Insomnia and business adjustments

View from my kitchen balcony. It's about 5 o'clock in the morning and I just took this photo. The peak behind the valley ridge is called Manaslu, at 8156 meters it's the 8th highest mountain in the world.

© Morten Svenningsen.

Slightly insomniac here and mosquitoes inside the mosquito-net aren't improving the situation. Hence this write up. Ain't much going on here these days. Outside in the big world, BBC correspondent in Gaza, Alan Johnston, was released by his kidnappers after about 4 months of uncertainty about his destiny, and in the US, everybody's favourite president semi-pardon'ed Scooter Libby so he doesn't have to do any hard time. Looks like everyone's escaping captivity! Here in Kathmandu, the weather changes from exhaustingly warm over oppressingly humid to shockingly wet. It's called the monsoon. And it's a good time to get things done indoors. Although I must say that I do enjoy the odd crazy downpour from time to time!

So what am I doing indoors? Adjusting my business model a bit! Sounds fancy, eeh?

Well, up until now, the business side of things have frankly been a bit disappointing. As a professional photographer and journalist I've now come to realize that I've probably been spending too much time photographing and assimilating news stories! How can that be a bad thing, you ask? Because it leads to the fact that I've spend too little time tending to the professional side of things. Marketing, promotion, visibility, customer care, sales, that sort of things.

So I've done some thinking. About being a photojournalist in Nepal. Basically, I figure there's 3 categories of work:

1. News
2. Features
3. Stock photography.

The news bit is a difficult category to work as a freelancer. First of all, foreign media don't care much about the little everyday affairs here. So I'm waiting for the big events. The coming of the earthquake. The third revolution. The stoning of the King. Maybe even that constituent assembly election they're all taking about. (We've been waiting about 14 months so far, and now they say wait until November. Oooh-keeey, if you say so!)

Anyway, when shit really hits the fan (pardon my French, ladies) and things get a bit interesting around here, I'll be up against the local Reuters, AP and WPN guys. Even if I get the best shots, it'll be their stuff that makes the front pages the next day, simply because they have the global business infrastructure and all the accounts plugged in already. Hard to compete with, so I'm not really working that field right now. Just keeping myself posted. But I do have a few things up my sleeve I'm gonna try out when the time comes.

The second category, the feature stuff, is more interesting for me. The possibilities here range from stark social realism to human interest 'softies'. There's a lot of interesting stories here and I'm planning to do more of that stuff in the near future. I'm even contemplating a redesign of my website in order to give more emphasis on this field. I've been looking a bit into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies lately and I'm sure there's a few things that I can improve. So I'm pretty sure it'll happen. First, however, I need to figure out a way to do it that doesn't require a month or two of programming...

Of course, I could join some agency, but in my experience it isn't really worthwhile doing. The "middle-class agencies" don't really seem to be doing much good and the top agencies are pretty hard to get into. I've had brief contact with one of them, but otherwise I haven't pursued the idea much. Maybe some day, but for now I actually enjoy taking care of everything myself. I decide what to do, how to do it and when to do it. It's just up to me and the client.

Thirdly, there's the stock photography thing. In this field, I'm actually in the process of joining an agency! I looked around and decided to go with Alamy in London. So I'll send them all my generic travel/landscape/sunset work and see what comes of it. That's what I'm working mostly on right now, editing, adjusting, keywording, even though it's a bit on the brink of my field of interest. But if it helps to pay some of the bills...

Actually, I'm quite curious to see how the whole thing's gonna work out. Alamy's already got thousands of contributors and millions of photo's (9 and counting) but 'only' about 16.000 shots from Nepal. The funny thing about Alamy is that they practically don't do any editing at all. Their contributors range from amateurs fooling around to serious professional photographers living exclusively on their stock sales. Of course that means that there's heaps of mediocre stuff to kick around in on their (dump?-)site. But they're trying to implement an automatic ranking system so that the most relevant stuff gets places at the top of the heaps. If it works out for them, I think the "long tail" isn't gonna be a drawback, in fact it might even work out as an overall asset for them. And hence, for their contributors as well.

So that's about it for me this time. Plenty of work in the pipeline ahead. Take it easy till next time...

PS : It's now closer to 6 o'clock and the Manaslu view from before is now again obscured by the monsoon clouds.

A revealing coincidence - Paris Hilton and "The napalm girl"

Photos by Nick Ut, 8 June 1972 & 2007

As a photographer and journalist myself, I just have to fret about this, it's too freakin' much: The other day Paris Hilton went back to the slammer - I couldn't care less and that's not what this is about. Her village wasn't bombed, her family wasn't killed, her body wasn't disfigured and she didn't have to leave the country in fear of her life. Just off to a few weeks in the shadows. But there was a little Asian-looking guy who took her picture as she was sobbing in tears, and since she is a top celebrity, this was the top story in American media and that picture probably went around the world as well, to a great many newspapers. Really important stuff, eeh? (sic!). But this is where it gets freaky: The name of the photographer was Nick Ut! Ring a bell? Probably not, but I'm sure you know one of his previous photo's: "The napalm girl". The photo of another crying girl, but this one is running naked down the road, covered in napalm, her village is burning in the background and soldiers are walking around with their guns. And the really freaky thing: These two "crying girl"-pictures are not only taken by the same guy, but they are taken on the exact same date, June 8, the only difference being the year, 1972 / 2007. 35 years to the date! Doesn't it show what has happened to photojournalism? Or at least to the public demand... Why the heck do people care so much about the trivial life of celebrities while "real people" living in the "real world" are still living (and dying) in truly dramatic ways. Hundreds of children die of malnutrition every single day - and that's just here in Nepal. But nobody takes any photo's of that, since it's not nearly as important as some celebrity with a new boy/girlfriend, right? All right, I'll stop nagging about the decline of times. I know, celebrities are easier to identify with, feels like we actually know them and too gruesome pictures of reality might just spoil our appetite - and the advertisers wouldn't like that, would they? Today, the photography business is driven by the market. Back then, it was driven much more by the photographers and photo editors with journalistic ideals. I think. Actually, I'm not old enough to remember. And I also know that things weren't perfect back then. The German people didn't rise up with a public outcry against Hitler when he prepared for war. 70 years later, the American people didn't rise up with a public outcry against George W. Bush when he prepared for war either. Both wars were sold to the public with lies, misinformation and intimidations. To wrap it up, photojournalists have a really important role to play and I just hope that in this rapidly changing media world, there'll be a prominent place for critical and concerned photographs that can help to affect public opinion and - in turn - make influence on policy, just like that photo of "The napalm girl" did.

The great exodus from Nepal - a dodgy affair

Visitor at the ECAN fair gets brochures from a visa consultant firm.

First a little background, bear with me now. If you've been to Nepal recently, you'll already know it: Everybody here is looking for a way out of the country! If not for themselves, then for their son or brother. So many people I've met have been asking me questions about how to get a visa and a job in Europe. Or 'America', which often just means 'all those rich fairy tale countries far away from here'. People are fed up with the unemployment and the largely nepotistic ways of landing a decent job around here. It's all understandable, as even a fairly respectable job in Kathmandu these days rarely pays more than 5000 rupees a month. That's about 50 euro's. If they can just get a measly job in Europe, they can easily make 10 or 20 times that. So of course many people are eager to start afresh in another country, in the lands of opportunities. That said, there's a thing or two that I feel I need to say because by now, it has turned into a complete craze around here.

First of all, you don't just get the visa, go there and start making money. You've got to possess some skills, meet some people, get contacts, learn the language, get set up with a place to stay and so on. And then, maybe, you'll start making some money. But typically, you've already invested about 10.000 euro's for the opportunity and now you have one year before your visa expires. Better start working hard, bhai!

But OK, many of you guys decide to take the chance and go anyway, and that's cool with me if you know what you're doing. But do you really? Along with this great exodus from Nepal, a horde of opportunists have emerged, offering their consultancy services for some humble fee of, say, a couple of years normal wages in this country. Hoarding boards and newspaper adds all sing the same songs of praise for the great VISA CONSULTANTS. And here comes my point: If you need a consultant to fill out a school registration and a visa application, do you really think that you are ready to make it big-time in a foreign country? Because I don't! Getting the visa is the least of your worries. But still, the visa consultants thrive. Yesterday I was at the opening of the ECAN fair, a trade show of about a hundred of the most reputable visa consultants here. The 'EC' in ECAN stands for 'Education Consultants', but it's all about getting a visa to go abroad, the visa normally being a student visa with some limited working permit included. Anyways, they expected no less than 150.000 visitors over the next few days! Later that day, as part of the same little assignment I was on, I went to a meeting at the ministry of finance where it came out that there's about, that same number, 150.000 unskilled workers going overseas for work each year, and the trend is on the rise. Comes out to something like one jumbo-jet, filled to the brim Nepali-style, every day. It's big business. Nepal's economy survives mainly on the remittances sent home by all these people. According to the Asian Development Bank, 12% of the entire income of the country is based on these remittances. Far more than, say, tourism, which I think is about 3-4%.

But leaving the macro-side of things again, there's a whole side of that business that's rather dodgy. Last week, somebody called me and started talking about how I had promised to help them obtaining a Canadian visa. I couldn't remember them and also couldn't quite believe that I had promised something like that since I'm not Canadian and have never even been to the country. But they had all my personal details like name, phone number, email address and such, so to clear things up, I went to meet them. Turned out to be a trivial case of identity theft. Somebody had used my name in an attempt to lure some money from these gullible guys. I didn't pursue the matter any further, but it's scary to know that somebody is out there using my name for their dodgy little schemes. Could be worse, though. Another incident, almost 2 years ago now, but quite interesting. One of my friends runs a little Kathmandu newspaper, and they were doing an exposure on one of these dodgy enterprises. One morning, the entrepreneur turned up in the editorial office with a bribe for burrying the story. My friend didn't take the bribe, his moral standards being impeccable (or the bribe being too small!) so the dodgy guy left, but only to come back in the afternoon with his goons, and they stabbed one of the staffers with a knife in his guts, pure mafia-style! Newspaper still ran the exposure, though. Way to go Shram!

All right, so what to make of all this? I just thought that I'd bring it up here, since it is one of the lesser known facts abroad, and it's important to a lot of people around here. At the same time, it gives a good picture of how things work and just how desperate some people are to get away from here. But don't hold any illusions, please. My feeling is that a lot of Nepalis would do themselves a favour if they stopped dreaming about 'America' and started pursuing some original ideas or taking on some honest hard labour right here in Nepal. Quit sitting around all day complaining about the lack of opportunities. It's a lot easier said than done, I know. But money doesn't fall from the sky, not even in 'America'.

PS: Come to think of it, they almost do in my birth country, Denmark. But you need to be Danish to catch'em!

PPS: If any of you Nepali readers have some experience with living abroad, or with the visa consultant sector, I'd appreciate it if you would share them with me and the rest of the world, right here in the comments field.

Namasté.

What the people like

So yesterday this guy gave a presentation about his findings in some strategic tourism study. He had found out just what it is that tourists like about Nepal: It's the mountains, the nature and the friendliness and hospitality of ordinary people. Great. He also found out what they didn't like: The political instability with transport strikes, the bad road conditions and the poor service level at the customs and immigration offices (where tourists still have to renew their visa monthly after the second month. Considering the time it takes to reach the above mentioned mountains and return to the IMO, it gets even worse). I might have contributed with a few complaints of my own, although I'm not really a tourist: The pollution in Kathmandu and the water and power shortages in the winter. It then struck me. Whatever it is that the government and it's "tourism developers" have done, is exactly what the tourists don't like. They just like the mountains and the ordinary people, things not build by the state. It leads me again to conclude that Nepal is a blessed country that has been fucked up by the ruling elite time and time again. Present "loktantric-democratic era" not really excluded. The (government) guy's plan now is to concentrate the marketing efforts on one simple thing: Promotion of Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, as the peace capital of the world. Make it the Nepali equivalent of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Good luck. We don't really have peace here and what I find uniquely interesting in Nepal is not just any simple thing, but rather the opposite: The enormous diversity of the country. The contrast, to use a term of my profession. It might require slightly more complex marketing, but this is where the true value of Nepal is found.

The New World

Desperate voice heard on a cracking phone line from some third world country:

-But listen, I think the revolution is coming! People are suffering terribly. The generals are turning the blind eye. Private houses are burning! There's no more food or clean water. People are really terrified and screaming!

-Where did you say you were?

-I'm in the Mombulumbu province. I've seen it all and I have photo's!

-Well, I'll tell it to the editor. We'll call you back if we're interested. Have a nice day.

-But I'm calling from a temporary... hello?... HELLO?... beep-beep-beep. #%&*!$-----

Being a photo-journalist with an interest in the social and political field (and of the freelance-sort) isn't always as easy as it is interesting. But that's life. The story still needs to be told, even if the big media-houses aren't very interested. It may contain all of the classic news criteria, but if it doesn't have the three modern criteria: Sex, violence and celebrity involvement, it just doesn't sell. So are PJ's turning into an endangered species? I don't think so. The changing structure in the media-world is closing down old ways and opening up new one's in stead. I'm exploring the ways of the new media-world and it doesn't look too bad from where I'm standing. People still want to hear the good story, see the good photo's. How many magazines would be sold without any photo's? Not a whole lot. And then there are the kind of stories that people are not asking for, but would benefit from hearing anyway. Even more important, even tougher to sell. That's why I have set up this blog, so let's see how it goes. That, and the opportunity to rant a bit about what else is on my mind.

PS: Feedback is always welcome.