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
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Global Times Interview

Hello,

I was contacted a while back by a reporter from the Global Times, an English language daily newspaper in China. They wanted to do a story about what it was like being a photographer based in China. I thought it would be an interesting story and the reporter seemed genuinely interested in knowing about what life was like for freelancers in China.

The interview lasted about thirty minutes. And the article was posted in the weekend edition of the paper a few weeks back. I never saw a hard copy, but below is the online version I found on SINA.com. It's not too exciting but I thought it would make a semi-interesting read and blog post.

The original story on SINA.com can be found HERE
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When we think of how the 20th century's most important events are best remembered, it's usually as images as opposed to stories. Be it a starving African child covered in flies, a girl fleeing a napalm attack, or a destitute family of the Dust Bowl, each of these epoch-defining images were captured by photojournalists in the field. Our perception of such people can be clouded by romantic notions of daring, intrepid risk and adventure. To find out about real life in the industry, the Global Times sat down with two of Shanghai's most prominent foreign photojournalists to discuss their lives reporting on China through a lens.

Romantic? Think again

Ryan Pyle from Toronto has been working in China as a freelance photojournalist since 2001. Despite having no formal training, the 31-year-old has worked with publications such as the New York Times, News Week and the Sunday Times. During his time in China, Pyle has covered major events such as the Sichuan earthquake, an experience he describes as "very emotional." But he is quick to dispel any preconceived notions about his job. "A lot of people think this job is romantic because you get to travel and see interesting things. But believe me it's not. Not many people realize just how tough it is."

One of the most demanding aspects of the job is having to remain on alert day and night and to be ready to take off whenever a news story breaks. "You might just be given a day, a few hours, or even just half an hour before having to set off." He went on to say that, "we usually stay in cheap hotels where the KTV is on downstairs and you don't get a wink of sleep. I've had many nights like this although hotels in China are getting better."

In addition to being vigilant, Pyle's working hours are often irregular because many of the publications he works for are based outside China. "I wake up at 6 am and deal with people from the US. In the daytime I shoot pictures and then in the evening I talk with publications in Europe. At night I'm back dealing with people in the US again."

Stiff competition

According to Paris-born Tim Franco who works for the French newspaper Le Monde, competition is becoming ever more fierce among photojournalists in China. Franco, 27, believes this is a result of China being increasingly placed under the media spotlight, and as more and more journalists pour into Shanghai every year, assignments are harder to come by.

Ryan Pyle told the Global Times that missing just one phone call from a newspaper can make the difference between getting and losing a job as there is always another photographer instantly available. "Unless you are 60 years old or have won 10 World Press Photo Awards no-one is going to wait for you. Even though I'm 31 years old and fairly experienced, newspapers won't wait for someone like me all the time."

Unfortunately, even for those established in the industry, earnings are relatively low and the work is irregular. While waiting for work, many photojournalists do corporate photography to make ends meet.

"Photojournalism is not a lucrative career - if anything it's a dying profession," said Tim Franco. "Publishing has been squeezed by the recession and photojournalists are the first to be dropped. Clients can use cheaper photo agencies instead. I know people who are published regularly in Time Magazine and they still can't pay their bills. Even the top guys will do advertising work. They have to."

Ryan Pyle agrees, but insists that corporate work isn't necessarily the "cop out" it's painted to be. "It is much more highly paid than editorial work and it can often take you to more interesting places than news assignments. I've been inside the Three-Gorges dam, for example, doing corporate work."

Teamwork

A key element to the work involves collaboration with writers as newspapers prefer the photographer and the writer to share the experience in order to achieve a balanced, coherent narrative. Franco told the Global Times that this bond can be one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. "I love the relationship between myself and the writer. It's like a voyage of discovery." Ryan Pyle said of this alliance between writer and photographer, "When you're on assignment, it's the writer who controls the schedule, but most of the writers I work with are very understanding about the photos. It's mostly an easy-going, collaborative experience."

Photogenic China

Despite the hardship and stiff competition, working as a photojournalist in China presents many attractive opportunities. "It is probably the greatest country in the world to do photography in right now," said Ryan Pyle. "I think the changing social economy of China makes for such rich imagery.

I feel really lucky to be here at this time because in 30 years I don't know what China will look like so I want to document it now. China is such a fascinating country; the diversity of people here alone is probably greater than anywhere else on earth."
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Photographer Danny Lyon

Hello.

I feel a bit naive for only having been introduced to Danny Lyon's work about a year ago. But a recent New York Times article (which can be found HERE) sheds light on a photographer who "stubbornly practices his principles". If you read on, he basically comes across as a hard nose photographer who bends for no one; and I love that.

Danny's work, at the time was perceived as "new photojournalism"; the key was he aimed his camera at people and situations people often didn't want to see. He focused on life in prison, motorcycle gangs, the poor, people who lived in the inner city. It was, in his eyes, an attempt to document the real USA, to expose humanity.

Self confessed to being "Pretty uncompromising and not very commercial", I think he is representative of a lot of idealistic photographers who work on non-commercial projects because they feel that these stories are important to tell. I myself have been engaged in a whole series of projects in China, and India, that have never seen the light of day; but even knowing that I would still have done everything the same. Some stories need to be told. Some situations need to be witnessed, exposed, discussed and publicized in order to be better understood.

One of the great quotes to come out of this article is when Danny says: “You put a camera in my hand, I want to get close to people, not just physically close, emotionally close, all of it. It’s part of the process." I really love that, and it's true. There is a real bond between photographer and subject, on that I often strive for in much of my work as well.

Danny doesn't have a website with all this work available but if you do a google search you'll come across enough galleries and educational establishments that have links to his incredible collection of work.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Full PDN Interview

Hello,

Early last week I had a notice out that I was very honored to be included in the PDN 30 for 2009. The process for being included in this prestigious group involved submitting a portfolio of work and conducting an interview. Above I've included a series of images from the portfolio I entered, and I thought some blog followers would be interested in seeing the "full interview" that was conducted; it can be found below.
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Interview:

PDN 30 Interview
Questions by: Daryl Lang

1) Please tell me how you got into photography and photojournalism.

Answer:
I didn’t have an interest in becoming a photographer until I first traveled to China after graduating from university. Up until that point, my life had mainly involved studying and playing Division 1 basketball for the University of Toronto. During my schooling year’s hobbies outside of school and basketball (3 hour practices per day!) just didn’t exist, there was barely time to breath. But once my university athletic career was over things began to slow down and I began seeing the world in new ways. That, as well as some classes I took on Chinese history and politics, is what led to my first trip to China at the age of 22.

China was the only destination on my maiden trip to Asia. China was (and still is) crowded, vast, complicated and misunderstood – it was exactly the type of challenge I was looking for. Thinking back to that first trip I can remember my senses tingling, the country was a complete sensory overload. The sights, the smells, the noises; it was all vastly different from what I had experienced up until that point.

My first trip to China lasted 3 months and involved mostly hitchhiking through China’s remote Xinjiang and Tibet provinces. I had a little point and shoot camera and instantly became obsessed with trying to document everything I was seeing and making efforts to relate those details to friends and family back home. When I returned to Toronto, after my first trip to the mainland, I immediately told my family I was packing up moving to China. Two weeks later I was on a plane with my used Canon EOS 1 (film) camera and 50mm lens. I had left Toronto for good. The spirit and the idea of being a photographer and documenting China had been born on that first trip. China, my adopted home, had stirred up something inside of me that I didn’t know existed, very much acting as my muse for an entirely new way of thinking and viewing the world.



2) Did you have any particular breakout moment? Some work you did that made you (or your clients) say “a-ha!” and suddenly doors started to open?

Answer:
To be honest I don’t think I’ve had a breakout moment, or if I have had one I might not have realized. I haven’t won any awards or had an assignment for a big magazine that created a buzz. In fact being included in the PDN30 may very well be that breakout moment that, up until this date, has eluded me. The development of my career, as I see it, has just been a steady ongoing process of making strong images, to the best of my capabilities, and trying to show that work to one client at a time; in an attempt to build a reputation and a name for myself amongst the competitive landscape that exists for foreign photographers in China.

What began opening doors for me was, without a doubt, my steady collaboration with the New York Times in 2005 and 2006. My relationships with several editors at the NYT, and Shanghai correspondent Howard W. French, led me down a road that was instrumental for both my development as a journalist and photographer. That collaboration also gave me a regular credit in a strong publication. When I made my first visit to New York to meet with potential clients many had already known of my work through the NYT, which made editors more approachable and surely opened doors.



3) Why China? Are you still there, and for how much longer?

Answer:
While I was at the University of Toronto I took a variety of classes that dealt with Chinese history and politics. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I was instantly captivated. From those initial classes I began searching out for as much information about China as possible: the intrigue of Tibet, the unknown of Xinjiang and the Silk Road, the 150 million migrating workers, the cities being built over night, the deserts, the mountain ranges, the rivers, and the 800 million famers…I could go on and on. Coming from a relatively quiet place like Canada, China seemed otherworldly and I desperately wanted to experience it.

I am currently living in China, and many of my colleagues and editors often give me a strange look when I tell them that I intend to live and base myself in Shanghai for years to come. Saying that I’ll spend the majority of my career, if not my entire career, in China doesn’t faze me in the least. Now with that being said, I’m open to interesting opportunities anywhere in the world. I’ve really enjoyed working in India and I hope to work on several more projects there in 2009. But China where I feel most comfortable, and it is here where I know the landscape and can apply my vast experiences to my work. However, if I ever felt that my photography experiences were being repeated or duplicated in China I think at that point I would have to focus on a new path; but with the country being so large and diverse I honestly can’t see that happening any time soon.

As an aside, a photographer whom I really admire is Marc Riboud. I’ve spent hundred’s of hours pouring through his incredible images of China from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Imagine that, he documented China for five decades during its most turbulent times. It is Mr. Riboud, and his vision and his dedication to China, and image making in general, that are inspiring to me both professionally and personally. In many ways it is his work and his focus that keeps me positive during some of my more trying times.




4) You freelance for a couple of different major publications, right? How have you found assignments or let people clients know about your work?

Answer:
I feel very fortunate to have contributed to the China coverage of several large, well circulated, magazines both in Europe and North America; and I hope these relationships continue to develop as my vision and photography grows.

Being based in China, far away from London, New York and Paris, has both its positive and negative aspects. The positive side of being based in a far off land is the isolation. I thrive on that. No industry news, no friends in the business, no drinks with other photographers. It’s just my family, my camera and China. No politics, or who is shooting what for whom. It’s quiet, and I relish that.

The negative aspect is the distance, and it can be difficult getting people involved and interested in your work. Based on my personal experiences, a strong Internet presence is crucial. An editor 5000 miles away in New York, who has never met you, has to feel confident enough to in invest a significant amount of time and money on you to do a story; your personal website has to be strong. I’ve gone the extra mile and I also host my own archive. This allows clients to take a look at new and old work, so that they can purchase stock, commission a future story or just see what I am up to. The archive is time consuming but I find it irreplaceable to both my workflow and my business.

After having a personal website I have found the next most important step is making occasional trips to visit with regular clients and potential future clients. I find there is no substitute, even in our digital age, for making a strong personal connection with someone face to face. I believe that having an opportunity to meet with my clients in person has helped them understand me better, first, as a person, and, second, as a photographer. Furthermore, it has given me a clearer sense of what expectations editors have for photographers they work with.

After those two points of making a website and meeting clients face to face, I feel that basic business practices apply: be confident, be a strong communicator, reply to emails from clients immediately, if possible keep clients up to date when on assignment for them, as well as generally staying organized and being easy to contact. In such a competitive industry every little step you make to improve your professionalism will help gain and retain clients.



5) I know you do mostly photojournalism. Do you do any other sort of photography work, such as commercial assignments?

Answer:
I consider myself to be a documentary photographer, and that generally lends itself to journalism. But I feel that the scope of my work goes much beyond that. For example, I’m in the process of producing a fine art black and white project on Chinese Turkistan (or Xinjiang, China), which will hopefully show in galleries and potentially become a book in the near future. I also work for several large multinational corporations, with operations in China, helping them prepare imagery for annual reports and internal publications. The corporate work has been both challenging and exciting, leading me to jobs that have taken me inside the Three Gorges Dam and on the scaffolding of China’s largest skyscraper.

I have not yet worked on any large commercial projects but those are opportunities I am open to. Beyond the actual physical act of taking pictures, I also lecture at several universities about China, and I also lecture at journalism schools on various topics including: working in countries that restrict journalism. I find these interactions with academia incredibly rewarding as it allows my work and my wealth of experience in China to go beyond photography. It provides me with a chance to share my life and work with future “China watchers” and journalists alike.



6) I just spent some time reading your blog, it’s good. I especially liked the note you posted following up on the face transplant patient you photographed. It’s nice to see somebody follow up on a subject they’ve covered years ago. Anyway, why keep a blog? Has it helped you in any way?

Answer:
The blog is, again, an opportunity to combine my photography with my experiences beyond the camera. Followers of my blog get a chance to read about what it is like working in China, including both the rewarding and difficult experiences that come with that choice. I occasionally write about being detained and intimidated while working, other times I make references to experiences in my daily life.

Regarding the face transplant patient, the situation with him is very much a microcosm for the way I see all of my work in China. I live here. What happens here affects me. My work and my life in China is on a long-term arch. I don’t have a four year assignment. I don’t fly in for a few days and then fly out again. I live here. I watch the country. I feel the country. And the story of China’s first face transplant recipient was an example of that: it took me over a year of repeated requests to gain access to the patient, and I had scheduled a trip this year to go back and see how he was adapting in his home village, but that won’t be possible due to his death earlier this year.

With regards to my blog assisting my career, well, I don’t think any of my editors follow my blog or see the new work or slide shows I post there. I have also never had anyone read my blog and be interested in purchasing stock or commissioning me for an assignment. What I hope my blog accomplishes is to assist other photographers, writers, watchers, reporters and editors better understand who I am, why I am in China, and what motivates me to be a photographer. I’ve mentioned before in other interviews, I feel a increasing sense of responsibility being a documentary photographer in such a fast changing society as China, and that sense of change keeps me on my toes and gives me a strong feeling, and a growing sense of right, to express with others my experiences and work.


7) How old are you and when is your birthday?

Answer: September 20, 1978. 30 years old at the moment.


8) In what city were you born?

Answer: Toronto, Canada.


9) Where did you go to school/what degree did you earn?

Answer: University of Toronto. International Politics. Class of 2001

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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