June went by so quickly...

Old husband and wife selling vegetables, Kathmandu. Photographed 1. June 2008 / Morten Svenningsen.

It’s been a while since my last post, doesn’t mean that nothing has happened here. What have I been doing?

• Just created the Denmark Nepal Network (DNN) on facebook yesterday. A meeting place for people of the two countries, excited to see what becomes of it... Welcome to join if you feel you qualify!

• I’ve edited text and photos on a big project called Football’s Hidden Story. Covering 16 different countries, it tells the story of how football (soccer) affects the lives of normal people, far away from the glamorous pro games, leagues and tournaments. Parts have now been published by FIFA and Sportingpulse.

• I’ve been optimizing my web-site so it now looks even cooler! And also doing some SEO work with good results. If you google photographer / journalist / photojournalist / stock photos etc. in Nepal, you will find me listed on the first page of the results. Number 2 seems the best so far.

• That'’s also resulted in a lot more visitors on the site, currently with an Alexa rank of 370.000 and still going up. So I’m starting to see a steady sales of stock photos now, although the income doesn’t amount to much. And I’ve even started selling posters as well!

• Also been doing a little work on something called the International Photojournalist Network. It’s a cooperative of photographers from around the world, we’ve been working on a few stories together so far.

• And I’ve written a book! Well, it’s not quite finished yet. But for long time I’ve been taking notes whenever I felt I had an epiphany about photography. So I’ve started putting the notes together in an article series: A Photographer’s Thoughts. Freely available on my site... update, site moved to www.mortensvenningsen.com...

• And I’ve started teaching Danish a couple of times a week. Lots of Nepalis still choose to seek fortune and glory abroad. Last I heard, 5-600 a day!

• Haven’t had much time to actually take any photos, the above one is among the few I did manage.

• And finally there’s been some “family developments” - - - - - - -


Outside the sphere of my own life, nothing big is going on here in Nepal. The ex-king left his palace and went into the jungle, 2 years after the Maoists came out of it.

It’s almost 3 months since the election now, and they still haven’t formed a new government. Looks like perhaps the Maoists and UML might take it into their own hands. The 7+1 party coalition is hanging by a thread.

And the monsoon has made it’s re-entry here. Only a couple of really big showers (torrential grade) so far though. That’s all set to change this month!

Monarchy Abolished

Nepal declared a federal democratic republic. King given 15 days to leave the Palace.

Late last night at 23.30, the first meeting of the newly elected constituent assembly abolished Nepal’s 240 year old monarchy by overwhelming majority. Of 564 members present, only 4 voted against the motion, which is less than 1%.

King Gyanendra is expected to accept the declaration and is now set to live the rest of his life as a normal citizen of Nepal.

It is especially a victory of the Maoists who started a war against the establishment 12 years ago. But the turning point in public opinion against monarchy was the palace massacre that happened 7 years ago. It is now common belief that King Gyanendra orchestrated the massacre of his own brother, the then King Birendra, and his family, in order to assume the throne himself. 3 years ago the king tightened control further by closing the parlament and taking direct control of the country. The coup’d’etat failed in 2006 and since then the King’s powers have been stripped.

Royalist supporting Hindu fundamentalists have detonated small bombs in Kathmandu the last 3 days, but without anybody seriously hurt. Their supporters are few and vanish in the crowds of republic supporters. Embassies still advice caution in public gatherings.

2 days public holiday has been declared Thursday and Friday to celebrate the declaration.

Chasing holy cows

A holy cow in Nepal. Except it’s a bull...
© Morten Svenningsen

We had a little banda here in Kathmandu yesterday, a strike. One Maoist commander had kidnapped one of their own supporters and beat him up together with a couple of regular PLA’s. The poor guy later died of “multiple organ failure and excessive bleeding”. So his family, together with the support of rival party, NC, closed down the capital in protest. Meanwhile, top political leaders of the unelected lame duck government continue their exclusive closed door haggling to decide on vital issues before the newly elected representatives have their first meeting on the 28th. Have they really not understood the concept of democracy yet? To let the elected representatives make the decisions in stead of a handful of party bosses. Apparently not!

On a personal note, the battle continues. I’m still in a writing spree and cranking out articles by the dusin. Pitching some of them, like for instance a story about holy cows. Hence the photo above. (The article is available for publishing if you’re a publisher reading this.) Mostly though, I’m writing small tutorials on being a freelance photographer. Tricks of the trade. I’ve had this book idea for a couple of years now, been taking notes all along. So now I’m writing and editing it down to an article series, and I’ll compile the whole thing into a little eBook. Not sure when it’ll be finished. Every time I write one article, I get an idea for one or two other articles...

Had another couple of sales on Alamy last week, making things look a little more promising on that front. Otherwise just waiting for the 28th...

Nepal update

There’s still ”load-shedding” around here (scheduled power-cuts) but it’s now down from some 40 hours a week to ”only” about 20 hours. The show must go on, so this is what I look like when I’m writing in the evenings.

Hi there, just felt it was time for a little rant about big and small things. Here goes.

This just in: Today the Chinese managed to scale Everest with the Olympic torch. (The summit of Everest is in Nepal, FYI.)

Great. How many torches do they have anyway. A week ago it was on the way up, then it was in Hong Kong and now it’s on top again. And it’s flying around, back and forth across the world. Defeats the whole idea, IMO. The only proper way to carry the torch is by hand, running from Athens to Beijing. And the whole Everest thing. Again, same feeling of couldn’t care less. It’s a freaking government / military operation or whatever. And they’re stopping everybody else from going there in the process. Then what’s the point. Their sorry little media stunt may impress some of their own people, but not me. Scaling Everest’s got to be done with the right spirit, and this is not it. Throwing everybody of the mountain and such, good old Charlie Haviland (my colleague from BBC) and that American guy who’s now expelled from Nepal.

How can the Nepalese government, even the Maoists, support China’s suppression of Tibetan demonstrations? Hell, even do the same thing themselves here in the streets of Kathmandu every day? It’s only 2 years ago that the Nepalese government and Maoists got to power on the basis of exact similar mass uprising by the people! And now you get expelled for peacefully supporting a similar cause. Well, it’s no secret that China is a strategically important partner for Nepal so they’ll apparently go along way to be the good little neighbor.


But enough of that. What’s it like here anyway?

During the last month it’s gotten a lot warmer around here, humidity is on the rise and we’ve started to get thunder and afternoon showers. Is it related to the Burma cyclone? Maybe a little spin-off of the same weather system. I’m not a religious man, but my prayers goes out to the people in Burma these days. Some of the nicest and most innocent people I’ve ever met. Firs the violent suppression of the monks protests and now this. And the whole military regime to begin with.

Election results are out now, Maoist didn’t get majority but they are comfortably the biggest party now. What a turn of events. So now we’re waiting for the first meeting in the new (care-taker) parliament, no date yet but can’t be long. And the de-throning, which they’ve said they’ll try and do peacefully.

And me, I’ve started writing again. Well, I never really stopped but I’m now starting to crank out more stories now. (Newest one here: Hinduism & Buddhism combined.) Putting the ‘J’ back in ‘PJ’ - Photo-Journalist.

And then I’ve also started teaching Danish language to a bunch of Nepali guys who’s going there later in the year. For now it’s just a 2 month gig but if it’s a success, I might continue longer. The institute that hired me already asked me to continue and the word got out -as it always does in Nepal- so another institute contacted me. So sure, there’s still enough work around here, at the same time insisting on having time for the little family and the usual round of domestic chores.

I think that’s about it. Thunder clouds are starting to roll in and the unreliable power is getting more and more unreliable, so I’ll switch of now. ‘Till next time...

Link building for a photo web site

It’s really not as bad as people say, it takes some time but I actually like to do “link building” for my web site. Surfing around trying to navigate the depths of the internet and finding new places. And making a benefit out of it, hopefully.

What benefit?
Well, I’ve now spent several years taking pictures and I think I have about 500 images on my web site. Now I’d like to get some more visitors, not just people looking to hire a photographer in Nepal, but also the “general public”, the silent internet masses surfing around looking for whatever it is they’re seeking. Some of them might occasionally order a poster or something, but that’s not the main point here. If I can get a lot of traffic to my site, it’ll sort of bring some more life to the whole project. Comments, suggestions, more links, referrals etc. I might even start to sell add-space! Getting a diverse audience is part of my own little strategy, since it’ll hopefully make me less reliant on the random fluctuations of any one single market. I’ve never gone to any business school, but I do know that it’s dangerous to rely on just a few customers. Several staff photographers are being laid off these days, they’ve had comfortable jobs for decades now and just forgotten how reliant they’ve become on that one particular job and how difficult it has become to get your foot in another place. That’s not gonna happen to me!

Hence the efforts to make my web site more visible to all sorts of people. That spells making it show up in Google searches. On the first page, not listed on page 17 or something. It’s common knowledge that hardly anyone’s gonna click on your site link if you’re not on the first page. Your placement on Google is determined by your PageRank, which again is determined by the number (and quality) of other sites linking to your site.

Right now my Google PageRank is a disgrace: 1. It used to be 3 and I’m not sure what happened. But I’m determined to get it at least back to where it used to be. PR4 would be quite good, PR5 would be fantastic!

Now there’s many ways to get links to your site and improve your Google PageRank, one of the simplest ways is to get listed in various web directories. That’s what I’ve been trying to do the last few days. If you want to do the same for your site, check out this list of free photo-related web directories I’m using. (- It’s also good if you just want to browse around and see a lot of nice photo sites.)

My efforts are not over yet and it’ll take some time before the results start to show. Check back here from time to time if you’re as interested as me to see how it’ll all turn out.

Nepal: Post-election thoughts

Maoist supporter holding up their well-know symbol.
© Morten Svenningsen 2008

While the ballots are still being counted, it is now safe to say that the Maoists were the big winners of last week constituent assembly election here in Nepal. They’ve secured more than half of the seats in the first-past-the-post election constituency that’s been counted so far (114 out of 207) and about a third of the votes in the proportional representation election so far. If this tendency holds, they stand to get about 250 of the 601 seats in the new all-powerful assembly. It’s not impossible that they will actually get a bit more, giving them an absolute majority! A bit of a shocker to everyone, themselves included I’m sure, despite what some of them have been saying.

The election day went by quite peacefully although the days leading up to it was marred by some violence, with 5 or 6 people killed in various clashes that threatened to make it look like Kenya for a while. But were some of the votes given under duress? These allegations are starting to appear from various quarters, most notably Minister Mahat of the still ruling Congress party who stands to loose control over the government. Re-polling still have to take place in almost a 100 polling stations where the election was cancelled due to irregularities. But by and large, whatever happens, it seems that the election results are being accepted as “free and fair”, if not 100% then at least close enough - enough to accept the election result and continue with the next step.

So what is the next step? Well, first there’s been some “bad omens” here, in the highly superstitious country. Just after Maoist leader Prachanda gave his victory speech, a virulent storm descended on the valley, chasing everybody into shelter. A day later, a 100 feet high pole fell down and injured 12 people during a festival. Same thing happened just before the 2001 royal massacre. And in Bhaktapur where I was celebrating Nepalese New Year, the crowd had to abandon the chariot before it had completed it’s ritual journey (it’s a long explanation). They sacrificed a few roosters the next morning so maybe it’s all cool with the Gods now.

No, seriously, it’s now unavoidable: They’re gonna turn this country into a (communist) republic and abolish the monarchy. (Personally, I can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen to the king!) Then they’ll rewrite the constitution and start to run this country in some way. That’s also gonna be really interesting to witness.

I can’t help but think how the Maoists are gonna manage the task, if they’re up to it. So far their activities have been mostly of a destructive nature, being against the establishment and this and that. Now they are the establishment and they have to show themselves constructive in rebuilding the country and delivering on their promises. I don’t want to be too pessimistic, but I am afraid that they will disappoint the optimistic population who have just given them the chance they have been asking for to lead the country (and turn it into an Asian Switzerland in 10 years, remember Prachanda actually said that?-). Again, with risk of being too much a generalist, some of these voters are really politically naive, IMHO. The Maoists don’t have a magic wand to make it all better overnight and, what’s more interesting, do they have control over their rank and file? - And can they now control and manage the nation and it’s administration without resorting to high-handedness?

Well, maybe they can pull it off. They’ve now got the chance no matter why people voted for them. In fact it might be more correct to say that the people voted, not for the Maoists, but against the old NC and UML party bosses. So from next month, I’ll probably be living in a communist republic! Whooo, what’s that gonna be like?

A time to vote

Nepal deciding on monarchy. Well, sort of. At least in final preparations for holding election to a constituent assembly.
Photo © Morten Svenningsen.

Everybody’s talking ‘bout it here, so thought I’d give you my perspective as well...


We’re entering into uncertain times here in Nepal - again. It’s just 5 days to the election here, and it’s by no means an ordinary one. In fact, it can turn out to be a historic milestone in the country’s path towards democracy. Or it can turn out to be the spark that ignites new strife and civil war. My guess is it’ll turn out to be a little bit of both, typical Nepali style, neither this nor that, yes and no at the same time!


The fact that it’s an important event is not hard to miss. No matter who you talk to these days, the subject always turns to the election. And it seems every office you call, you get the same answer: Come back after the election! Four public holidays have been declared next week, schools closed for two weeks, the border with India sealed for 48 hours, alcohol banned on election day and the city here (Kathmandu) is buzzing with speeches coming out of distorting loudspeakers and international reporters and observers etc. Even good old Jimmy Carter is on his way here.

No, there’s definitely something special going on in Nepal these days!


Personally, I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. The election itself can easily be marred by violence and bomb blasts, but it now seems unstoppable, unlike the previous two occasions where it was postponed - not to mention the general mess when the previous election term expired and they weren’t capable / willing to hold a new one.

So OK, the election is coming and besides the actual election results, there’s some other interesting points up in the air:


What’s the election aftermath going to look like?
- Hopefully not Kenya! While the first election results should start to tick in in the ensuing days, we’ll probably have to wait several weeks for the final result - perhaps even months. The country will be in a state of limbo, and there’ll be plenty of opportunity for disgruntled election losers to stir up trouble in the streets. For instance (but not excluding others) the Maoists have already stated that, since they are sure to win, any other result must be equal to fraud and rigged results by the usual “regressive forces etc.”, and therefore completely unacceptable!

Irregularities are almost sure to arise, but even if they don’t, it won’t exactly be a “free and fair” democratic election. Some of the dubious points already:

1. The Code of Conduct has not been adhered to. There has been election related violence, bomb blasts and killings already. Intimidations have been used. Part of the population are afraid to go and give their vote.

2. The candidates are not selected democratically. They have been appointed by the party leaders who again have the power to decide which candidate should get the seats the party has won. It’s not necessarily the candidate with the most votes who get the seat!

3. Top candidates have been given the “safe” election constituencies. Especially women candidates have been given the constituencies that the respective parties stand to loose.

4. Many voters simply don’t understand the election and how to vote. It has been made fairly complicated with a mixed voting system comprising both the first-past-the-post system and the proportional representation system.

But perfectly free and fair elections aside, it might still turn out to be “good enough and workable” to draw up a new constitution. Then again, it might not...


So what’s gonna happen to the King?
Good question, guess they’ll have to de-throne him somehow. It’s now actually written in the (amendment of the) interim constitution that monarchy will be abolished in the first session of the newly elected “all-powerful assembly”. Funny way of playing democracy, isn’t it? Going through all the trouble of electing 601 representatives who’s duty it then is - not to decide on, but - to implement an already stipulated condition, haggled in place by 3 old, male, upper-caste Pahadi tyrants!


So who’s gonna win the damn thing?
Anybody’s guess, really. Estimates I’ve heard can’t be described as being representative for Nepal’s extremely diverse population. I’m also not gonna dare a guess, so no conclusions here, but Madhav Kumar Nepal’s UML party could get a good share if they don’t loose too much to the Maoists. Maoists probably haven’t won many votes on the basis of their 10 year campaign of violence, but they represent change and so could take a lot of protest votes. The last of the big 3, the now re-unified Congress-niks have traditional support from traditionalists. And Nepal is in many ways a country of tradition. But will they stand this time? No answer here, no conclusion. But wait and see...


PS: However it’s gonna play out, I’ll be posting photo’s of the events on this page : Nepal election photos. - So be sure to check in from time to time.

Is it worth it?

(on Tibet & Alamy)



Norbu Gualtsen Rangzen (28), son of Tibetan refugee in Nepal, sustained injuries on his head, arm and back from police beatings during a peace march to mark the anniversary of the 1959 Lhasa uprising. Kathmandu, Nepal, 10. March 2008.

On Monday the Tibetans here in Kathmandu had a big demonstration, intending to march to the Chinese Embassy to deliver a letter demanding an end to the almost 60 year long Chinese occupation of their country. It was the 49 year anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising a.k.a. the Lhasa Massacre that forced the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in India. Allegedly, the Chinese government had put some pressure on the Nepalese authorities to suppress the event. They don’t want any negative publicity before the Beijing Olympics this summer, I gather. So the Nepal Police met the demonstration with force (see the above photo), but this time the Tibetans actually got within shouting distance of the Chinese Embassy.

Some background: I read somewhere that before the Chinese invasion, Tibet had about 5000 temples and monasteries. Today there’s only 2 left, the remaining 4998 having been demolished by Chinese “development aid”. Officially, Nepal recognizes China’s claim to Tibet, like many other countries. That’s realpolitik, considering China’s position in today’s world economy. Nepal still allows Tibetan refugees to cross into Nepal though, which about 2000 of them still do every year.

Later that night on BBC, some expert said he expects the last remains of Tibet to be gone within 10 years. I sometimes wonder how enlightened Tibetans view this historic development, being firm believers in the karma theory: If something bad happens to you, it’s because of the negative deeds you have performed in your past lives... Since the Tibetan exodus, the before so closed culture and religion have been forced to open up and have now actually gained worldwide popularity and support by Richard Gere, Uma Thurman’s dad and the likes. Is the whole thing some sort of divine play?

My stock photography

On another note, I just discovered last night that I’ve actually had my first 3 sales on Alamy during the last 3 months! One photo for an American school book, one photo for a British magazine and one photo yesterday that went into a large, national British newspaper with a circulation of 1 million. Cool! I quickly did the math and found out, money-wise, that it gives me a RPI of just around 1$. Less cool.

What is RPI?

Return Per Image (Per Year). This is the figure you get when you look at how much you’ve earned compared to how many photos you’ve had on sale for a year. A very useful benchmark in the stock photography business, since you can also use it to estimate your future income. Very useful.

How do you calculate your RPI?

You’ll need to know how many photos you’ve had on sale and for how long. And of course how much they’ve earned you. I’ll show you my numbers this time, so follow the example if you’re also a stock shooter and want to calculate your RPI.

number of photos uploaded		how many months available online		yearly equivalent *
10		8		6.7
278		6.5		150.6
21		4.5		7.9
122		1		10.2

* multiply the two other numbers and divide by 12 (months in a year)

TOTAL EQUIVALENT = 6.7+150.6+7.9+10.2 = 175 photos / yr

Total sales = $265

My cut (65%) = $172

My RPI = $172/175 = $0.98

$1 per photo per year is of course a ridiculous low number when you consider the time spent. I reckon roughly one hour for post-processing, upsizing, spot-checking, keywording, uploading, backing up etc. - not to mention time for research, training, the actual fieldwork, marketing and the investment in camera gear, computer and the whole setup. So is it worth it? -Not if you look at it that way, surely. But I’m also gaining valuable experience in this bizarre marketplace and so I expect to improve my RPI over time. + On long term, the photos will likely keep selling for perhaps 5 years or more. + I get “my name out there”, which has some marketing value, I suppose. + There’s always that chance that one of the photos is gonna get picked up for a global advertising campaign and fetch $10.000 or so.

Conclusion: Doing stock photography is a long term project which, in my case, has just begun. It might actually just be worth it!

Down for the count

A naga-baba* smoking a chillum on Shivaratri. Photo © by Morten Svenningsen 6. March 2008.

*If you’re not familiar with the term: a naked Hindu ascetic who have renounced the world - and the use of clothes.

The last 24 hours I’ve been through a cycle of dizziness, constipation, cramps, vomiting, diarrhea and now just headache and exhaustion. Thank God it seems to be over. It all started a few hours after I took the above photos while visiting the pilgrimage site where 178 Baba’s are smoking their fat, marihuana-stuffed chillums. And of course, nobody believes me when I say : I did NOT have a puff from the pipe!

Lately I’ve finally had some days with some more time on my hands, so I’ve started to make some improvements on my web-site. I’ve found a really cool way to make galleries, so looking forward to finishing that up.

For now though, it’s been put on hold, since Sabina’s brother is getting married. I only knew Sabina half a year before we got married and I thought that was rather quick, but this guy... He flew in from Europe Tuesday night, met the girl first time Wednesday morning, got officially engaged Thursday and they now have 2 days to organize everything, hand-deliver invitation cards to well over 100 people, organize the food and music, buy gifts, rings and all the other ceremonial paraphernalia, have tailor-made suits ordered and delivered etc. etc. Wedding takes place Sunday morning at 9.30, that apparently being an astrological optimum timing. Why the rush? Nobody gets married in the month of “Chait” (which starts next week). Everybody knows that here. That would be like celebrating Christmas in July or something.

Well, I’ve gotten used to lot’s of things here in Nepal, so this is not really anything special for me. But it does make me think a bit. Not sure what the point is, just a little illustration of that whole east-west thing, everything is so different that I’ve never been able to pin-point exactly what it is I love about living in Nepal. Chaos is such a negative word...

By the way: The Tarai shut-down is now over so we have normal supply of goods in Kathmandu again (=still shortage, just not so acute). And the traffic jams are also back!