A jellyfish floats through the water in a tank at the Beijing Aquarium. Great lighting set-up beautifully illuminates these elegant creatures. 13th March, 2013.

Life in China is never dull. That’s one thing that I have learnt living here for the past 6 1/2 years. From one week to the next, there are stories in the news that will astound, surprise and just plain shock you.

Instagram

Visually, this also applies. The country continues to run at breakneck speed, developing itself and its economy, providing visual contradictions and juxtapositions at every turn. There are also quieter moments however, like those that appear in this post.

As well as my professional set-up, I use my iPhone to document my life as a professional photojournalist.

The iPhone and the photo-sharing app Instagram, have become an important part of my professional life, allowing me to share images with a new and wider audience than before.

I spoke with the British Journal of Photography last year about this and some of the impacts this is having on the world of professional photojournalism.

However you feel about the rise of photo sharing sites like Instagram, they are here to stay. They offer us a great way to introduce our work to new audiences and at the same time offer insights into our professional practise.

So, join me on Instagram at sean_gallagher_photo There will be plenty more images like the ones you see in this post. I hope that they will surprise you and help give you both a glimpse into my professional life and help you understand just a little more about China and the other countries in Asia that I travel to!

Time for a spot of tea on a springlike (albeit with slightly grey skies) afternoon in Beijing. 6th March, 2013.

Lindblom Math & Science Academy – Chicago – Photo by Mary Owen – Used with Permission

On Wednesday of this week, I had the unique experience of chatting online for this first time with middle school students at the Lindblom Math and Science Academy in Chicago.

This talk was set-up as part of the News Literacy Project, an organisation that aims to bring journalists into the classroom in the US to help students look critically about news that they are consuming on a day-to-day basis.

The News Literacy Project Website

“The News Literacy Project (NLP) is an innovative national educational program that mobilizes seasoned journalists to help middle school and high school students sort fact from fiction in the digital age.

The project teaches students critical-thinking skills that will enable them to be smarter and more frequent consumers and creators of credible information across all media and platforms. It seeks to light a spark of interest in students to seek information that will make them more knowledgeable about their communities, the nation and the world.” – The News Literacy Project Website

It was a real honour to be invited into the student’s classroom (in a cyber-sense) to talk about issues related to China, the nation’s economy, growth and the changes in life for the Chinese people. I tried to emphasise to the students that China, as a subject , is one that we all need to understand better as the world’s most populous nation begins to affect all of our lives.

Please click on the link above and check out some of the work the NLP is doing in bringing journalists into classrooms across the US.

Lindblom Math & Science Academy – Chicago – Photo by Mary Owen – Used with Permission

“The most massive tsunami, perfect storm, is bearing down upon us.”

I came across this video yesterday that I felt compelled to share here on my blog today. The video is from the recent TED conference held in Long Beach, California and is presented by Allan Savory, a biologist who has been investigating new ways to help combat the increasing scourge of desertification.

Savory offers compelling evidence that one of the most successful methods for converting deserts and drylands back into grasslands is to use increased numbers of livestock in controlled grazing patterns that mimic the natural patterns of migrating herds of animals. It’s an idea which goes against your intuitive beliefs about overgrazing and land management, but from the examples of success that Savory has had with the communities he has worked with, this looks incredibly promising.

If you’re not convinced that desertification is as serious as is being made out to be, just take a look at the map below from Savory’s presentation.

Global Desertification – NASA

Now, almost two-thirds(!) of the world is classified as desert or drylands…and it’s increasing.

I first started looking into this subject matter in 2007 and began documenting the effects of desertification in north and north-west China the same year. I worked on this subject matter for over 2 years, travelling across the northern deserts from Beijing to the borders with Pakistan documenting the expansion of  drylands and the subsequent impacts on people throughout the country. To see more of the work, please go to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting website.

Desertification in China. Ningxia Province. 2008

I really hope that this TED presentation reaches as many people as possible (there are 165,000+ views and counting so far) because this is an underreported crisis that has been sneaking up on humanity for a very long time. It’s time that the issue was properly acknowledged in the mainstream media and hopefully Savory’s call to action will be heard by those who can make changes in affected communities throughout the world.

Here’s a new multimedia piece from the team at MediaStorm that I thought readers here would like to view.

In the run up to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, MediaStorm were asked to produce this video which would highlight the importance of forests and their role in our global ecosystem.

From the MediaStorm Site:

“Part of the UNFF’s mission is to change the way policymakers view forest-related issues. Previously forest preservation was considered an environmental issue. In order to create more lasting and far-reaching change, the UNFF believes it is necessary to also include social and economic values in all discussions. Forests are, in many complicated ways, interconnected with the lives of people and cultures. This landscape view is critical and therefore needed to be an integral part of the project.”

It’s a beautiful video with some dreamlike sequences and stunning images, whilst retaining a strong and important message. Take 15 minutes of your day to watch it.

If you can spot which images of mine are in there, I will take my hat off to you!

I came across this video over the weekend which I felt compelled to share here on my blog. It’s a panel discussion with the great Sebastiao Salgado, whose work I greatly admire. Salgado has taken documentary photography to another level, pushing the role of photographer beyond being merely a witness and into an agent for change. The above video is nearly an hour and a half in length but it is well worth the time to sit down and take in some of the great discussion.

“What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. I don’t want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph.” – Sebastiao Salgado (from PhotoQuotes.com)

99% of people just walk on by. If you just watch the above video, that’s what you will of seen. Maybe it was more than 99%. Incredible beauty in the everyday was walked passed, ignored, momentarily noticed and then forgotten.

I’ve often felt that about photography, in that, when photographers go out and take images, we are trying to see unique and special moments in the ordinary. But those moment aren’t ordinary. They are quite incredible and often breathtaking. The way the light is falling. The drama of shadows. The excitement of colour. The serendipitous  juxtaposition of people in the street as they pass oneanother. The texture and depth of emotion caught between people in the briefest of moments.

These are moments that are are not noticed by 99% of people, even though they are right there infront of them.

For me though, these are the most important things in life to see and recognise. This is why photography is so special.

The music is everywhere. Stop and listen.

Read more about the violinist Joshua Bell and the fascinating experiment in the video here

“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unkown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner.”

- Alex Webb, Magnum Photos

*Update – 24th February* – Came across this video today released by Magnum and Leica about Alex Webb’s work in Chicago…

“There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.”

- Ansel Adams

Learn more about the life and works of Ansel Adams in this excellent PBS documentary…

“It comes down to risk, again and again. If you risk coming out, if you risk making pictures that aren’t good, you might discover something in a photograph that is the key. The very doorway to your own interest.”

- Joel Meyerowitz

“Style has no formula, but it has a secret key. It is the extension of your personality. The summation of this indefinable net of your feeling, knowledge and experience. Take colour as a totality of relations within a frame…colour is joy. One does not think joy. One is carried by it.”

-Ernst Haas – Colour Photography

Here’s a really interesting interview between Aidan Sullivan of Getty Images and Ernst Haas’s son, Alex Haas. Well worth a listen…