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The story behind my Embedded Eyes
Indian migrant Guddu Gupta at his shared accommodation in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Guddu hails from Ghorakpur town of India and works as a salesman in Cambodia. November 2008.
(This is the article that I wrote for “Un(T)ravel,” the April-July 2011 edition of Offbeat, The Alternative’s quarterly ezine celebrating alternative living. The Un(T)ravel edition of Offbeat can be viewed here.)
There is a calling in everyone’s life, and you ought to answer it – I personally believe that. I answered mine when I was creating software products inside an IT giant’s plush office in Bangalore. I wanted to change the world through my camera. Will I succeed in my mission?, is a question that can be answered in retrospective. But I believe that our world is changing every second, and what we say, see or do is a catalyst in shaping our planet’s future. Therefore photography is a catalyst for change too.
So, I set about travelling with a camera as a photojournalist. I soon realised that the camera had been democratized in my era and everyone who was travelling had a camera in their hands. It was good to see so many catalysts.
I recollect an incident in the year 2008 when I was at Siem Reap, Cambodia, on a fellowship. As part of a documentary photography workshop held during the Angkor Photography Festival, I was documenting the lives of Indian migrants living and working across Siem Reap. Most of them were men from Gorakhpur making a living as travelling salesmen. Their families lived back in India.
I was taken by my source to an area where many of them lived as a group in rented rooms. They were glad to receive a visiting Indian. The hospitality however changed the moment I told them that I was documenting the lesser known portions of the Indian diaspora. One of them told me something in Hindi that roughly translated to, “Sir, you are from the media. And media shows only negative things about us. Your stories will finally appear according to the whims and fancies of the newspaper. We are sorry but we don’t want to be photographed.” I was taken aback but I obliged. We sat there for the rest of the afternoon drinking cola and discussing life and longing.
It was a watershed moment for me. The problem was not with my identity of being a photographer, but it was with my identity of being part of the mainstream media, a catalyst I had till then believed would bring positive influence to a changing world. It was no longer trusted by the oppressed. The media landscape had changed. Fresh journalists were often indoctrinated with the idea of ‘making the important sound interesting’. But, most of the time it turned out to be ‘making the silly sound as it were really important’.
Absolute truth (it never was) has become a battle between perspectives. And all too often, the perspective of the protagonists seems to be getting lost somewhere. As a visual story-teller I am committed to giving a voice to these perspectives. How do I do that? I found an answer in embedded journalism.
Embedded journalism is often thought of as a way to present wartime stories from the perspective of the government by embedding journalists in army units. But if used intelligently, it can do wonders to this world. One should look at the works of late Tim Hetherington (he was recently killed in Libya) – he brought out perspectives of soldiers fighting the battle till the last mile. These are voices lost in every war; all that we hear otherwise is a military spokesperson addressing the media at a press conference.
If you are a photographer visiting new places, I ask you to engage with the people you photograph. Communities, places and festivals in the developing world hold a lot more value than just being ‘exotic’ subjects. Photographers of the past, the tourism industry and colonial agendas have done harm by capturing stories with the aim of only making things sound attractive. Unfortunately this tradition is being followed by present day photographers without understanding its adverse effects.
Since 2008, I have been a part of the lives of people I document. And it has been an enriching experience. For the last one year, I have followed the life of a 5-year-old dark-skinned girl from the day she was adopted by a family comprising a single woman and another adopted daughter. I have spent little time shooting, and more time understanding their lives. I have spent time playing hide and seek, teaching “2+2=4”, wiping tears, laughing at jokes, listening to rhymes, getting breakfast, cutting apples and listening to serious discussions in the last one year. This has helped me become a better messenger of their story that I tell through my camera. I hope this can be a catalyst in the change that I hope for.
This article first appeared in Un(T)ravel, the April-July 2011 edition of Offbeat, The Alternative’s quarterly ezine celebrating alternative living. The Un(T)ravel edition can be viewed here.
(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. )
Posted in Blog, Education, Photojournalism
Also tagged angkor photography festival, cambodia, documentary, embedded journalism, ezine, india, journal, offbeat, photography, photojournalism, siem reap, the alternative, Un(T)ravel
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Going Independent as a Photographer
Introspection, a mobile phone self-portrait couple of days after quitting my job at a newspaper. Farm house near Nandi hills. 2011. © Nishant Ratnakar
One movie that has left a lasting impact on me is the 1990 Oscar nominated film, Dead Poets Society. The film has Robin Williams in the lead role of Professor Keating, an inspirational English teacher at a stern boarding school in England. Keating encourages his students to change the status quo in the system and follow their dreams. His style and philosophy faces harsh opposition from the school administration. One quote from the movie continues to stays on in my mind.
“Only in their dreams can men be truly free. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.”
This was the very idea in my thoughts, five years ago, when I quit my career in the IT industry and embarked on a journey in pursuit of photography. It has been fabulous five years spent in the mainstream media as a photojournalist learning the craft by experience. I came as a rank outsider with no academic background in either photography or journalism. In the years that followed, I reached the role of Chief Photographer at DNA newspaper in Bangalore, and alongside it I completed a full scholarship Diploma in Photojournalism from Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.
After five years, I found myself with the very same thought of rediscovering and chasing my dreams. Did my dreams change over the years? No, not really. I still am a photographer, and love what I do. Then, what is it that has changed? I think the business of media has changed, and continues to change even as I write this blog post. I don’t find myself comfortable anymore in the existing roles of a staff visual story-teller at a traditional media organisation for plethora of reasons. I have reached a point in my life, where I want to continue doing what I love, but I want to do that by staying independent.
Yes… Independent photographer – A long cherished dream.
Long-term Projects
So, I have moved on from being an employee at a newspaper. I am now working on independent projects that are coming my way. There are plenty of things that I would want to do with respect to visual story-telling besides making photographs. Firstly, I will continue to spend more time on long-term documentary photography projects, than on making single images.
Multimedia
As I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts that this is the age of multimedia, I will work towards producing more of the multimedia projects. It will also mean experimenting more with sound, and video. DSLR cameras have paved way to a whole new world of visual story-telling through their HD video recording capabilities. Photographers now have more options and tools to aid them in story-telling. I have embraced HD video in the past, and now will work on video and multimedia projects that can be realised using the new breed of DSLR cameras.
Teaching & Knowledge sharing
Besides doing my own projects, I would want to share with others the knowledge that I have gained in the last five years. This means that I will be conducting workshops and go to colleges to teach students the skills needed by modern-day photojournalists, and visual story-tellers in general. Some of the core ideas or topics that I will speak about and even write about would be, long-term photography projects, multimedia for photographers, and visual literacy.
Collaboration
As the business of photography is rapidly changing, it is in the best interest of photographers and organisations involving photography, that they collaborate with one another at various levels. This could range from working on photography projects together, rendering services in post production, helping each other in finding and creating newer platforms for disseminating the produced body of work, and even in educating others in photography. I have long believe in collaboration and now on will work more on such collaborative projects.
New Business models
On of the reasons that Collaboration is now more important for photographers, is that the business of media has changed. It has affected the way a sustained living could be achieved through traditional ways of doing business. Media organisations are increasingly cutting costs on freelance assignments. This means that there is a need for newer ways of doing photography related business. As photojournalists, we have to find partners/collaborators at various stages in working on projects. Organisations that will give us the access to stories may necessarily not be the ones that can/will pay us. And the organisations/partners that will pay us for creation of the project may not necessarily be the ones that will give us a channel or outlet to publish our stories. We may even have to self-publish our work. These are the issues that I will tackle, and work towards finding newer business models. And my commitment to collaboration would mean that I will share my findings with fellow photographers. There are a lot of business models that work in western countries. The socio-economic conditions and cultural makeup of Indian market might need different ways to achieve the business goals.
New outlets
Also, photojournalists today need not limit their skills to doing work for publishing houses only. There are many areas outside of media where photojournalism and documentary photography find its application. For example, Wedding Photojournalism in India is a booming industry. Lot of NGO and non-profit agencies need imagery that is synonymous with photojournalism. Many corporate companies do need story-tellers to document their activities and especially their CSR projects. I am constantly seeking these clients and creating imagery for them.
Do more
Today’s world tilts towards talented people with multiple skills. Certain projects or assignments will need photographers who can write, or writers who can photograph. And such situation dictates that photographers should write more. I have written quite a few articles during my tenure as a staff at newspapers even though my primary responsibility was news and feature photography. And I plan to write more now. Luckily, my habit of blogging lets me keep up my writing habits.
Also, photographers with experience, are an asset to various marketing and sales projects. Their views as consultants can drive many campaigns. For example, in my last job I handled the social media campaign for a photography contest organised by my employers for its readers. I campaigned for it on Facebook and other social media sites through my network of photographers. I have an idea of what online campaigns should be. The result of it was taking the submissions for the contest from a handful of entries to nearly two hundred of them in couple of days. Photographers should definitely work on such campaigns and projects as consultants.
Crowdsourcing
Yes, Crowdsourcing! Very few web-savvy photographers need an introduction to this topic, as the concept of crowdsourcing in photography has been there for a while now. For photographers who have not yet been exposed to this idea, crowdsourcing in a nutshell would mean “getting funds from the public to produce your work.”
Does it really work? Yes, success of Crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter and Emphas.is in enabling photographers get funds amounting thousands of dollars from their backers is a testimony to this emerging business model. Crowdsourcing definitely is the future for documentary photography projects.
I am taking baby steps towards Crowdsourcing by enabling flattr on my website. Flattr is a social micro-payment system which allows users to make micro-payments to a community of content creators at a click of a button. I have provided flattr buttons on my blog (including this one) to allow people to support my work if they want to. Crowdsourcing is a long-term plan and it would require a community of backers and collaborators. I hope to get there soon.
Advertisements
Also, I have enabled advertisements on my blog, using Google Adsense, as alternative ways of monetizing my work online. I have maintained my website for few years and have a regular stream of visitors. So, it makes sense to enable advertisements on a platform where I publish my work. All my employers in the past had advertisements in their publications where my images were published, so why shouldn’t I enable advertisements : ) ? On a brighter note, I can be rest assured that contextual google advertisements can never influence me on what stories I publish on my website. I am independent. Cheers to freedom of press through online publishing!
I have made a start, but I still have a long way to go. And in the days to come, I will be seen doing the tasks outlines above. Life is a journey involving continuous learning. Learning should never stop. I do believe in Professor Keating’s words. I want to be free and independent, and I am trying to live my dream.
(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. )
Posted in Blog, Photojournalism
Also tagged advertising, business, collaboration, crowdsourcing, dead poets society, education, flattr, freelance, independent, india, multimedia, photographer, photography, publishing, self-portrait
15 Comments
Don’t leave me now
Moorthy, an employee at an engineering company in Bangalore committed suicide after killing his wife and two sons at his residence in the city. Seen in this photograph is Moorthy's mother waiting outside their home to see the bodies. Moorthy, in his suicide note, blamed the workplace conditions for the extreme step.
As a photojournalist, one of the most challenging beats to work on is the crime beat. It is a beat of extremes. I end up doing work that emotionally drains me out to something that is very mundane.
Ask any committed news photographer —What does it mean to hold the lens on to the face of the grieving or the dying? The answer will most often be hard to come by. Perhaps, it is best not to ask, as you are actually asking a witness to relive those moments— moments where one experiences deep emotional strain while making split-second ethical decisions, moments where the lines between the right and the wrong often get blurred, moments that continue to bother you even if people stop asking about it.
They say that when it comes to ethics, there is never a clear line of separation between the right and the wrong. What exists is moral dilemma and tension. These dilemmas are often resolved on a case to case basis.
While I ponder over the emotional roller coaster ride involved in covering crime beats, I pause for a moment to think about the life of photographers working in the conflict zones. They face death in all its manifestations on a daily basis. I’ve never worked in conflict zones. Most of my work has been in and around Bangalore city.
For me, the hardest part of crime beat is every time I answer a phone call, which says that there has been another suicide in the city.
“Another Suicide?” is always my usual reaction.
This has become a routine over the years.
Bangalore, which prides itself as the silicon city of India, is also the suicide capital of the country. As per the last annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Bangalore has the highest suicide rate in the country at 38.1 per 1 lakh. The number sounds more alarming when one discovers that the national average is 10.9 per 1 lakh. An individual commits suicide under extreme duress. Experts say that it can be prevented through intervention. But how can we find every case and intervene before it is too late? Even if counselling can prevent suicide, how will you convince an individual to reach out to the numerous helplines? From addressing the root causes in the system that drive a person to commit suicide, to even convincing a person to seek help – a lot needs to be done to prevent suicides from taking place. Even media practitioners need to play a role in it.
When the phone call ends, I find myself riding across the city on my scooter, a decade old Honda Activa, my companion in my tough times. The brief that I usually receive during suicides is minimal as facts aren’t clear during the nascent stages of a developing story. All through the journey unanswered questions play in my mind. Who is it? Is it a minor? Or is it a couple? Is it a love story that went wrong? Or is it a family under debt? Gosh! an entire family? What will I see? The bodies? Crowds? People wailing?Or perhaps, people glaring at me and my lens?
At times, owing to the traffic congestion on Bangalore roads, I arrive late to the crime scene. Then I end up tracking old passport size photographs of the deceased and recopying it from the police and other sources. It is a highly mechanical, I must admit.
But when I am on time, the work is contrastingly different. Too many people —police, relatives, neighbours, the curious, the voyeurs, the journalists— gather around the crime scene. I find myself amidst fellow visual journalists, creating a layer of lenses that encircle the relatives of the deceased. Every move, and every tear drop shed by them is keenly followed by our watchful eyes. There is shock, disbelief and even denial. Their loved one was alive and fine when they last saw him or her. How could the person be dead? It can’t be true! The moment is melancholic. When they finally are allowed to see the bodies, hysterical scenes break out. Simultaneously shutter sounds and flash lights also start working furiously.
Members of the public might wonder why I am doing this. What are all the journalists doing this for? For TRPs? Sensationalism? To sell a story? I don’t know about the rest, but I can only speak for myself.
In my perspective, the main goal in the coverage of crime and punishment is deterrence. Even the judiciary sees deterrence as one of its goals in awarding punishment. In civil society, the functioning of the media is expected to include social responsibility. As a visual communicator, I embrace this idea of social responsibility as part of my personal code of ethics.
When I cover suicides, I want my images to act as deterrent for future suicides. How can I attempt that? I may not be able to find the root causes of suicides in news singles. At best I can persuade ones contemplating to rethink and reach out to anyone who can intervene. People who commit suicide leave behind suicide notes written for their loved ones. So they do think of the people they leave behind. But, do they visualise what impact their drastic step could have on their loved ones? Maybe, they do.
Images have the power to influence people with ideas. In advertising campaigns, the models in publicity images are supposed to represent an intended target audience. When this audience views the advertisement, they are supposed to visualise themselves as the model. The model endorsing the product is the audience, but a lot happier after having owned the product. The model symbolises envy. The target audience is supposed to feel emptiness in life and believe that this emptiness can be fulfilled only by owning what is advertised. The success of this campaign ends with the target audience finally buying the product.
I try to emulate the above idea in images while covering suicides. I want people contemplating suicides to see the images of loved ones of the people who have committed suicides. I want them to imagine the story as the report of their own death, and the sorrow in it as the grief of their loved ones. The thought of putting the loved ones in grief and devastating their lives could be a deterrent. This is my belief. And I work with this goal whenever I cover suicide incidents.
Making the images is one aspect of the work. Getting them to see the daylight in publications is another aspect. The space constraints in publications, where stories and images battle with advertisements, the probability of having these images published is unpredictable. So dejection does set in whenever they don’t get published. It surely is a wasted effort. Time is not the only thing put into making these images. There is an investment of emotions and hope in it. But, that’s a reality which the photographers shooting for publications have to live with.
Posted in Blog, Photojournalism
Also tagged bangalore, crime beat, family, india, Karnataka, life, NCRB, newspaper, photojournalism, press photography, relatives, suicide
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Notes from the field:Politics & Media
Chief Minister of Karnataka B S Yedyurappa and Governor of Karnataka H R Bhardwaj at the KPSC premises for the diamond jubilee inauguration event of KPSC. Wednesday, 18th May 2011. - Nishant Ratnakar/DNA
Wednesday morning coverage of the Diamond Jubilee inauguration of Karnataka Public Service Commission(KPSC) could have been just another event if not for the events chief guests – Governor HR Bharadwaj, and Chief Minister B S Yedyurappa – the two people, at loggerheads in the current political drama in the state. Them sharing the same podium, was medias’ ‘orgasmic’ moment.
Shutterbugs in hordes along with cameramen and correspondents who either tugged at their notepads or microphones, waiting impatiently for the guests to arrive. Rumour had it that the Governor would submit his resignation at the end of the day. And everyone there wanted a reaction from the Governor to end the speculation.
The CM presenting Governor with a bouquet, started the ‘show’ and the cameras didn’t stop clicking after that. Every movement was captured, to be dissected in the newsroom later. There seemed to be no tension between the two as they sat next to each other exchanging words. For the next one hour, all cameras were glued on to the podium observing the body language and every single move made by the state actors. Every time the two spoke or shook hands, the camera flashguns fired rapidly. And this would be repeated even every time one of them raised a finger to wipe the sweat of their eyebrow.
Then came the moment the Governor addressed the gathering. His excellency spoke of the importance of public service commission, the constitution and the judiciary in this democracy. Every statement he made was analysed by our conspiracy theorists to squeeze any remote reference to his rumoured resignation or even to alleged differences with the Chief Minister. But it were not to be so. And it was ‘game-set-match’ for conspiracy theories when the Governor praised the Chief Minister as a hard working man who puts in nearly 20 hours everyday to his work.
The event came to an end as the Chief Minister made way for the Governor to leave the podium. This was probably one of those rare moments when the Chief Minister got to his car without any camera following him. It was his quickest exit ever as the entire media fraternity had surrounded the Governor to prevent him from leaving the venue without giving a sound byte.
There was a media frenzy as journalists, security personnel, police, and Governor’s staff jostled around pushing each other in the line of their ‘respective duties’. Tensions soared high as everyone kept screaming at each other and falling over. The Governor finally answered a ‘No’ to the question, putting an end to the rumour as he left the KPSC premises.
Before everyone could come to terms with what had happened, somebody had lost a camera cable, few correspondents discovered their footwear had gone missing, and police officers had lost their badges. This collective sense of loss had united the people who were fighting each other moments earlier. And it further reached a happy ending when all agreed that ‘our system’ was good, as in a neighboring state no cameras would be allowed within fifty meters radius of the Governor.
The Ice-candy seller outside KPSC had a great day as TV news crew kept going back for more while they went live to update the country with the political drama unfolding in the state. Somebody suggested to him that he should shift to Raj Bhavan Road by evening as Chief Minister was scheduled to visit the Governor then. I don’t know if he followed the advice as I stayed away from the action for rest of the evening.
Posted in Blog, Photojournalism
Also tagged bangalore, governor, hr bhardwaj, india, indian, journal, journalism, Karnataka, kpsc, politics, yeddyurappa
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Obama wave on TV
Screen grab on CNN-IBN showing live broadcast of US president barack Obama's arrvial in India. Obama waving his hand on arrival becomes a breaking news!
There’s only Obama on TV. All news channels are trying hard to give an exclusive perspective to his arrival in India. The “breaking news” concept has gone bit strange these days. Maybe I can expect another breaking news tonight. Something like “Breaking news: Obama tasted indian pickles at Taj,” will not surprise me anymore.
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