book, they go to war and it ends – as war does – in ways that are really upsetting and unpredictable. I totally respect people who go to Afghanistan and document the Taliban, civilian collateral damage and all that. My strategy is different. I thought that the easiest way into the American psyche is to photograph their young men and then subvert that.
Q. Why subvert that?
A. Because otherwise you are being predictable and confirming an idea they have in their heads. I am challenging people with photographs, as I hope the film challenges people.
Q. When does the film come out?
A. The 25th of June.
Q. It will be in theaters around New York?
A. In some theaters around the U.S. We are trying to build the theatrical distribution.
Q. And you really controlled the film; you never turned the footage over to a distributor and let them run with it?
A. No. In terms of the editorial control, we funded it ourselves. A lot of photographers are moving into video and, you know, making images is only part of the business now. It’s not just about image-making. It’s about how do we reach audiences with what we are doing. There is an overproduction of images.
Q. Right. I talked to Joao Silva in Baghdad and I said, “Do you think there are any great images to come out of Iraq, the way there were in Vietnam?” And he said: “The problem isn’t that we haven’t taken that classic image. The problem is that we have taken too many.”
A. We are making so many images, but we aren’t actually connecting these images. We aren’t exploiting what we have made. We aren’t mining it enough to make it into audiences’ minds. A strategy to hit people about this idea of Afghanistan across multiple forms – “Oh, I’ve read Sebastian’s book, “War”; I’ve read the Vanity Fair articles; then I saw the film and the film made me want to see Hetherington’s book” — is a multilayered thing. It is different than the images you see out there that are already lost.
Q. It is sort of a representation of what your experience was in Afghanistan.
A. Yeah. And to make that happen, you have to navigate through the business side of things. That isn’t easy. But if we see ourselves merely as photographers, we are failing our duty. It isn’t good enough anymore just to be a witness.
Q. What it was like to live on that mountaintop with those guys?
A. Being out there was a really unexpected and profound experience.
Q. How many guys were you with?
A. A platoon. So basically about 30 guys.
Q. And you were being shot at?
A. They were patrolling every day. It was continually having to push the enemy back. There were a lot of times there would be contact in the field. Occasionally, the enemy would launch a more direct attack on the camp and main base.
Q. Once, I had a very lucky time with a mortar. I got off a helicopter and put my flak jacket down. For some reason, I wasn’t wearing it. Suddenly, there was a mortar coming up to where you go to get water and stuff. By chance, no one was in there. And it was just shredded. And I was walking around without a vest. You know?
A. It was really basic conditions there. It was like the furthest outposts of the empire. It was on the side of the hill. South of where we were was bad-guy country. This place had no running water or electricity. When we first got there, we used to sleep out in the dirt. It was the edge of the empire. And that was a very interesting place to be.
Q. Tell me about juggling stills and video. How does that work?
A. I have no idea how I actually do it. Hopefully, in the future, we will have only one camera that just does everything. At the moment, I guess I decide that if the event is visually interesting enough, I will take a picture. If the event isn’t visually interesting enough on its own, then it’s probably significant for video, because it is contextualized with sound. So, usually, my default is video. I can be approaching something photographically, then know I’ve made the picture and pick up the video camera. It’s gotten pretty crazy; kind of like John Wayne. I used to attach the two cameras with carabiners to my jacket because then you can drop the camera and it won’t fall. So I would be hooked up and shooting. It’s pretty ridiculous.
Q. But it worked?
A. Yeah, it worked. But there was a lot of video of a camera swinging over my feet in the end of the tapes.
Q. You spent a year?
A. No, Sebastian and I spent about five months apiece, sometimes together, sometimes apart. In terms of coverage, it was about 10 months. The Army didn’t expect us to spend that long with a group of soldiers. When you go to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, if you go into combat with soldiers, you are usually there with them three months maximum. To spend five months with the same platoon is a pretty big amount of time.
Q. Do we need more of this kind of long form?
A. Yeah, we do. The problem isn’t that photographers don’t want to do it. It’s because the media outlets don’t seem to understand. The bean counters don’t understand. People who are being asked to judge quality photographs don’t understand. When you and I look at a photograph or watch a film, it’s all about time. It is the amount of time you spend. That is everything. That is what it’s about. Full stop. No short cut. Eugene Richards does not make amazing work because he is in and out. It’s because he lives it. That’s why the best work — we all know — speaks of time. But when you’ve got people making decisions about what is good and bad photography who haven’t spent the time in the street to know that call, they choose bad images. They don’t really know what they are doing. And they aren’t willing to put the money into it or to spend that time because they think that by filling the front page with a picture, their job is done — rather than asking if there is a better picture. We are all under financial pressure.
Q. Is the direction the business is going these days opposite what you’re talking about?
A. Absolutely and that’s the problem. That’s why when we talk about the vision of the film, we knew we had to carry it on our own. The only people who understood how to make that film was us. We had to make the film ourselves. We had to take control. Up until the point that the film was coming out, everybody else thought it was just not going to happen.
Q. Do you think that America wants to see the film? Is America ready to deal with this film? It’s a hard, hard film to look at.
A. We made a visceral war film; the kind of film that hasn’t been made before. Most of the people who spend a lot of time with soldiers are photographers. There are very few documentary filmmakers who do. We came to making this film after many years as war photographers. We understood what was required to make a good film.
Q. I remember at one point you were really broke and you put everything you had into this film.
A. Yeah. I was in a pretty bad way. I was in debt. It was a crazy thing to do during the recession.
Q. But going back to the question: do you think America wants this film? Or needs to see it?
A. Obviously, I am going to say yes. There are a lot of people out there interested in war. We all know that war sells.
Q. So the next question is: can a documentary film about war sell?
A. A lot of documentary films about war since the start of the “war on terrorism” in 2001 have had political standpoints. By stripping that out of our film, by not having a political standpoint, we ask people to be nonpartisan and experience what those soldiers experienced. As a platform to discuss war, I think that’s useful, because it doesn’t divide people. This country is already so divided about war, I think that’s a good strategy: to build a bridge to people, to get them to engage with the politics about Afghanistan, to see what we are dealing with.
Q. There are people killed in the film.
A. Most people are concerned about whether their wife needs to get the pills from her doctor, or whether they got the dog food, or did they do their health insurance. These are all important concerns. To weigh them down with some heavy guilt trip — “You should be interested in this because this is Afghanistan” — is not a constructive way to engage them. You have to think up more reasonable strategies. My strategy is, initially, to build a bridge to people rather than turn them off with really tough images that challenge them. By making a film about a group of soldiers you get to know — that you are intimate with, that you laugh with and end up crying with — is a way for you to engage with what is really going on. When they awkwardly come across a village where the villagers are all killed, you toss questions out like: How did the villagers die? Were the soldiers responsible? Is that what we are putting our young men through? I think Americans are ready to engage with Afghanistan. They just don’t want to wake up to it. They don’t know how to react to pictures like Abu Ghraib. “Wow. People are out there torturing in our name. This makes me feel bad. Stop reading the newspaper. End of story. I have to go pay for my wife’s health care.” As photographers, as image makers, we have to be realistic about who the people are we are trying to reach, rather than: “I’ve been to Kenya. The ethnic riots are really important. You must have a look at them.” “Well, I don’t have to look at them. I have to figure out how to get my kid to school on time.” I have to think about how I engage the right wing. If I go to them and say, “I’m a liberal and I hate war,” they are going to say, “I’ve got something better to do with my time.” I hope “Restrepo” is the kind of film that does that, that engages people from the left and the right. People have responded very positively to it. Those who have been stirred up are the people who think we should be doing overt political commentary. It makes them angry that we are not. The little bit of criticism we’ve had is from the right — about showing the dead body of an American solider or showing the U.S. military in nonprotocol situations — or the left, who think we should be outright condemning the war. The very fact they are riled up shows you that it is impacting them. They need, perhaps, to analyze why they feel how they do. How they can actually talk about the war in a way that isn’t so cemented? If we can engage each other in a nonpolitical and nonpartisan way, we may actually agree on how to move forward with the war.
Q. What about your personal view? How do you think the war is going?
A. Do I think the intervention in Afghanistan was justified? Yes, I do. I think that al Qaeda definitely was based out there and they went in and they killed 3,000 people here and it was necessary to go in and break up their network – unlike Iraq, which was based on a lie. So, yes. The war in Afghanistan was mishandled. We have seen that less troops have led to the situation now. We have yet to see what there is to see with more troops.
Q. Why didn’t you make the movie with the British?
A. I have never worked with the Brits. I have heard they are more restrictive than the Americans in terms of what you can file and so on. We weren’t really scrutinized by the U.S. press office. It was kind of incredible. We were given a lot of freedom. I was really surprised. Good things can come out of an embed system. In some ways, being an outsider is useful. Blue-collar American soldiers can’t place me. I was this tall British guy. And they were like, “This guy’s kind of weird, but he’s O.K.”
Q. Was it your first time with working-class American culture?
A. Yes, it was. And it’s super interesting.
Q. You get to Middle America and it’s like going to Iraq.
A. Yeah, and it’s probably easier to get around in Iraq than in Wyoming.
Q. What was your impression of America after?
A. If I am proud of the film, it is because it is an honest film. And it is an honest film because you can see that I also like the guys there. I don’t garnish over the awkward bits or bad bits. But I like them as people. The only people who really know about the war are the soldiers. So, of course, I end up respecting them. I had a hell of a lot of respect for them. They are young. They are out there on the American taxpayer dollar. And we ask a lot of them. Not only do we want them to fight, we want them to successfully engage hearts and minds. We are asking an 18-year-old guy from, say, Arkansas, who has never been out of his state before to not only go to Afghanistan, but also to learn Pashtu and Dari, and be empathetic with people who he thinks may be killing his friends. It is a lot for even the most aware person to deal with. We should maybe put some other training procedures into place, and be a little bit more supportive of what they are doing. I have a lot of respect for them, because I think we ask them to do too much.
Q. What do you feel is the future of traditional media? Where is this all going?
A. We who are working in the realm of photojournalism and documentary photojournalism have to focus on whom we want to talk to. We need to know who our audience is. That will help us figure out how to reach them, which language to reach them with. I don’t think enough image-makers do that. We are in flux. Certain contenders are emerging. The Times is still here. It’s been strengthened recently by its online version. It has a lot of viewership, and there are going to be photographers like yourself who have access to an important platform. It’s the equivalent of Life magazine. It is reaching millions of people and it’s an important outlet for what we do.
Q. You don’t think it’s over yet?
A. No, I don’t think it’s over yet. It is about reputation now, and reputation is not just about making stylistic pictures. It is about authenticity; about knowing what you are talking about; showing the ability to reach your audience. By working across the media, you can actually survive. The danger is to go to one area and stay.
Q. So you would encourage young people to do many different things?
A. Not necessarily many different things. I encourage them to look at many different forms. Not to say, “I am a photographer,” but to say: “I am an image maker. I make still or moving images in real-life situations, unfiltered and un-Photoshopped. I am going to look into how I can put this into different streams for different audiences; maybe some on the Web, some in print.”
Q. Earlier you said that traditional photography is dead. These traditional types of straight journalism – you made it sound as if they are becoming passé. But then look at the uproar over Julie Jacobson’s image from Afghanistan of the dying soldier. There are still images that really grab people.
A. But again, they are images. What I am thinking about is this idea that “Photography” is something that has this black border around it and is protected. You know? “I used to develop black-and-white pictures and that’s what photography is.” That kind of old-fashioned thinking is just for an art gallery now. Julie Jacobson shot in digital. What is important in that image is that it is a still picture. As we increasingly have technology that wants us to shoot moving pictures and contextualize with sound, we need to understand the difference. Why am I making a still picture? Why am I making a moving picture? The question you asked me about when I decide to shoot what — I need to be able answer that. Slicing stills out of the video stream means there will be even more images. Which means that the audiences’ expectations are going to change. It’s very difficult for me to know what that expectation will be in 10 years’ time because things are moving so quickly. Do I think people are going to pull 16 megabyte pictures out of video streams and try and print them? Absolutely, that is going to happen. What impact that is going to have on the media, I don’t know. That’s why I think the most important thing for our industry is not style, it is authenticity. It is: “I go to you because I know you have an authentic voice in the work that you have been doing.”
Q. Right. But the trend I am seeing is actually the opposite. What I am hearing is: “We don’t need the media anymore. We’ve got our own photographers because we have cellphone cameras.”
A. But you need to have professional witnesses, people who go out there and do this as a living. What you do – the way that you make an image, the way that you make a story – is different than partaking in that story, like citizen journalism.
Q. The trend seems to be towards citizen journalism.
A. Because it’s cheap.
Q. Even this newspaper is saying, “Send in your readers’ photos.”
A. Again, it’s about profit. It is not about good journalism. We all know that having professionalism in any field is important. We have a weird skill-set. Send us into a difficult circumstance and we will get out there and know how to find a story. That is what we do for a living. That is valuable. It is not part of the problem, it is part of the solution – in addition to citizen journalism, in addition to local photographers. The more, the merrier.
Q. We have a different role?
A. We have a different role.
Q. Are you going to continue to cover war?
A. I have no idea. I have no idea.
Q. Are you thinking about quitting?
A. I am just thinking about getting through “Restrepo.” There are different roles you have to do at different stages of life. Those will change. Maybe I’ll go back in. Or maybe I will be useful to the community in other ways.
Q. Why did you leave Britain? Why did you move to New York?
A. Because it rains all the time and you can’t get a cab and the girls are good looking here. Britain has 60 million people. America has 300 million people. It’s the math. If you are interested in mass communication, you are going to reach more people here. It is still the biggest player in the world. It is a very important audience. To get these people to understand what their military is doing is a natural place to be.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Friday, April 30, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: The Shrinking Path
Hello,
Well, it appears that being a photographer is actually as bleak as everyone says it is. Even house wives are able to earn an income from Getty Images. Read below. Time to dust off that degree in accounting.
Please follow this LINK to the original story.
The article is also posted below.
Copywrite: New York Times
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March 29, 2010
For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
By the time Matt Eich entered photojournalism school in 2004, the magazine and newspaper business was already declining.
But Mr. Eich had been shooting photographs since he was a child, and when he married and had a baby during college, he stuck with photography as a career.
“I had to hit the ground running and try to make enough money to keep a roof over our heads,” he said.
Since graduation in 2008, Mr. Eich, 23, has gotten magazine assignments here and there, but “industrywide, the sentiment now, at least among my peers, is that this is not a sustainable thing,” he said. He has been supplementing magazine work with advertising and art projects, in a pastiche of ways to earn a living. “There was a path, and there isn’t anymore.”
Then there is D. Sharon Pruitt, a 40-year-old mother of six who lives on Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Ms. Pruitt’s husband is in the military, and their frequent moves meant a full-time job was not practical. But after a vacation to Hawaii in 2006, Ms. Pruitt uploaded some photos — taken with a $99 Kodak digital camera — to the site Flickr.
Since then, through her Flickr photos, she has received a contract with the stock-photography company Getty Images that gives her a monthly income when publishers or advertisers license the images. The checks are sometimes enough to take the family out to dinner, sometimes almost enough for a mortgage payment. “At the moment, it’s just great to have extra money,” she said.
Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether.
“There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News.
That has left professional photographers with a bit of an identity crisis. Nine years ago, when Livia Corona was fresh out of art school, she got assignments from magazines like Travel and Leisure and Time. Then, she said, “three forces coincided.”
They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market.
Magazines’ editorial pages tend to rise or fall depending on how many ad pages they have. In 2000, the magazines measured by Publishers Information Bureau, a trade group, had 286,932 ad pages. In 2009, there were 169,218 — a decline of 41 percent. That means less physical space in which to print photographs.
“Pages are at a premium, and there’s more competition to get anything into a magazine now, and the bar is just higher for excellent work,” said Bill Shapiro, the editor of Life.com, who ran the print revival of Life before Time Inc. shut it in 2007. And that is for the publications that survived — 428 magazines closed in 2009 alone, according to the publication database MediaFinder.com, including ones that regularly assigned original photography, like Gourmet, Portfolio and National Geographic Adventure.
And while magazines once sniffed at stock photographs, which are existing images, not original assignments, shrinking editorial budgets made them reconsider.
“When we began, stock photography or licensed images, preshot images being licensed, was perceived as the armpit of the photo industry,” said Jonathan Klein, the chief executive of Getty Images who helped found the agency in 1995. “No self-respecting art director or creative director would use a preshot image, because it wasn’t original, it hadn’t been commissioned by them, it wasn’t their creativity.”
At the same time, the Internet has made it easier for editors to find and license stock photos — they can do it in seconds with a search term and a few clicks, rather than spending seven weeks mailing film transparencies back and forth.
Concurrently, digital photography took off. “It used to be you really needed to know how to use a camera,” said Keith Marlowe, a photographer who has worked for Spin and Rolling Stone. “If you messed up a roll, you couldn’t redo the concert.” Now, though, any photographer can instantly see if a shot is good, or whether the light balances or other technical aspects need to be adjusted.
That meant a flood of pretty decent photographs, and that changed the stock-photography industry. In the last few years, stock agencies have created or acquired so-called microstock divisions. They charge $1 to $100, in most cases, for publishers or others to rerun a photo, often supplied by an amateur. And Getty made a deal with Flickr in 2008, permitting Getty’s photo editors to comb through customers’ images and strike license agreements with the amateur photographers.
“The quality of licensed imagery is virtually indistinguishable now from the quality of images they might commission,” Mr. Klein said. Yet “the price point that the client, or customer, is charged is a fraction of the price point which they would pay for a professional image.”
In 2005, Getty Images licensed 1.4 million preshot commercial photos. Last year, it licensed 22 million — and “all of the growth was through our user-generated business,” Mr. Klein said. That is because amateurs are largely happy to be paid anything for their photos. “People that don’t have to make a living from photography and do it as a hobby don’t feel the need to charge a reasonable rate,” Mr. Eich said.
With stock-photography payments declining and magazines pulling back on original assignments, some Web sites like Life.com and BurnMagazine.org have popped up as homes for original photography. Life commissions about two projects a month — it sent Mr. Marlowe to Haiti after the earthquake, for instance, and the entertainment photographer Jeff Vespa to cover the European news media tour by the “Avatar” cast.
There seems to be an audience for professional photography on these sites. The average number of photos each visitor viewed for “Michael Jackson: The Memorial” at Life.com was 41, for example, and for “Oscars 2010: The Best Dresses,” it was 38 images.
Still, the pay, compared with print, is “less, for sure,” Mr. Shapiro of Life.com said, since some professional photographers “are really more excited for the exposure than they are to drive a hard bargain.”
But it is hard to live on exposure alone. And some professionals worry that with ways to make a salary in photography disappearing, the impact will be severe.
“The important thing that a photojournalist does is they know how to tell the story — they know they’re not there to skew, interpret or bias,” said Katrin Eismann, chairwoman of the Masters in Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. “A photographer can go to a rally or demonstration, and they can make it look as though 10 people showed up, or 1,000 people showed up, and that’s a big difference. I’m not sure I’m going to trust an amateur to understand how important that visual communication is. Can an amateur take a picture as good as a professional? Sure,” Ms. Eismann said. “Can they do it on demand? Can they do it again? Can they do it over and over? Can they do it when a scene isn’t that interesting?”
But amateurs like Ms. Pruitt do not particularly care. “I never followed any traditional photography rules only because I didn’t know of any — I never went to photography school, never took any classes,” she said. “People don’t know the rules, so they just shoot what they like — and other people like it, too.”
__________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Well, it appears that being a photographer is actually as bleak as everyone says it is. Even house wives are able to earn an income from Getty Images. Read below. Time to dust off that degree in accounting.
Please follow this LINK to the original story.
The article is also posted below.
Copywrite: New York Times
__________________________________
March 29, 2010
For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
By the time Matt Eich entered photojournalism school in 2004, the magazine and newspaper business was already declining.
But Mr. Eich had been shooting photographs since he was a child, and when he married and had a baby during college, he stuck with photography as a career.
“I had to hit the ground running and try to make enough money to keep a roof over our heads,” he said.
Since graduation in 2008, Mr. Eich, 23, has gotten magazine assignments here and there, but “industrywide, the sentiment now, at least among my peers, is that this is not a sustainable thing,” he said. He has been supplementing magazine work with advertising and art projects, in a pastiche of ways to earn a living. “There was a path, and there isn’t anymore.”
Then there is D. Sharon Pruitt, a 40-year-old mother of six who lives on Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Ms. Pruitt’s husband is in the military, and their frequent moves meant a full-time job was not practical. But after a vacation to Hawaii in 2006, Ms. Pruitt uploaded some photos — taken with a $99 Kodak digital camera — to the site Flickr.
Since then, through her Flickr photos, she has received a contract with the stock-photography company Getty Images that gives her a monthly income when publishers or advertisers license the images. The checks are sometimes enough to take the family out to dinner, sometimes almost enough for a mortgage payment. “At the moment, it’s just great to have extra money,” she said.
Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether.
“There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News.
That has left professional photographers with a bit of an identity crisis. Nine years ago, when Livia Corona was fresh out of art school, she got assignments from magazines like Travel and Leisure and Time. Then, she said, “three forces coincided.”
They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market.
Magazines’ editorial pages tend to rise or fall depending on how many ad pages they have. In 2000, the magazines measured by Publishers Information Bureau, a trade group, had 286,932 ad pages. In 2009, there were 169,218 — a decline of 41 percent. That means less physical space in which to print photographs.
“Pages are at a premium, and there’s more competition to get anything into a magazine now, and the bar is just higher for excellent work,” said Bill Shapiro, the editor of Life.com, who ran the print revival of Life before Time Inc. shut it in 2007. And that is for the publications that survived — 428 magazines closed in 2009 alone, according to the publication database MediaFinder.com, including ones that regularly assigned original photography, like Gourmet, Portfolio and National Geographic Adventure.
And while magazines once sniffed at stock photographs, which are existing images, not original assignments, shrinking editorial budgets made them reconsider.
“When we began, stock photography or licensed images, preshot images being licensed, was perceived as the armpit of the photo industry,” said Jonathan Klein, the chief executive of Getty Images who helped found the agency in 1995. “No self-respecting art director or creative director would use a preshot image, because it wasn’t original, it hadn’t been commissioned by them, it wasn’t their creativity.”
At the same time, the Internet has made it easier for editors to find and license stock photos — they can do it in seconds with a search term and a few clicks, rather than spending seven weeks mailing film transparencies back and forth.
Concurrently, digital photography took off. “It used to be you really needed to know how to use a camera,” said Keith Marlowe, a photographer who has worked for Spin and Rolling Stone. “If you messed up a roll, you couldn’t redo the concert.” Now, though, any photographer can instantly see if a shot is good, or whether the light balances or other technical aspects need to be adjusted.
That meant a flood of pretty decent photographs, and that changed the stock-photography industry. In the last few years, stock agencies have created or acquired so-called microstock divisions. They charge $1 to $100, in most cases, for publishers or others to rerun a photo, often supplied by an amateur. And Getty made a deal with Flickr in 2008, permitting Getty’s photo editors to comb through customers’ images and strike license agreements with the amateur photographers.
“The quality of licensed imagery is virtually indistinguishable now from the quality of images they might commission,” Mr. Klein said. Yet “the price point that the client, or customer, is charged is a fraction of the price point which they would pay for a professional image.”
In 2005, Getty Images licensed 1.4 million preshot commercial photos. Last year, it licensed 22 million — and “all of the growth was through our user-generated business,” Mr. Klein said. That is because amateurs are largely happy to be paid anything for their photos. “People that don’t have to make a living from photography and do it as a hobby don’t feel the need to charge a reasonable rate,” Mr. Eich said.
With stock-photography payments declining and magazines pulling back on original assignments, some Web sites like Life.com and BurnMagazine.org have popped up as homes for original photography. Life commissions about two projects a month — it sent Mr. Marlowe to Haiti after the earthquake, for instance, and the entertainment photographer Jeff Vespa to cover the European news media tour by the “Avatar” cast.
There seems to be an audience for professional photography on these sites. The average number of photos each visitor viewed for “Michael Jackson: The Memorial” at Life.com was 41, for example, and for “Oscars 2010: The Best Dresses,” it was 38 images.
Still, the pay, compared with print, is “less, for sure,” Mr. Shapiro of Life.com said, since some professional photographers “are really more excited for the exposure than they are to drive a hard bargain.”
But it is hard to live on exposure alone. And some professionals worry that with ways to make a salary in photography disappearing, the impact will be severe.
“The important thing that a photojournalist does is they know how to tell the story — they know they’re not there to skew, interpret or bias,” said Katrin Eismann, chairwoman of the Masters in Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. “A photographer can go to a rally or demonstration, and they can make it look as though 10 people showed up, or 1,000 people showed up, and that’s a big difference. I’m not sure I’m going to trust an amateur to understand how important that visual communication is. Can an amateur take a picture as good as a professional? Sure,” Ms. Eismann said. “Can they do it on demand? Can they do it again? Can they do it over and over? Can they do it when a scene isn’t that interesting?”
But amateurs like Ms. Pruitt do not particularly care. “I never followed any traditional photography rules only because I didn’t know of any — I never went to photography school, never took any classes,” she said. “People don’t know the rules, so they just shoot what they like — and other people like it, too.”
__________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, April 16, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: Looking back on Columbia University
Hello.
Last month I was in New York City for a brief visit and I had the chance to speak at Columbia University. The talk was hosted under the Asia Pacific Studies Department and the topic was essentially how I saw political change in China coming about, and what factors may speed up the process. As a photographer who is constantly on the go I feel I have a unique vision and understanding as to some growing pains China is going through.
It's a lecture I had given before, but this time it was different.
This time my talk was a truly unique experience because longtime friend and colleague Howard W. French was present, and not only provided me with a wonderful introduction, but assisted in dealing with many of the complex issues dealt with during the questions and answers.
It was a treat to be able to converse with students and facility, and it was great to be able to agree and disagree with Howard. After Howard basically gave me my first photojournalism job about six years ago we've traveled together what seems like hundreds of times and it was the first time we've been able to discuss our points of view about China in an academic environment.
For those who don't know Howard left the New York Times for an academic position at Columbia University two years ago, he continues to be an active freelance writer and is continuing work on several book projects.
My hope is that I can continue to be active in the academic community and continue to share my perspective and ideas about China's growth and ever changing landscape. Hopefully I can make the journey to Columbia University a regular feature on my stops to New York.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, April 02, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: Multimedia Blog for Resolve
Hello.
Throughout the recent digital revolution in photography, I have continued to shoot film, but there is one area where I have happily adopted new lightweight digital capture -- audio. With the technology jumping leaps and bounds, audio that previously required large, complex recorders can now be captured on small digital recorders, perfect for the kind of multimedia storytelling that I've been exploring.
I’ve been intrigued with the advance of multimedia in the last few year, and especially how it can be used to enhance the art of story telling. I have a deep respect for still photographers moving into video -- like Tim Hetherington and his award-winning documentary Restrepo -- but I'm not ready to turn in my viewfinder for a video camera yet. What feels right to me right now is the multimedia slideshow.
You see, I love to write and I enjoy the process of preparing a script to accompany imagery. The multimedia slideshow allows me to go one step beyond the still image, with regards to story telling, but still aligns with my belief that still images are more powerful than moving ones.
My first dabble in multimedia I decided to create a slidewho of my black-and-white fine-art project on Chinese Turkestan in an attempt to reach a wider audience (above). In my visits to the region, several times a year for the last several years, I began recording audio with a small handheld recorder. For the slideshow's audio I used a "Call to Prayer", essentially a man who stands on the top of the mosque and calls everyone to come and pray several times per day. It is something I hear all the time while working in the region and I thought it was fitting.
My goal here was never to produce a “news” piece or include various clips of audio with fuller story telling. I wanted to create a space for the viewer to fully experience the still image. For that reason, the sequencing was incredibly important, and difficult. I payed particular attention to composition and flow, and I'm still working on it, since the project itself is not yet complete.
One of the exciting things about this first foray into multimedia is starting to think about how this slide show can support the still images in terms of publicity and marketing. For instance, I integrated the slideshow into my presentations at a few universities and galleries during a recent trip to the U.S. I was very pleased with both the impact of the slideshow and the feedback I received. Remembering that the end goal is to have my images reach the widest possible audience, I believe an audio slideshow contribute to that in many ways.
I have several more videos currently in production, including ones with a narrative as well as more audio from locations. You can follow the process on my blog.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, January 29, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: Blogging in 2009
Hello.
This is another one of those boring blogs that looks back at 2009. This time we are looking at my blogging.
To be honest I've been blogging since 2006. But I would have to say that in 2009 I finally got my feet moving and began blogging on a regular basis. I had a total of 102 blogs in 2009. That is a vast improvement over 2008 (22 blogs), 2007 (14 blogs) and 2006 (13 blogs).
So I'm blogging, most of it is rubbish but I hope there are a few entertaining gems in there somewhere. Needless to say 102 blogs in one year is a pretty aggressive number for a single blogger who tries to focus on original content. Many of my blogs are short and introduce new work, and when feeling motivated I try to branch out and write something longer and more opinionated.
My goal is that 2010 will bring a similar number of blogs to the viewing public. I seem to have settled in to a nice routine of 1 or 2 blogs a week, focusing more on quality than quantity. Fingers crossed it all comes together nicely. I appreciate that there is at least some people who enjoy the regular read, and your emails and feedback are very much welcomed. Please continue to write and I'll try to reply to everyone on questions regarding photography and China in general.
Keep reading, and tell all your friends.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
This is another one of those boring blogs that looks back at 2009. This time we are looking at my blogging.
To be honest I've been blogging since 2006. But I would have to say that in 2009 I finally got my feet moving and began blogging on a regular basis. I had a total of 102 blogs in 2009. That is a vast improvement over 2008 (22 blogs), 2007 (14 blogs) and 2006 (13 blogs).
So I'm blogging, most of it is rubbish but I hope there are a few entertaining gems in there somewhere. Needless to say 102 blogs in one year is a pretty aggressive number for a single blogger who tries to focus on original content. Many of my blogs are short and introduce new work, and when feeling motivated I try to branch out and write something longer and more opinionated.
My goal is that 2010 will bring a similar number of blogs to the viewing public. I seem to have settled in to a nice routine of 1 or 2 blogs a week, focusing more on quality than quantity. Fingers crossed it all comes together nicely. I appreciate that there is at least some people who enjoy the regular read, and your emails and feedback are very much welcomed. Please continue to write and I'll try to reply to everyone on questions regarding photography and China in general.
Keep reading, and tell all your friends.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, December 25, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: My Blogging Methodology
Hello, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all.
I wanted to write a quick little note about how I blog, when I blog and why I blog; if you find this a bit repetitive please bare with me.
A few years back I was sitting in a hotel room at the Paris airport and I decided right then and there that I was going to be more open. But what did I mean by “more open”?
Well, I wanted to share. Share my experiences living in China. Share my experiences documenting China. Convey my experiences as a documentary photographer trying to eek out a living in this most competitive of environments. When I spoke with people I’d met during my travels everyone had always said that I should write a book, and while that my indeed happen one day, today I’d prefer to focus on the blog as less direction is needed and I have the chance to maintain an ongoing dialog about work and life in the Middle Kingdom.
So I had decided to be more open, but how. These are mighty questions. Obliviously I didn’t want to get too much in to my personal life, I’m happily married, and while my career causes certain stains in most of my close relationships there is no immanent threat of leading a long and lonely life.
What about my career, how open would I be about that? Well, this is a bit more hairy. No one likes someone who kisses and tells and no one likes to be singled out. So I decided that I would blog about jobs, after the fact, and never mention whom the client is. For those very curious blog readers it is easy enough to piece it all together if you really want to, but I am assuming that we all have better things to do. I also decided that while I may indeed write blogs while on assignments I wouldn’t publish them until at least a week or two later. My reasoning for this is because I don’t want my blog to be overly emotional or filled with too many minute details about working in China. I would like my blog to read like a smooth and somewhat sophisticated reflection on work and life in China. So even while I write sometimes on the road I often wait a few days and re-read and re-write some sections after some reflection. I don’t want to be in the business of writing news reports or reporting from the field. I would prefer something subtler and more well constructed, something that could perhaps be used for a book some day.
And, how would I blog? Well, I’ve chosen Blogspot as my blog host and this has both positives and negatives. Blogspot is owned by Google and seems to work seamlessly in to my workflow, being a Gmail junky, but the problem is that Blogspot is completely blocked in China. So in order to post I need to bypass the Great Firewall of China, and that means that I need to invest in a decent VPN that continually is improving their functions and features and allows me to post at will, for that I’ve turned to Witopia.
And when do I blog? Well, I’m married and I travel a ton. So my lovely wife and get a bit pissed if I come back from a 7 day trip and the first thing I want to do is avoid her and blog about my war stories. So I tend to blog most when on the road. I try to always write at least one blog each I am in an airport, I find it an incredibly good use of time given that most people think that time wasted in airport lounges kills efficiency. But it is amazing what I can get done with a pair of Noise Canceling headphone from Bose and my laptop. I also often write blogs that are not time sensitive, like this one, and pre-set the posting date for weeks in advance. I see this as a chance to continue to publish original material even though I may be incredibly busy or traveling in a remote place that week.
And lastly, how often to I blog? Well I’ve cut back to posting just one blog per week. But I often write several blogs a week add them to the cue to be published. Several months ago I was publishing 2-3 times a week but it wasn’t sustainable. I have a lot to say, but not that much. It’s important to note here that I try not to publish other people’s material on my blog, meaning that I rarely cut and paste or link to the work of others. I would like my blog to be as original as possible, my voice to the outside world only. But I often copy and link to work that I’m a co-collaborator in, such as my “New Work” notices, or articles and information that I find to be unbelievably interesting and important. Apart from that, I try to provide the narrative, and I think my life is interesting enough to generate content for that. I hope my readers approve. Upwards and onwards!
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I wanted to write a quick little note about how I blog, when I blog and why I blog; if you find this a bit repetitive please bare with me.
A few years back I was sitting in a hotel room at the Paris airport and I decided right then and there that I was going to be more open. But what did I mean by “more open”?
Well, I wanted to share. Share my experiences living in China. Share my experiences documenting China. Convey my experiences as a documentary photographer trying to eek out a living in this most competitive of environments. When I spoke with people I’d met during my travels everyone had always said that I should write a book, and while that my indeed happen one day, today I’d prefer to focus on the blog as less direction is needed and I have the chance to maintain an ongoing dialog about work and life in the Middle Kingdom.
So I had decided to be more open, but how. These are mighty questions. Obliviously I didn’t want to get too much in to my personal life, I’m happily married, and while my career causes certain stains in most of my close relationships there is no immanent threat of leading a long and lonely life.
What about my career, how open would I be about that? Well, this is a bit more hairy. No one likes someone who kisses and tells and no one likes to be singled out. So I decided that I would blog about jobs, after the fact, and never mention whom the client is. For those very curious blog readers it is easy enough to piece it all together if you really want to, but I am assuming that we all have better things to do. I also decided that while I may indeed write blogs while on assignments I wouldn’t publish them until at least a week or two later. My reasoning for this is because I don’t want my blog to be overly emotional or filled with too many minute details about working in China. I would like my blog to read like a smooth and somewhat sophisticated reflection on work and life in China. So even while I write sometimes on the road I often wait a few days and re-read and re-write some sections after some reflection. I don’t want to be in the business of writing news reports or reporting from the field. I would prefer something subtler and more well constructed, something that could perhaps be used for a book some day.
And, how would I blog? Well, I’ve chosen Blogspot as my blog host and this has both positives and negatives. Blogspot is owned by Google and seems to work seamlessly in to my workflow, being a Gmail junky, but the problem is that Blogspot is completely blocked in China. So in order to post I need to bypass the Great Firewall of China, and that means that I need to invest in a decent VPN that continually is improving their functions and features and allows me to post at will, for that I’ve turned to Witopia.
And when do I blog? Well, I’m married and I travel a ton. So my lovely wife and get a bit pissed if I come back from a 7 day trip and the first thing I want to do is avoid her and blog about my war stories. So I tend to blog most when on the road. I try to always write at least one blog each I am in an airport, I find it an incredibly good use of time given that most people think that time wasted in airport lounges kills efficiency. But it is amazing what I can get done with a pair of Noise Canceling headphone from Bose and my laptop. I also often write blogs that are not time sensitive, like this one, and pre-set the posting date for weeks in advance. I see this as a chance to continue to publish original material even though I may be incredibly busy or traveling in a remote place that week.
And lastly, how often to I blog? Well I’ve cut back to posting just one blog per week. But I often write several blogs a week add them to the cue to be published. Several months ago I was publishing 2-3 times a week but it wasn’t sustainable. I have a lot to say, but not that much. It’s important to note here that I try not to publish other people’s material on my blog, meaning that I rarely cut and paste or link to the work of others. I would like my blog to be as original as possible, my voice to the outside world only. But I often copy and link to work that I’m a co-collaborator in, such as my “New Work” notices, or articles and information that I find to be unbelievably interesting and important. Apart from that, I try to provide the narrative, and I think my life is interesting enough to generate content for that. I hope my readers approve. Upwards and onwards!
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, September 21, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Ba Ling Bridge
Hello.
I recently had the opportunity to visit a region of China that has often been overlooked during China's sprint towards modernity, and that region is the province of Guizhou. Guizhou is landlocked and mountainous, meaning it has missed out on China's industrial expansion, export manufacturing and farming innovations. The province is one of China's poorest and has been considered a lost hinterland for centuries. With that being said, the central government is now sprinkling money throughout many of China's rural backwaters in an effort to increase transportation links and re-connect this massive country; as well as help out areas of depressed growth. The Ba Ling River Bridge is one of the most visually telling examples of Beijing's efforts to "bridge the gap" between China's wealthier and poorer regions. The bridge is set to connect the capital city of Guizhou province, Guiyang, with the capital of Yunnan province, Kunming; one of the most mountainous and transport defunct regions of China as deep river gorges and mountain ranges are scattered along the route. I recently visited the bridge and was granted unprecedented access, but for only about an hour as the construction boss was on a long lunch. I even had time to climb the 40+ story suspension tower, which was a treat in high wind. Please follow the link below to view the work:
LINK: Click Here for Gallery
Summary:
The Ba Ling River Bridge, due to be completed in early 2010, is one of China's longest suspension bridges. Measuring 1.4 miles (2.25km) the project is a marvel of Chinese engineering that looks wholly out of place among rural Guizhou provinces farms and rice fields. The Ba Ling River Bridge, soaring a quarter of a mile (400m) above the Ba Ling River, is an example of large-scale infrastructure projects that are being built throughout China in an effort to modernize China's vast western hinterland.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, August 31, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Poll "Prostitutes Trusted"
Hello.
A recent online survey in China ranked Prostitutes as more trustworthy than Politicians. Without getting in to the nitty gritty, the least trusted category includes: real estate developers, agents, secretaries, entertainers and directors.
The article is pasted below.
Copy Write BBC World
________________________
Politicians were deemed less trustworthy than prostitutes
China's prostitutes are better-trusted than its politicians and scientists, according to an online survey published by Insight China magazine.
The survey found that 7.9% of respondents considered sex workers to be trustworthy, placing them third behind farmers and religious workers.
"A list like this is at the same time surprising and embarrassing," said an editorial in the state-run China Daily.
Politicians were far down the list, closer to scientists and teachers.
Insight China polled 3,376 Chinese citizens in June and July this year.
"The sex workers' unexpected prominence on this list of honour... is indeed unusual," said the China Daily editorial.
"At least [the scientists and officials] have not slid into the least credible category which consists of real estate developers, secretaries, agents, entertainers and directors," the editorial said.
Soldiers came in fourth place.
________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
A recent online survey in China ranked Prostitutes as more trustworthy than Politicians. Without getting in to the nitty gritty, the least trusted category includes: real estate developers, agents, secretaries, entertainers and directors.
The article is pasted below.
Copy Write BBC World
________________________
Politicians were deemed less trustworthy than prostitutes
China's prostitutes are better-trusted than its politicians and scientists, according to an online survey published by Insight China magazine.
The survey found that 7.9% of respondents considered sex workers to be trustworthy, placing them third behind farmers and religious workers.
"A list like this is at the same time surprising and embarrassing," said an editorial in the state-run China Daily.
Politicians were far down the list, closer to scientists and teachers.
Insight China polled 3,376 Chinese citizens in June and July this year.
"The sex workers' unexpected prominence on this list of honour... is indeed unusual," said the China Daily editorial.
"At least [the scientists and officials] have not slid into the least credible category which consists of real estate developers, secretaries, agents, entertainers and directors," the editorial said.
Soldiers came in fourth place.
________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, July 06, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Violence in Urumqi
Hello.
First off, I want to say the picture above is from Kashgar, my archive has nothing from Urumqi at the moment. On to the blog. See below.
Today I awoke in Shanghai to reports of civil unrest in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province in North West China. I was taken aback to be honest. There are reports of 140 dead and several hundred injured in what seems like a virtual repeat of what occurred in Tibet last March, prior to the Olympics.
It appears that local Uygur's targeted Han Chinese stores and business as well as innocent passers by. A group of about a 1000 Uygurs (as Xinhua reported) gathered in the main market area near the Grand Mosque in Urumqi and began causing the chaos. Urumqi has, for many years, been void of much interest. I've been dozens of times and can honestly say that it is often best avoided. It's market's are quiet, it's architecture is Chinese and the Uygur's are a minority. As an example of how stable Urumqi has been: Starwood Hotels even put their Sheraton brand on a local hotel there thinking that it was a safe and reliable place for business. Today that might have been turned on its head.
There is always more than meets the eye to these types of situations and this incident is no different. A few weeks ago there was a brawl at a toy factory in China's southern Guangdong province between Uygur migrant workers and Han migrant workers and two Uygurs were killed. Reports of this circled around within Uygur groups for weeks and that may have fanned the flames of violence witnessed in the last few hours.
The Chinese government, however, is suggesting that outside influences, such as pro Xinjiang independence groups that are based outside of China, are meddling in their internal affairs and helping to organize the riots. While that may be true, the people of Xinjiang, in my mind, don't need any outside influence to rise up at what has been a brutal authoritarian regime in Xinjiang; which has essentially destroyed an enter way of life and replaced it with one that is secular and alien to the region.
With that being said, Urumqi has often been a place of quiet peace, with incidents occurring in more far flung towns like Khotan and Kashgar. But this new wave of violence has occurred in the capital of the province; and from the looks of the video footage on BBC and CNN looks incredibly brutal.
The New York Times filed this peace earlier in the day from Beijing. My guess is that a lot of foreign journalists are making plans to get to Xinjiang as quickly as possible, but it will all be over by the time they arrive. Much like chasing any dissidents and protesters in China, it's akin to chasing ghosts. By the time the journalists arrive the streets are already repaved, the paint is already dry, and life is back to normal; minus the thousands thrown in jail without trial, representation or a legal leg to stand on. And so the cycle continues. it's happened again and again with both minorities people, such as Tibetans and Uygurs, and as well to the Han majority; both often feed up of favoritism and corruption that is tearing this country apart.
This is bound to get a lot of play in the Chinese media, as the propanda department seems to think that the government has a lot to gain by projecting the image that minority terrorist groups are trying to break apart the country and a strong hand is needed, not just in Xinjiang but throughout the entire Middle Kingdom.
My guess is that most of the dead were innocent Han Chinese bystanders or shop keepers, hence the Chinese media coverage, much like the riots in Lhasa. If that is true, it begs the question: "To what end?" What gains can be achieved by killing innocent Han Chinese shop keepers and bus drivers? Does that send the right message? While their anger and frustration may be justified, in a democratic and free Western civilization, their end results are far from potent. Having the majority of the country, that being the Han, think that the Uygurs hate them and want to kill everyone at first glance sends entirely the wrong message; and in many ways this plays in to the hands on the government who are looking for excuses to clamp down harder. In Lhasa last March three young Han Chinese girls died when Tibetan's set fire to their clothing store in Lhasa; a death penalty for selling clothes is hardly forwarding the cause of Tibetan independence, and it won't help at all for the Uygurs either. If these types of events are organized abroad then they are poorly though out and executed; my guess is that the events we have been witnessing over the last day and a half were organic and nothing more than a bit of mob rule.
If the Uygurs, and the Tibetans alike, want more autonomy and more independence I don't think they'll further their cause by killing Han Chinese shop keepers and taxi drivers. As I mentioned above they are playing in to the hands of their masters. But perhaps things have become so desperate and hopeless that this is all that is left, mob rule and random lethal force, and if that is true we are in for a brutal cycle of violence. Below is Ed Wong's story from earlier today. My guess is that the NYT will have someone on the ground in the coming hours.
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Copy write: New York Times
Ethnic Clashes in Western China Are Said to Kill Scores
By EDWARD WONG
BEIJING — The Chinese state news agency reported Monday that at least 140 people were killed and 816 injured when rioters clashed with the police in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese.
The casualty toll, if confirmed, would make this the deadliest outbreak of violence in China in many years.
The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of the vast, restive desert region of Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.
At least 1,000 rioters took to the streets, throwing stones at the police and setting vehicles on fire. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, while police officers used fire hoses and batons to beat back rioters and detained Uighurs who appeared to be leading the protest, witnesses said.
The casualty numbers appeared to be murky and shifting on Monday. Xinhua, the state news agency, said the toll so far was 140 dead and 828 wounded, citing regional police officials. Earlier, Xinhua had reported that three civilians and one police officer were killed.
One regional official reached by telephone put the death toll at 105 and said at least 800 people had been injured. One American who watched the rioting at its height said he did not see people being killed or corpses in the streets, though he said he did see Uighurs shoving or kicking a few Han Chinese. Images of the rioting on state television showed some bloody people lying in the streets and cars burning.
Dozens of Uighur men were led into police stations on Sunday evening with their hands behind their backs and shirts pulled over their heads, one witness said. Early Monday, the local government announced a curfew banning all traffic in the city until 8 p.m.
The riot was the largest ethnic clash in China since the Tibetan uprising of March 2008, and perhaps the biggest protest in Xinjiang in years. Like the Tibetan unrest, it highlighted the deep-seated frustrations felt by some ethnic minorities in western China over the policies of the Communist Party, and how that can quickly turn into ethnic violence. Last year, in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, at least 19 people were killed, most of them Han civilians, according to government statistics.
Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, resent rule by the Han Chinese, and Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since the 1990s, when cities there were struck by waves of protests, riots and bombings. Last summer, attacks on security forces took place in several cities in Xinjiang; the Chinese government blamed separatist groups.
Early Monday, Chinese officials said the latest riots were started by Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur human rights advocate who had been imprisoned in China and now lives in Washington, Xinhua reported. As with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, Chinese officials often blame Ms. Kadeer for ethnic unrest; she denies the charges.
The clashes on Sunday began when the police confronted a protest march held by Uighurs to demand a full government investigation of a brawl between Uighur and Han workers that erupted in Guangdong Province overnight on June 25 and June 26. The brawl took place in a toy factory and left 2 Uighurs dead and 118 people injured. The police later arrested a bitter ex-employee of the factory who had ignited the fight by starting a rumor that six Uighur men had raped two Han women at the work site, Xinhua reported.
There was also a rumor circulating on Sunday in Urumqi that a Han man had killed a Uighur in the city earlier in the day, said Adam Grode, an English teacher living in the neighborhood where the rioting took place.
“This is just crazy,” Mr. Grode said by telephone Sunday night. “There was a lot of tear gas in the streets, and I almost couldn’t get back to my apartment. There’s a huge police presence.”
Mr. Grode said he saw a few Han civilians being harassed by Uighurs. Rumors of Uighurs attacking Han Chinese spread quickly through parts of Urumqi, adding to the panic. A worker at the Texas Restaurant, a few hundred yards from the site of the rioting, said her manager had urged the restaurant workers to stay inside. Xinhua reported few details of the riot on Sunday night. It said that “an unknown number of people gathered Sunday afternoon” in Urumqi, “attacking passers-by and setting fire to vehicles.”
Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang but are a minority in Urumqi, where Han Chinese make up more than 70 percent of the population of two million or so. The Chinese government has encouraged Han migration to the city and other parts of Xinjiang, fueling resentment among the Uighurs. Urumqi is a deeply segregated city, with Han Chinese there rarely venturing into the Uighur quarter.
The Uighur neighborhood is centered in a warren of narrow alleyways, food markets and a large shopping area called the Grand Bazaar or the Erdaoqiao Market, where the rioting reached its peak on Sunday.
Mr. Grode, who lives in an apartment there, said he went outside when he first heard commotion around 6 p.m. He saw hundreds of Uighurs in the streets; that quickly swelled to more than 1,000, he said.
Police officers soon arrived. Around 7 p.m., protesters began hurling rocks and vegetables from the market at the police, Mr. Grode said. Traffic ground to a halt. An hour later, as the riot surged toward the center of the market, troops in green uniforms and full riot gear showed up, as did armored vehicles. Chinese government officials often deploy the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary force, to quell riots.
By midnight, Mr. Grode said, some of the armored vehicles had begun to leave, but bursts of gunfire could still be heard.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, June 15, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: My 100th Blog
Hello.
Well, it might not mean much beyond beyond my office, in the spare bedroom of my apartment, but this is my 100th blog. And that excites me deeply. In the first year or so of my blog the rhythm was sporadic at best, only finding the time or having the nerve to blog when my blood was boiling about something or another. In the second half of last year I finally put that to rest and found that blogging became therapeutic and for the few readers or followers out there, I really appreciate your comments and personal emails; very motivating.
I started blogging in September 2006, while I was sitting in a Paris hotel room on my way back from a photo festival in the south of France. The festival was interesting but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. While I appreciated seeing all the work and the exhibitions the general atmosphere was a bit too much for me. I haven't been back since. But although my absence from the festival is noted, the lessons I learned from that festival have traveled with me and been implemented throughout my career and life.
It was just after this photo festival that I worked out a new game plan for myself, and I designed a much more refined focus for my work. It was a real growth experience. I think prior to that Perpignan festival I was just happy to be taking pictures and making my rent payments on time, but after that I really decided how I wanted my career to play out. I mentally turned a corner that helped me decide what I needed to do, and how I needed to approach my work, to have the possibility to work with some element of freedom to pursue topics that I felt were important.
When I stop and think about it, I have a very unique roll. I have committed myself to documenting China in the long term and I've been lucky enough, and developed to an acceptable level, to work for some of the leading magazines around the world. That means that I have a real responsibility to maintain strong ethics and high journalism standards in my work. And equally important is to not waste any time, because the country is really rolling along and it takes a huge effort to play catch up trying to document it all.
It was after that trip that I began investing more and more of my income in to personal projects. I also began began pursuing competitions / awards, grants and sponsorship more aggressively; although to this end my results have been only mildly successful. More work is clearly needed.
Whatever the results of personal projects, and or grants and awards the key factor at the end of the day is still freedom. If you take in to account that there are only 365 days a year and each person only has so many days they can work, so many hours they can stare through a view finder on a camera it is really important to maximize those rare moments when we can just simply work; without distraction or delay.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Well, it might not mean much beyond beyond my office, in the spare bedroom of my apartment, but this is my 100th blog. And that excites me deeply. In the first year or so of my blog the rhythm was sporadic at best, only finding the time or having the nerve to blog when my blood was boiling about something or another. In the second half of last year I finally put that to rest and found that blogging became therapeutic and for the few readers or followers out there, I really appreciate your comments and personal emails; very motivating.
I started blogging in September 2006, while I was sitting in a Paris hotel room on my way back from a photo festival in the south of France. The festival was interesting but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. While I appreciated seeing all the work and the exhibitions the general atmosphere was a bit too much for me. I haven't been back since. But although my absence from the festival is noted, the lessons I learned from that festival have traveled with me and been implemented throughout my career and life.
It was just after this photo festival that I worked out a new game plan for myself, and I designed a much more refined focus for my work. It was a real growth experience. I think prior to that Perpignan festival I was just happy to be taking pictures and making my rent payments on time, but after that I really decided how I wanted my career to play out. I mentally turned a corner that helped me decide what I needed to do, and how I needed to approach my work, to have the possibility to work with some element of freedom to pursue topics that I felt were important.
When I stop and think about it, I have a very unique roll. I have committed myself to documenting China in the long term and I've been lucky enough, and developed to an acceptable level, to work for some of the leading magazines around the world. That means that I have a real responsibility to maintain strong ethics and high journalism standards in my work. And equally important is to not waste any time, because the country is really rolling along and it takes a huge effort to play catch up trying to document it all.
It was after that trip that I began investing more and more of my income in to personal projects. I also began began pursuing competitions / awards, grants and sponsorship more aggressively; although to this end my results have been only mildly successful. More work is clearly needed.
Whatever the results of personal projects, and or grants and awards the key factor at the end of the day is still freedom. If you take in to account that there are only 365 days a year and each person only has so many days they can work, so many hours they can stare through a view finder on a camera it is really important to maximize those rare moments when we can just simply work; without distraction or delay.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
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