October, 2009
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Thursday, October 29th, 2009
What a busy few days it has been since I arrived in the US 5 days ago. I spent the first few days at Kent State University, where I gave a total of eight (yes 8!) presentations for my work for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, mainly to students enrolled in the school’s various journalism/photojournalism programmes. Even though it was rather intense, it was great to meet people such as Barbara Hipsman, Karl Idsvoog and Glenn Luther who apart from being lovely people, are also great journalists and are working on exciting things intheir various fields. I encourage you to check out their websites via the provided links. To see a nice write-up of my public lecture at Kent State, please go here.
Georgetown University
Last night I visited Washington’s Georgetown University where I presented to an environmental action group of students. Along with the Pulitzer Center’s Nathalie Applewhite, we presented Pulitzer’s new ‘Heat of the Moment’ Gateway (which you should definitely check out by the way, if you have any interest in global environmental issues) and got a good response from the students there.
American University
Today, I head to American University to speak to journalism students about my experiences working in China as a photographer. If the students are like those at Kent State and Georgetown, then it should be a good day. It’s a lot of fun talking about these climate issues and getting feedback from students who seem so keen and thirsty for information about these topics.
The Climate Institute
Finally, tomorrow I shall be speaking at the Climate Institute here in Washington, which is a public event. So, if you have time, please do come along, as I believe there are a few places left. Again, I shall be presenting my work on desertification in China and talking about climate policy. Hope to see you there!
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Tags: american university, china's growing sands, desertification, education, georgetown university, pulitzer center on crisis reporting, the climate institute, the environment
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Lots of things seem to happening at the moment and I am struggling to find time to write individual blog entries, so forgive me for including three subjects in one entry today.
Kent State Univeristy
First, I shall be heading the US on Saturday to speak at a number of events for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting who are bringing me to America to take part in a number of outreach programmes, aimed at highlighting their sponsored work and the issues they cover. As a result, I shall be heading to Kent State University in Ohio for two days on the 26th and 27th, speaking in a number of classes and presenting my work on desertification in China. There will be a public presentation I believe on the night of the 26th, from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. in Room 340 in the First Energy Room at Franklin Hall, in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. If you are in the Kent State University area, please come by and say hello!
After Kent State, I shall be heading to Washington DC where I am scheduled to be speaking at the American University and Climate Institute. More details on those to follow later. Needless to say, I shall be updated this blog whilst on my travels in the US, so please check back for up to date info.
Heat of the Moment
The next piece of news is that my work on desertification in China has been featured on the new Pulitzer Gateway “Heat of the Moment”, a portal of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting highlighting their work on various climate issues. The subjects are incredibly diverse and it is well worth exploring many of the different topics. The Pulitzer Gateway is another source of outreach, mainly targeting students who will begin to log-in to the site to learn about Global Climate issues. In the next week or two, video interviews will be uploaded to the site and dialogue will begin between the journalists and students. It should be very interesting, so please do check back again sometime to see how it all developing.
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Tags: awards, burn, china's growing sands, desertification, education, kent state, photography, pulitzer center on crisis reporting, speaking appearances, the environment
Monday, October 19th, 2009
Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London. UK. 2004
A friend of mine reminded me this weekend that it was the Hindu festival of Diwali this week. In case you don’t know, Divali (or the Festival of Light as it is also called) is a celebration held over 5 days by Hindu communities throughout the world. Lights are lit, fireworks are set off and families come together for this important day.
Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London. UK. 2004
This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ comes from Diwali celebrations, not in India, but in London. I took them in 2004, during my one year paid internship at Magnum Photo’s London office. I remember having only been at Magnum for a couple of months when this festival came about. Having been inspired day-in-day-out (as I was for most of the year) I headed out onto the streets to try and capture some of the colour and fervour that surrounded the festival on the streets of the UK’s capital. I’d like to share five of those images with you taken during celebrations in 2004.
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Tags: britain, diwali, london, magnum internship, magnum photos, photo of the week, street photography, the festival of lights
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
NOVEMBER WORKSHOP – “Hutong Photography”
Dates: Sunday 15th November 2009 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Course Leaders: Photographer Sean Gallagher & Guide/Interpreter Jessica Zheng
Location: The Far East International Youth Hostel, Beijing
Participants: Minimum 5 people, Maximum 10 people (Registration is on a first-come first-serve basis)
Student Level: Beginner/Intermediate – All ages welcome!
Cost: 499 Chinese Renminbi per person*
As a result of the success of the first “Hutong Photography” workshop in October, another workshop has been scheduled in November for those who missed out on the first one. Just like the first workshop, our class will focus on one of the special areas that makes the Chinese capital so unique…the hutongs!
A chance to photograph the people of the hutongs
During this workshop, we shall focus on photographing the unique way of life that still remains in the hutongs of the central Qianmen district. Photographer Sean Gallagher will guide you through these maze-like communities to show you the best ways to approach and photograph the people and architecture. Along with tuition ‘on the street’ we will also cover the basics of photography before we head out, to make sure you are getting the most out of your camera. Professional guide and interpreter Jessica Zheng will be on hand at all times to offer you insights into the background and history of the hutongs and will also give a brief lesson in ‘Photography Chinese’, key words and phrases you need when photographing people.
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Tags: beijing, china, education, hutongs, inspiration, photographing people, photography workshops, street photography, weekend workshops
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
The Digitial Journalist
In case you missed it earlier this week, the Digital Journalist published a dispatch of mine in their October 2009 edition. The dispatch is titled “Inside North Korea” and recounts some of the experience that I had when I was shooting in North Korea. You can read the dispatch on their website here, or just scroll down to read the text below.
This isn’t the first time I have contributed dispatches to the Digital Journalist, having two other dispatches published for them in the past year. The first was published in December 2008, on the subject of homeless communities in Mongolia. You can view that story here. The second story on “Abandoned Cities” was published in June 2009, as part of my work for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting earlier this year. To read that dispatch, please go here.
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Last month, I got a call from the Globe & Mail’s Asia correspondent, Mark MacKinnon, asking me if I was free in early September for a shoot. “Sure,” I said. I had been working with Mark a lot recently and was keen to work with him again. “I’m thinking of going to North Korea,” he said. “North Korea? Okay, I’m in,” I nonchalantly replied.
As our bus trundled across the bridge over the Yalu River that separates China and North Korea, my initial nonchalance had well and truly disappeared as we slowly approached the most closed nation on earth.
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Tags: north korea, on assignment, photography, pulitzer center on crisis reporting, the digital journalist, the globe and mail, the internet, websites, working in north korea
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Pedestrians in downtown Hong Kong. 2008
This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ takes us to Hong Kong. I first visited Hong Kong in November of 2008 and was completely taken by this unique and exciting city. 155 years of British colonial rule have obviously left a lot of British influence and I immediately felt at home in what was a place that seemed to have the feelings of both China and Britain, blended together into a unique anglo-sino melting pot.
The above photo was taken on one of the main shopping streets on Hong Kong island. I like this image for one reason really, the colour. I often look for singular colours in images in order to simplify the picture. Whilst out wandering the streets, my attention was obviously caught by the radiating neon signs that jumped out from the shop window. Having seen such a situation, I then decided to stand and wait for pedestrians to walk past in order to create an image with an interesting composition. I didn’t just want a straight shot of the window. I wanted to somehow convey the movement and dynamics of Hong Kong in the one frame.
After returning to my computer and looking closer at this image, other elements started to reveal themselves to me. The condensation on the window for example, running in streaks vertically down the glass. The way that the shapes and lines of the two people’s faces seem to fit together like a puzzle, in a way that reminds me of two continents that were once joined but have slowly separated over time. It’s always great to discover more elements in an image that you don’t realise are there when you first capture it.
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Tags: china, hong kong, photo of the week, photography, street photography
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
burn.gallery.show
Yesterday and today, or today and tomorrow, depending on your time zone sees the launch of the new burn.gallery.show. This is one of the newest ventures for Burn magazine to raise funds and increase exposure for this new and exciting online photography magazine. If you have been living under a little bit of a rock in photography circles recently, then you may not have heard about Burn, the brainchild of the legendary Magnum and National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey.
I first met David in 2003 when I attended one of his workshops in Lisbon, Portugal. At that time, I was an english teacher in Japan and was experimenting with photography and looking for inspiration, hence I travelled back to Europe to participate in one of his workshops. What I found was a man of incredible passion and enthusiasm for photography that was palpably infectious. Attending his workshop was one of the most important things that happened to me, photographically. On presenting my portfolio to David, he deconstructed it in a way I had never had explained to me before. Critical of many of the photos he saw, only a couple remained the critique that he barely liked. I decided from that moment to prove him, and most importantly myself, that I was able to create good pictures.
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Tags: burn, david alan harvey, exhibitions, inspiration, magnum photos, the internet, websites
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Sean giving advice to Prachit and William in the first editing session.
Tuesday saw the first of our new “Hutong Photography” Photo Workshops, held in the hutongs of Qianmen near Tiananmen Square. The workshop was a great success and we had five participants who spent the day exploring the hutongs and learning about the fundamentals of photography. Below is a selection of photos taken by Jessica Zheng, who also acted as our guide and translator throughout the day.
The day started with a class introducing the basics of photography, covering topics such as ISO, using light, aperture, shutter speed and how to approach people to take pictures. Following on from that, we had a second short class on ‘photography chinese’, learning useful words and phrases that would assist us in speaking and connecting with the people we photographed. We then headed into the hutongs for the first shooting session, focusing on the points we had learnt from our first class. Returning to the Far East International Youth Hostel for lunch, a 12-dish spread of traditional hutong food awaited us!
While we digested our feast, we entered into our first one-on-one editing session, looking at each student’s images from the first shooting session. Once we had reviewed each student’s images, we headed out for our second photographing session, aiming to improve on what we had learnt in our editing and earlier classes. Having navigated the hutongs for a second time, we returned to edit our images again, this time in a group setting, sharing our ideas and common experiences from the day in the hutongs.
As you can see from the above photos, a great day was had by all, exploring both the hutongs and our photography. Thanks to Jennifer, Bruce, Prachit, William and Myles for helping to make this a memorable first “Hutong Photography” Workshop!
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Tags: beijing, china, education, hutong photography, photo class, photographing people, photography, street photography, weekend workshops
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
The above video is an episode of Foreign Exchange, a weekly American TV show dedicated to covering global current affairs, hosted by journalist Daljit Dhaliwal.
Last week’s episode was devoted entirely to the current global water crisis and featured heavily the work of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and its work on covering the issues surrounding this crisis across the globe.
As many readers of this blog will know, I was fortunate enough to receive a grant from the Pulitzer Center earlier this year to continue my work on desertification in China. In this episode of Foreign Exchange, Jon Sawyer, the director of the Pulitzer Center, presents my work as part of the center’s coverage.
If you have the time, please do watch the entire episode as it is a fascinating insight into the work that the Pulitzer Center is doing across the world. As you watch, look out for John talking about my ‘China’s Growing Sands’ project, just over half the way through the half-hour programme.
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Tags: china, china's growing sands, desertification, foreign exchange, photography, pulitzer center on crisis reporting, television, the environment, the internet, video, you tube
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
A Japanese child, perched on his mother's bike. 2003
I was trawling through my archive today, looking for images to accompany a presentation that I am giving as part of my workshop tomorrow. As I looked through my ‘older’ files, I stumbled upon many of my images that I took while I lived in Japan between 2003-2004. I had just finished University and I was quite unsure about what direction my life was taking. Having been dabbling in photography for a year or two, I decided to take myself off to Japan in order to experience a completely alien culture to my own and see what it brought out in me photographically.
At the time I did not work as a professional photographer. I was on the JET programme, an initiative run by the Japanese government that brought native English speakers to the country to teach schoolchildren. I was based in the small and little-known town of Himeji, on the coast, south of the larger cities of Kobe and Osaka. My main school was in Himeji itself, however for two days of the week I would get on a boat and head out to a small group of islands off the Japanese coast to teach in a school that served the small archipelago.
My daily commute involved a 20 minute bike ride to the local docks, a 25 minute speedboat ride and then another 20 minute bike ride to the school. Not the worst way to travel to work! On one of my commutes whilst cycling on the small islands, I stopped at a small junction and saw this young Japanese buy perched on his mother’s bike. Using my small Minolta Dynax 5, loaded with my favourite film at the time, Fuji Velvia 50, I snapped this one frame of the boy.
I love this photo, as it is one of the first portraits that I was truly happy with and it takes me straight back to my experience of living and working in Japan. The islands (called Ieshima, by the way) were a unique place, and like Japan, hold a special place in my memories living, working and travelling in Asia.
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Tags: japan, photo of the week, photographing people, photography, portraits, street photography
