“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

<<Return to the Learning Zone

As the climate for photographers, journalists, media creatives etc. has changed (mostly for the worse) in recent years, it has forced the respective industries to look at themselves a lot closer and try to redefine who they are, what they do and how they do it. Photography has been no exception, with many photographers struggling in a market where the venues for distribution have all but run dry. This is not really news for anyone.

Old logo (top) and new logo (bottom)

Recently however, I was trying to come up with ideas about how to start to redefine my ‘brand’ and make sure I was completely clear in who I was and if that’s what everyone else thought I was too. I am not a marketing expert, so everything I know has come from trawling through websites of people who are experts on the subject and trying to pick-up as much as I can.

As I started to write down a list of my recent projects, subject matters etc. I started to see that I had made the natural movement towards multimedia and video. This was not a completely unconscious decision however the image I was projecting was still only that of a photographer and not of someone who was able to also provide multimedia and video too.

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[youtube width="580" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOiL6hN5mXg[/youtube]

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine sent me a link. It was a link to a documentary that would give me a new insight into China, like I had never had before.

Made in 2007, “Please Vote For Me” is a documentary by Chinese director Weijun Chen, following the lives of three young schoolchildren as they bid to become the first class president, embracing a new concept…voting.

Following these students though the whole process of the build-up to the election we see a microcosmic display of Chinese society played out beautifully through the lives of three very different children from very different backgrounds.

I do not want to give anything away for those who haven’t seen it, but  the interweaving of the stories of the three children and their preparations are so well done and draw you into a real dramatic climax with a level of drama that is hard to beat.

I can’t encourage you enough to find an hour to sit and watch this documentary. Once you do, please come back and let me know what you think!

Men watching the World Cup match between North Korea and Brazil in a bar in Seoul. 2010

It was about 2:00 a.m. as my taxi careered down the highway that leads from Incheon airport to downtown Seoul. Having just landed in the middle of a lightning storm, the rain was battering the taxi windshield and the GPS on the driver’s dashboard blinked indicating a breaking of the local speed limit. I was starting to wonder if it was really that essential that I make it to my 3:30 a.m. appointment on time.

That appointment was to watch and photograph the World Cup game between Brazil and North Korea. An odd appointment to be trying to keep you may think, especially for an Englishman based in Beijing. This however was the first part of a shoot I was assigned to for the Canadian newspaper the Globe & Mail which involved spending last week in South Korea.

Globe & Mail Website Screenshot

As many readers of this blog will know, last year I travelled undercover with the Globe & Mail’s Mark MacKinnon into North Korea to report on this isolated nation. During a fascinating 5 day trip I witnessed a country of such uniqueness, that I am quite confident I will never see anything quite like it again. This time however, I was heading south of the DMZ to try to gauge the reactions of locals in Seoul to the arrival of the neighbour on the World Cup scene.

In the build up to the game, nobody really knew anything about this team. Some people mocked them, expecting Brazil to embarrass the lowest-ranked team in the competition. Most people drew a blank when asked about them, in a similar way as if you asked them about the country in general.

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Standing room only at one of our talks

This weekend I travelled to the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, a city of some 7 million people lying next to the Yellow River in central Henan province. I was in the city to give a series of talks at Universities in the city, presenting some of my work in China over the past 4 years and also introducing our workshops to the students of the city.

Showing work on desertification in northern China.

My presentation began with an introduction about myself, reasons for coming to China and a general overview of the types of subjects that I cover. I then introduced the main part of my presentation, about my work on desertification over the past three years. I structured the talk about desertification to take the audience across China, starting in Beijing in the east and then finishing in Xinjiang province in the west. Many of the students seemed surprised about the scale of desertification throughout the north of China.

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[youtube width="600" height="385"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Recently, I have started to venture more into the video world and this summer, I will have a project which will allow me to start to really produce more video-work. As I start to add the moving image to more of the work that I do, I start to look more to the video world for inspiration. If I am honest, I always did this anyway as I am a huge movie and documentary fan and drew inspiration from these for many many years for my still work. Now, I am starting to watch videos, movies, documentaries in a different way, mainly trying to visualise in my mind how they were conceived, shot, edited and created.

This week I was blown-away by two videos, actually advertisements, that I caught online. You can get inspired by advertisements? Seems a little odd I guess, for a photographer who concentrates mainly on documentary subjects, but the answer is yes. Each of these videos is quite different, but they both have their own sense of ‘wow’ factor about them. Clever ideas and beautifully shot.

[youtube width="600" height="385"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hPm1p0Q3xA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Now I must admit, that with the first video I am slightly biased as I am a big football fan, however I think the video is just beautiful and the editing is really very good (watch out for the hilarious inclusion of Homer Simpson). Now, in the second video I will never use the techniques they employ (this will become obvious after you watch it) but I really like it because it’s nearly impossible not to want to watch it a second time to figure out what you just missed! It made me think a lot about our perception of scenes we view quickly. Don’t want to give too much away though!

What did you think? Which do you prefer?

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Tourists on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, China. 2006

Follow the link to find out what happened On-This-Day in various years…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buSv1jjAels[/youtube]

A couple of months ago, I stumbled upon a hilarious comic. His name is Joe Wong and I wanted to share one of his videos with you here on the blog.

Originally from China, Joe Wong is a relatively new American immigrant, and focuses his act on the experiences he faces in his new culture. Drawing upon daily happenings adapting to his new life, he offers hilarious anecdotes about being a newly arrived immigrant and his journey from China into becoming an ‘all American immigrant’, as he has dubbed himself.

By poking fun at himself and national stereotypes, Joe relates the differences between China and the West in hilarious fashion and offers them up in a completely fresh and interesting way with a dry delivery that is quite unique.

Enjoy!

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CHINA. Beijing. Muslim men worshiping at Niu Jie Mosque during Eid ul-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan. 2005

<<Return to the Learning Zone During our workshops over the past few months, I have often been asked the question “Where is the best place in Beijing to photograph….?” Now, you can insert pretty much anything you like into the last part of that question, as queries have come in to me about a myriad of different things. So, I thought it would be interesting to start a new series of posts that answers some of these questions about where I think are the best places to photograph in Beijing.

I have chosen Beijing for this focus, purely because I have lived in this city for nearly 4 years and like to think I have a good idea where things are and where are the best places for taking pictures. I would like to expand this concept to other cities in China, but I’ll start with my ‘home’ city first.

So, for the first part of these new posts, I answer the question “Where is the best place in Beijing to photograph…religion?”

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If you have dropped by my blog over the past few weeks, you may have noticed something odd. There hasn’t been many new posts. “Why?” I hear you scream, or maybe just say. Well, we had a few issue with the security of the blog with it somehow being hacked and information was been compromised and changed. Needless to say it seems that things have returned to normal now and we (myself and website hosts) think we may have solved the problems.

So, in light of this, I have decided to give my blog a little bit of a new look. I hope you like the revamped design. I’m still in the stages of tweaking it, so please bear with me while I get this new format up and running. I have a backlog of ideas for new and interesting blog posts, so please do stay tuned and come back soon as there are going to be plenty of new updates.

Please let me know what you think of the new layout and design!

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