First up is an interview that I did for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting recently, talking about my project from last summer on ‘China’s Fragile Forests’, looking at the current threats to China’s Forests. I hope it gives you some insights into my project and how I approached it. Stay tuned for more updates on this project in the new year!

BBC Viewfinder

Last week, I had an assignment from the British Embassy in Beijing to photograph the visit of British Prime Minister, David Cameron on his first visit as PM to China. This was a very exciting and interesting assignment and I plan to feature some of my behind-the-scenes photos here on my blog in the coming weeks.

Photographing someone like the PM is a very unique experience and I thought it would be interesting to share some of my experiences with you. Please stay tuned in the coming weeks and I look out for these special posts. In the meantime, scroll down to read my interview with BBC Photo Editor Phil Coomes on my experiences.

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“Earlier this week photographer Sean Gallagher spent two days in the company of the British Prime Minister David Cameron during his visit to China. Here Sean talks about the project.

“Since moving to China in 2006, I have been documenting environmental issues in China such as desertification and wetland disappearance. I travel extensively presenting this work to various groups and organisations and I was invited by the British Embassy in Beijing to present some of this work to their staff last month, as part of their 10/10/10 Climate Change events.

“Following this, they asked if I would be interested in documenting the prime minster’s visit to Beijing. I believe it was my editorial approach which they were looking for, in order to create a unique perspective of this trip.”

How was it working with the rest of the press pack, or did you have special access?

“Working with the press pack was a unique experience in itself, as I tend not to work with them normally. They have an incredible energy and knack for knowing exactly what shot they want, when they want it and how they will get it. Normally, there is quite a bit of jostling involved but in the end, it seems everyone gets the shot they need.”

What sort of shots were you looking for – something different to the wire photographers?

“Luckily, as I was working for the embassy, I was able to get access to a few more unique moments where I was the only photographer present with the prime minister and his staff.

“Coming from an editorial background my instinct is to always try to find more natural moments in a situation, compared to many of the more typical and expected shots that normally come from these types of shoots.

“For this kind of situation, I normally work quickly to get ‘the expected shot’. A typical image from the event. This is part of being a professional photographer and delivering for my client. Once I know I have that, I then have the freedom to get more creative and experiment to create images a little more unique.”

What were the main challenges? Logistically and photographically?

“Logistically, there weren’t too many. The schedule for the prime minister is laid out with military precision, so you are informed exactly where you need to be and when. On the whole, it’s just a case of following the plan.

“Photographically, the biggest challenge was to create something unique from situations that were very fleeting. The prime minister had many engagements throughout the two days, so there was a lot of moving around from location to location.

“Many of the situations were also meetings, in very formal situations, so the challenge was to try to find an interesting angle and moment.”

Were you on a deadline to turn around each photo opportunity or were you looking for a more considered set from the tour as a whole?

“I shot entirely on digital, as I have done for all of my work for the past few years. I filed twice each day, one after the morning events and then in the late evening, after the afternoon and early evening events. This was a relatively new experience for me; however, a lot of preparation before I began the shoot enabled me to plan accordingly and deliver the images quickly, so that they could be used almost immediately after the events occurred.

“As I was shooting, I always had in the back of my mind the idea of creating more of a feature package for the prime minister’s two-day trip. Over the coming days and weeks, I will spend more time with the images and shape the edit to reflect this.”

What was the hardest photograph to get?

“I think the hardest shot was a natural portrait of the prime minister. He was so busy throughout the trip that getting something natural was a real challenge, as he was always with somebody, or doing something.

“I got one portrait of him when he was in the old hutongs of Beijing, which I quite like. It’s one of the only images that I took where he is actually looking right at me. It was the briefest of glances but I think it makes the picture.”

What’s your favourite shot from the tour?

“There is one image of the prime minister walking down the red carpet inside the Great Hall of the People, accompanied by his staff. This was taken a fraction of a moment before he met Chinese President Hu Jintao. I was the only photographer with them at that point, so it was very pleasing to get this unique shot at such an important moment in the trip.

“There is another image from the hutongs which I like. It is from a moment just before the Prime Minister is about to get into his car. I like how all the elements within the frame all work well together and the surroundings give you a hint of old Beijing.

“As well as having the opportunity to photograph the Prime Minister, I also had the opportunity to photograph Chinese leaders, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao. Hu was recently voted the most powerful man in the world by Forbes magazine, so to photograph his meeting with the prime minister really was a great opportunity.

“As a result of the access I was able to get, I feel the two days really were a once-in-a-lifetime shoot.”

John MacKinnon, of the EU-China Biodiversity Programme

SEAN GALLAGHER, FOR THE PULITZER CENTER, BEIJING, CHINA

John MacKinnon, of the EU-China Biodiversity Program, is one the world’s leading experts on biodiversity and the environment in China. He began his career in 1965 working with Jane Goodall in the famed study of the chimpanzees of Gombe. In 1968, he moved to Southeast Asia to study orangutans under the supervision of Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen.

MacKinnon first went to China in 1987 to work on the World Wildlife Fund’s Giant Panda project. He is an expert and author of 17 books on birds and mammals in China and has served for 14 years as co-chair for the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. He was awarded the prestigious Order of Golden Ark, with highest rank of Commander by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands for his lifetime services to conservation.

I caught up with him last month in the Beijing headquarters of the EU-China Biodiversity Program where we discussed some of the issues currently facing China’s wetlands.

This is an abridged version of the interview.

What are your thoughts with regard to biodiversity affected by wetland disappearance?

Probably of all ecosystems, wetlands are the most endangered because water is just used by people everywhere. So there is hardly a stream in China that doesn’t have somebody putting [something] into it or taking water out of it.

Everything is messed up with pollution–pipes taking off water for agriculture, for industry, for household use, building weirs across rivers to divert the water into little gullies. And then it gets bigger and bigger, up to these huge dams that the government has been putting in all over the place. China has thousands of these dams now which are having a profound impact on the water system. It means that fish and frogs can no longer move up and down river systems. Some are seasonal and need to go up into the head stream in the summer and lay eggs where the young can breed. And then in the winter these are frozen up, so they have to move down to the lower waters. Can’t do it anymore. So a lot of the species, a lot of the fish are endangered. Some are extinct.

Are there any general trends you have noticed in China over the past 50-60 years?

I’ve been working in China on biodiversity conservation since the late ’80′s, 25 years almost, and of course there has been a huge increase in the number of nature reserves, the number of staff, budgets devoted to wildlife conservation and also things like CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) controlling trade in wildlife species, but despite all that you have to come to the conclusion that wildlife is deteriorating rapidly in China.

About a third of all species are endangered according to the Red List. Often habitats seem to be in reasonable condition, but you can walk through them for hours and hours and hours and almost see no large animals. The pressures of hunting, economic exploitation for medicine, for sale of animals has just put too much pressure [on the environment]. Plus, the fragmentation of habitats due to road developments, agriculture encroachment, industrial sprawl; it’s too much pollution, dust, etcetera. Everything is against wildlife. And now we have climate change, just to add more problems.

What are your thoughts on issues such as eco-tourism and other ways to ‘save’ wetlands and water in China?

Eco-tourism is often rolled out as the great savior that’s going to justify saving all these areas and bring money to the local communities. The way it develops is that the local communities usually get excluded and investors are usually outsiders coming in, trying to monopolize and take over the whole industry. The industry is unregulated, so it ends up damaging the very resource it came to protect. So, there are a lot of places in China where you can definitely say there are far too many people, even in very beautiful places. So, I think nature tourism inside really important wildlife biodiversity areas in China has to be really regulated.

What is your one biggest fear with regard to China and its water issues?

My fear for biodiversity is great but my fear for China is greater. I think China has the natural resources, it has the space, it has the minerals, it has the manpower to continue to grow as it has for the last 20 years—i.e. ten percent, ten percent, ten percent. What is going to stop it in its tracks is water. That’s the limiting factor. They may not be able to have as much water as they are able to enjoy now in the future. So this may cause a big dip in the development of China. And then what does China do? Then it has to turn on the resources of the rest of the world. Then it will find that there are too many people and already too much demand for so many resources that it can no longer cope.

So, I think that’s the driver behind policy [of] buying up big tracts of land in the Congo [and] around the world, accessing resources way beyond its boundaries. But water is going to be top of the list of shortages.

If someone in the U.S. or U.K. said to you, “Why should I care about what’s happening in China? Why should I care about wetlands disappearing in China?” What would be your response?

There are many angles to the concern for China’s wetlands. First of all, they’re not just China’s wetlands; these are international wetlands that are part of huge bird flyways between Russia, Indonesia and Australia. There are other species that fly from east to west, flying from East Asia across into Central Asia and Europe.

There’s a global concern about wildlife generally. This is a big chunk of our natural heritage at the global level. But also, we are concerned about China because it is such a big player in the world.

Wetlands are indicators of environmental health. If China is uninhabitable–as evidenced by its birds and fish dying–you have to worry. What’s that going to do China? What’s that going to do to the rest of the world? China’s potentially the biggest importer of food. If China suddenly isn’t food self-sufficient and starts needing food from the rest of the world, that’s going to shoot prices up. The world is all connected now. We have to worry about China, just as anywhere else.

City Weekend

We were delighted to find out last week that Chelin Miller, who is a former student from one of out hutong workshops, was featured in Beijing City Weekend and interviewed about her experiences taking on of our classes. You can read a snippet of the interview here online and read it reproduced below. Well done Chelin! To see images from the workshop Chelin attended, please go here.

Snap Happy: Hutong Photography

*Amateur photographer Chelin Miller tells us why she hones her skills in Sean Gallagher’s photo workshops

What is it about photography that draws you?

Photos tell a story, preserve memories and can be a fantastic creative outlet.

Have you ever studied photography before?

I have never studied photography seriously, but I’ve had a passion for it since I was a teenager.

(c) City Weekend

How did you find the hands-on photography workshop?

There was a feeling of camaraderie from the beginning. We were eight in our group. Armed with our cameras, we went out around the hutong and although we were all together, we all perceived different aspects of the area, the people and the architecture. It was fascinating to come back to the hostel and review everybody’s photos; I think we all learned a lot from each other.

Is the workshop accessible to the camera challenged?

Yes, the workshop was very clear and concise. It covered enough basic technical and composition steps to be able to take good photos even if you were a total beginner, without slowing down the pace for those with a little bit more experience.

Will you be taking the workshop again?

Yes, definitely. I can’t wait to go to Harbin for the ice festival with Sean and Jessica’s group. Being with others who share my passion, making jokes, feeding ideas off each other and learning from each other is what makes the workshops so enjoyable.

]]> http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2010/02/05/former-student-of-hutong-photography-workshop-featured-in-city-weekend/feed/ 0 http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2010/01/11/fielding-questions-from-pulitzer-center-on-you-tube/ http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2010/01/11/fielding-questions-from-pulitzer-center-on-you-tube/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:05:51 +0000 Sean Gallagher http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/?p=1599 I was asked recently by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to answer some questions with regards to my reporting on the subject of desertification in China. This is part of their initiative titled ‘Meet the Journalist”, offering viewers a chance to get ‘behind the scenes’ and find out some of the motivations and working practices that go into the reporting by the grantees. I was happy to answer a few questions on my reporting, all of which can be found now on the Pultizer Center’s YouTube channel, which is well worth checking out.

The first of the videos can be found below.

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

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

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.”

The above video is one that I produced for the Globe and Mail newspaper, along with the Asia Bureau Chief Mark Mackinnon and his assistant Yu Mei, a couple of weeks ago. The video centers on the preparations for the country’s 60th anniversary that passed on October 1st, focusing on the city of Hangzhou which lies to the west of Shanghai.

Yu Hua

One of the highlights of the video process was meeting and filming the author Yu Hua. Originating from Hangzhou, Yu Hua is one of China’s most famous and controversial novelists. In 1992 he released the book ‘To Live’ which was adapted into a movie by the well-known Chinese director Zhang Yimou, starring Gong Li. His feelings (and that of others we interviewed) about the way China has developed over the past 60 years were particularly interesting and refreshing, especially considering the propagandistic view presented constantly here in China recently.

Needless to say, witnessing the change China is going through at the moment is a special experience. Hearing the voices of people who have witnessed this change first-hand over the past 60 years is even more special and constantly eye-opening. I hope you enjoy the video.

Please click here to listen to the panel discussion as it aired yesterday

Also, please find below a few images taken during the show by the host Chris Gelken and other members of the China Radio International staff.

[nggallery id=2]

]]> http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2009/07/31/panel-discussion-about-desertification-on-china-radio-international/feed/ 2 http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2009/07/28/interview-with-china-radio-international/ http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/2009/07/28/interview-with-china-radio-international/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:55:08 +0000 Sean Gallagher http://gallagher-photo.com/blog/?p=606 Please click here to listen to China Radio International Interview with photographer Sean Gallagher

The above audio file is an interview that aired with China Radio International today, on the subject of desertification and my work for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

This is the first time I have been interviewed on the radio in relation to my work for Pulitzer, however it won’t be the last as I have also been invited back for a panel discussion on Thursday 30th July which will air at 10:00 a.m. Beijing time (03:00 a.m. GMT), also on the subject of desertification. To hear that discussion, please tune in here. If you miss it, do not worry, as I shall post it onto the blog soon after.

Hope you enjoy the interview!