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.

Presenting an image of snooker star, Ding Junhui.

After presenting my work about desertification, I introduced images of a number of images of Chinese celebrities that I have had the opportunity to photograph during my time in China. The highlight was definitely showing my photos of Ding Junhui, a snooker player of national fame here.

Introducing our Workshops

Towards the end of the talks we introduced our workshops in Beijing and announced the beginning of these workshops in Zhengzhou which will hopefully start during this summer/autumn.

Students asking questions at the end of our talks.

At the end of the talks we opening up the floor to questions and I was surprised how many students were keen to ask questions. The questions were varied and included inquiries mainly about desertification and other environmental issues in China. Many students were also keen to ask questions about the aesthetics of photography and were looking for advice on how to get started in photography.

Poster advertising talks at one of the Universities in Zhengzhou

Our talks started on Friday evening and by Sunday evening we had completed 4 talks and spoken to over 1000 students. Not bad for a weekend’s work! Hope you enjoy the photos. Scroll down for a few more….

We were lucky enough to have full rooms in most of our talks.

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View of presentation from the rear of a classroom.

I am delighted to announce here on my blog that this month’s issue of National Geographic China contains a 12-page essay of my images and text, about my Pulitzer Center-sponsored work on “China’s Growing Sands”. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach out to a new audience in China and bring wider attention to the issue of desertification, which is gripping the north of the nation.

I considered just posting photographs of the layout here as a traditional tearsheet display, but then I thought it would be more fun to create a short video to showcase the layout. Also, this story only appears in the Chinese edition of National Geographic this month, so I wanted those not based in China to be able to see the excellent layout, as if you were flicking through yourself.

Please click on the video above to begin and thumb-through the magazine article with me on Vimeo. If you prefer YouTube, please go here.

If you are in China now, or over the coming few weeks, please pick up a copy. You should be able to buy it on most newsstands across the country.

Always happy to hear your thoughts. What do you think? Do you like the spread?

Moving Sands in Dunhuang, Gansu Province. China. 2007

This week’s ‘Photo of the Week” comes with a slightly odd title and to be honest, is admittedly a slightly odd picture.

I created this image in 2007 near the town of Dunhuang, which is situated in western China in Gansu Province. The area is famous in China because of its spectacular desert scenery, an oasis which has been present for hundreds of years and also local grottoes that contain 1500 year-old Buddhist paintings.

I was in the region as I was beginning my work on the subject of desertification, which as readers of my blog will know has become one of my main works over the past couple of years. This was my first trip to begin photographing this phenomenon and I found myself outside of the slightly touristy town of Dunhuang, exploring areas away from the hoardes of visitors. As I tend to do when I visit a new place, I had rented a bicycle and began exploring the area on my own.  My meandering brought me to a very surreal and somber scene. A huge graveyard on the fringes of the desert.

What caught my eye the most was many of the graves were being swallowed by the sand. As I have travelled and photographed desertification, I have witnessed roads, buildings, power lines etc. being swallowed by sand, but this is the only time I have seen it happening to graves.

Treading with upmost care, I positioned myself near one of the tombstones to frame it in my viewfinder. As I did so, I noticed motorized hang gliders flying above me, carrying tourists who were visiting the region and who were trying to get an eagle’s-eye view of the area. As I framed the tip of the enveloped tombstone, the pair of hang gliders came perfectly into the frame.

The juxtaposition in this shot sometimes confuses people when they first look at it. I’ve had people comment that it looks like a coin has been stuck in the sand in the foreground. Others have missed the tombstone altogether and just seen the hang gliders and desert scenery in the background. What did you first see when you looked at it? Did you ‘get it’ straight away?

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Dry and cracked soil in Gansu Province.2009

“Desertification is one of the most serious threats facing humanity”- Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General. World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. 2006.

A tourist stands on one of the large sand dunes that make up the Shapotou Desert tourist resort. The resort has provided jobs for local residents and has been a way for the local economy to benefit from the desert. 2009

“The dryness affects our lives a lot. We call it the ‘black disaster’, which means there is no grass. On the grassland, we are afraid of this disaster”, says Zamusu, a farmer who has lived his entire life on the central grasslands of  Inner Mongolia, in Northern China. These legendary grasslands are slowly deteriorating, suffering as a result of the world’s least reported environmental crisis.

A theme park in Ningxia Province is shrouded in sand during a sandstorm. Sandstorms occur as the spring winds blow and throw dry and degraded topsoil into the air. 2009

Desertification is the gradual transformation of arable and/or habitable land into desert, usually caused by overpopulation, water mismanagement, poor farming methods, the destructive use of land by industry and climate change.

Workers at the Shapotou desert theme park take a break as work slows. 2009

38% of the world’s surface area is now threatened by desertification, affecting countries across the world from North Africa, the countries of the Middle East, Australia, China and the western edge of South America.

A tourist runs in the desert in Ningxia province. 2009

“If we don’t take action, current trends suggest that by 2020 an estimated 60 million people could move from desertified areas of sub-Saharan Africa towards North Africa and Europe, and that worldwide, 135 million people could be placed at risk of being uprooted”, Kofi Annan (2006).

Creeping sands in Inner Mongolia swallow a fence at the side of a road. 2009

In 2007 I began photographing the issue of desertification and how it was affecting the lives of people in one of the world’s hardest hit countries, China. With the help of grants from the David Alan Harvey Fund for Emerging Photographers in 2008 and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in 2009, I have been able to document how the people of China are being affected by this crisis, which has consumed over 20% of their country.

The grasslands of Inner Mongolia are suffering as a result of overgrazing and pressure put on them by rapid population and industry growth in the area. 2009

To learn more about how you can help combat desertification, please visit the Million Tree Project which aims to reforest areas of Inner Mongolia being affected by desertification.

A sandstorm descends on a bridge in Ningxia Province, bringing life to an almost standstill. 2009

Greenpeace China

Recently, I was approached by Greenpeace China do write a short article for their website about my work on desertification in China for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. This has been a great chance to reach out to Greenpeace’s audience and inform them about the work that I have been doing on this subject. You can see the article here, or scroll down to read the text as it was published.

Beijing, China — China’s poverty-stricken northwest is swathed in sand. The deserts are creeping over ever larger areas, in part because of weather changes linked to climate change. Sean Gallagher a young British photographer travelled to Ningxia to document China’s growing sands.

“You can smell a sandstorm. As I woke this morning, my throat was drier than normal and the smell of dust and sand had crept into my room whilst I was sleeping. I opened my curtains expecting to see the Yellow River out of my window but all I could see was a haze of yellow light.” Sean Gallagher. Diary entry. April, 2009.

Greenpeace China Front Page

The sandstorm that descended on me that day was the most visually arresting sight I had seen during my time in China. Blocking out the sun, casting a yellow/orange light on the earth and bringing life to a standstill, I was experiencing something that was strangely unnerving. The underlying cause would prove to be even more so.

I was in a place called Shapotou, in the province of Ningxia. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is a small province lying in Loess highlands of north-central China. Dry and desert-like, it is China’s poorest province and is the least visited by outsiders. It was the second of my stops on a 4000km journey across China documenting the effects of desertification on the north and west of the country for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. It was a journey that would take me to a city of environmental refugees, visit degraded grasslands, abandoned cities, desert theme parks and disappearing oases.

So what is desertification? The desertification of north and western China is arguably the most under-reported environmental crisis facing China today and is little understood outside the circles of NGOs and groups of scientists who are desperately fighting against it.

Desertification is the gradual transformation of arable and/or habitable land into desert, usually caused by local and global climate change and more recently in China, fuelled by the destructive use of land in the forms of over-grazing, increased population, water mis-management and outdated farming methods. As land becomes degraded, the spring winds of northern-central China pick up sand and dust, hurling into the air creating vast sandstorms which batter the region.

Each year, desertification and drought account for US$42 billion loss in food productivity worldwide. In China, approximately 20% of land is now classified as desert or arid, and desertification is adversely affecting the lives of over 400 million people in China alone.

“Desertification is one of the most serious threats facing humanity.  It is a global problem, affecting one fifth of the world’s population in more than 100 countries”, stated former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a message on World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought in 2006. “If we don’t take action, current trends suggest that by 2020 an estimated 60 million people could move from desertified areas of sub-Saharan Africa towards North Africa and Europe, and that worldwide, 135 million people could be placed at risk of being uprooted.”

]]> http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2010/02/10/chinas-growing-sands-on-greenpeace-china/feed/ 0 http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2010/01/25/new-store-buy-prints-offset-carbon-emissions-combat-desertification/ http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2010/01/25/new-store-buy-prints-offset-carbon-emissions-combat-desertification/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:33:19 +0000 Sean Gallagher http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/?p=1710

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I am happy to announce the addition of the Sean Gallagher Photography Store to this site! In the store you will find a selection of prints for sale, both framed and unframed. Whether buying for yourself, or as a gift for a friend or family member, the wide range of images offers a broad selection to suit everybody’s taste in images.

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To kick the store off, I have teamed up with the Jane Goodall ‘Roots and Shoots’ and Million Tree Project to provide a special offer on anyone buying prints where the subject is desertification. When you purchase a print depicting desertification from the store, 10% of the proceeds will be donated directly to the Million Tree Project who will use your money to plant trees in areas of Inner Mongolia that are being severely affected by desertification.

1 tree costs only 25 Chinese Renminbi (= approx. US$3.7 / GBP2.3 /  Euro 2.6), therefore purchasing a print at US$200 will result in the planting of 5 trees (5.4 to be exact)! To learn more about the project, please click on the Million Tree Project logo above.

*Buy prints, offset your carbon emissions and directly help combat desertification*

1/11 - 29.3in x 21.7in (74.5cm x 55cm) - Shapotou Couple- US$250 (excl. P&P)

Heat of the Moment

Over at the Pulitzer Gateway, I am now taking questions from students in the US about the effects of desertification in China and how I reported on the subject last year. As part of the Pulitzer Center’s efforts to break down the barriers between reporters and their readers, they have provided a great venue for people to log-on, view the reporting and then ask the written journalists/videographers/photographers how and why they reported these issues.

As well as my work on desertification in China, there are many other fascinating stories on diverse subjects such as ‘flooding and drought in Mozambique’, ‘climate refugees in the south Pacific’, ‘water issues in Ethiopia’ and reports from COP15 by Pulitzer journalists. Spend some time there and find out about some of the ways we are all being affected by climate change.

Student Questions

The first of the videos can be found below.

Question 1 “Why did you decide to report on this issue?”

Please head here to view answers to the following questions: What was your biggest hurdle reporting on this issue? How is this story related to issues in the US? How has climate change news coverage evolved since you started reporting on these issues, and what could be done better?

BBC World Service

Last month I was interviewed by the BBC World Service’s Outlook programme for an article on my work on desertification for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The interview ran over the new year and has proved to be a wonderful new way to spread the message about this issue (the BBC World Service gets around 37 million listeners worldwide apparently).

If you missed it, then you can click on this link here to listen to the entire interview.

Here is the text that ran on the BBC World Service Website:

“Some of the most striking images on display at December’s Copenhagen climate change conference were pictures of China taken by a young British photographer.

Sean Gallagher travelled across the world’s most populated country on what is known as the ‘desertification train.’

And he documented his journey in photos to show how life is a constant struggle for those living on the edges of China’s deserts.

BBC World Service

China is fighting a war against creeping sand – year on year its deserts are expanding and joining to create a massive dustbowl.

It is estimated that 20 per cent of China’s land area – some 1.74 million square kilometers – is now classified as desert.

One of the main stops on Sean’s trip was Hongsibao – an environmental refugee town built from scratch by the Chinese Government to house those forced from their homes by the sandstorms and water shortages.

Lucy Ash spoke to Sean and asked him how these environmental refugees feel about their new home.”

New York Times' Lens Blog

A couple of online publications this week that I’d like to share with you this week.

NYT

The first one was on the New York Times’ Lens Blog which appeared on their site on Tuesday. James Estrin of the NYT wrote a very nice piece on me and my work on ‘China’s Growing Sands for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and ran a gallery of 18 images to go with it. I’m really happy that the work has found this online platform and will reach out to so many people. Click on the image above to take you to the article.

bit.yl

It’s hard to know how much ‘reach’ work gets when it is published online. Of course I use things such as Google Analytics to track hits to my website and blog, but how do you track social networks passing on links about your work? Well, one of the tools I use is this website bit.yl This site allows you to shorten your links into handier bite-size lengths, then track them, in terms of numbers of clicks. Using this, I know that just through Twitter the link was viewed over 300 times. A modest amount, but that is another 300 people viewing the work, on top of those through Pulitzer, my blog, you tube etc. etc. over the past few months.

Socialdocumentary.net

Also this week, the website Socialdocumentray.net published a series of my pictures on the story of homeless communties in Mongolia. This body of work is in the pool of entries for the “Crisis and Opportunity: Documenting the Global Recession’ Competition. If you like the story, please help spread the word and awareness of this issue.