NOTE FROM JONAH: This is Part IX of XII in “The Million Tree Project” a video series documenting Shanghai Roots & Shoots efforts to combat desertification in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China.
Shanghai Roots & Shoots’ Million Tree Project, which began in 2007, aims to raise community awareness of the Earth’s precious environment while focusing on steps individuals can take to lessen their negative impact on the natural world. The project gives individuals and organizations an opportunity to fight global warming by planting oxygen-producing trees in Inner Mongolia, China. It also encompasses true capacity building as the local population is intimately involved with, and benefits from, every step of planting, maintaining and monitoring the trees.
The Million Tree Project is designed to improve both ecological and humanitarian conditions of Kulun Qi, Tongliao municipality, lnner Mongolia, We chose this project site because the area suffers severely from desertification and its consequential sandstorms. These sandstorms strike Inner Mongolia and its surrounding areas each spring, destroying local homes and forcing many people to flee their native land.
The Goal: Shanghai Roots & Shoots aims to plant one million trees in the Inner Mongolian desert by 2014. We have a long-term Memorandum of Understanding in place with the Forestry Bureau of Kunlun Qi to reach this goal, and have secured land for one million trees (planting an average of 1500 trees per hectare). As of April 2010, we have planted 400,000 trees.
I’m looking for a bilingual (Chinese/English) photo assistant looking to join me on assignments around Beijing. This is a great opportunity to learn about photography, video and multimedia production at a grassroots level while earning some money.
This is an on call position, not a full time job.
The job will vary greatly pending on clients, assignments and locations. I work with both editorial and commercial clients, shooting still photographs and video production.
This job also includes translation work, both pre and post production. This might mean transcribing interviews conducted in Chinese into English, or creating subtitles using Motion, Final Cut Pro and LiveType (don’t worry if you don’t know how to use these programs now — I’ll help you learn!). In other cases, this might be translating live during an interview or finding Chinese sources.
On a photography level, you’ll be helping to setup shoots, finding locations and in some cases — you will be able to shoot yourself. Other times, you will help with camera and lens changes as well as transporting gear.
Pay rates will be based on your experience and our clients. Bonuses will be given for jobs well done.
I’ll also help you with portfolio reviews and helping to find you outlets to publish your photos. If you are interested in learning about social media content aggregation and software I can help you with this too. Time spent with portfolio reviews and software training won’t be paid but you’ll have the opportunity to expand your photographic view and learn about a wide array of visual communication softwares including:
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Adobe Illustrator CS4
Adobe Flash CS4
Adobe InDesign CS4
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
Adobe After Effects CS4
Adobe Premier CS4
Apple Final Cut Pro
Apple Motion
Apple LiveType
Apple Sound Track Pro
Quark Express 8
Soundslides Plus
Action Script 2, 3
Camera Bits Photo Mechanic
News Edit ProBaseview
Adobe Audition CS4
Canon Digital Professional
GarageBand
Adobe Bridge CS4
GIMP
Saxotech Publicus Brightcove Publishing
Experienced with HTML, XHTML, CSS
Flash Video Encoder
Interested in this job? Do you meet these requirements?
Must have strong desire to learn more about photography industry
Must have strong desire to learn and practice about strong journalism values
Must have a working knowledge Mac OSX operating systems.
Must have a working knowledge of Photoshop CSx
Must be able to hold and carry weight
Fluent in English and Chinese (writing, reading, speaking)
Beijing natives with a knack for finding sources and getting access to places and people will be given preference. Email me here with a link to your portfolio for consideration. To learn more about me and what I do, visit my site here.
Last week I spent some time with NGO Shanghai Roots & Shoots in Yangshan Village, Anhui Province. The above video is the product of this trip. Here is the story behind it, click photos to embiggin them.
A long journey
Getting to Yangshan Village reminded me once again, how difficult getting to rural areas can be in China. After about two hours into our flight from Beijing to Anhui Province, the pilot announced he couldn’t land the plane in our planned destination city due to weather. At the news of this information, it all of a sudden became acceptable for passengers to begin smoking cigarettes on the plane, which I thought was very entertaining — a glimpse into 1970’s air travel perhaps.
In stead, the plane landed in Nanjing, a city just West of Shanghai. We had the choice to wait for the plane to takeoff and fly back to Hefei or forfeit our ticket. Not wanting to waste anytime we decided to attempt to get to Hefei by land instead of air.
After almost swimming to a bus through thick rain, we arrived at a train station jammed packed from people avoiding the massive amounts of water coming from the sky. The general Chinese travel chaos was in full force, with ephemeral and evasive queues and the normal population of people who look like they have spent many days at the station. Although we bought train tickets, while waiting for the train we decided to try to rent a person (with a car). This was clearly a seller’s market and prices were way over the top. We really lucked out here when our driver in Hefei offered to come to Nanjing and pick us up (about 3 hours away). After waiting for 3 hours he arrived and we began our 10 hour car ride to Yangshan Village. It looked like this (for 10 hours):
While I’m sure I’ve been on more dangerous car rides, this one featured our driver speeding up the side of a mountain at 120 km per hour, with no guard railings, seemingly hydroplaning continually for hours on end. However, he did have his 4-way flashers on, which I was sure would keep me safe. From our 5 am departure time from Beijing, we arrived in Yangshan Village around 2 am the next day.
Officially, the average income of a villager in Yangshan Village, Anhui Province, China is 1,200 yuan per year ($177). However, villagers there said it was 700 yuan per year (less than $100). So apart from a single small store that thankfully sold coca-cola, there was no commerce in this village; ergo, no hotels.
We slept at Yangshan Elementary School on a classroom floor. Although I only had about 3 hours of sleep, I woke up the next morning to a break in the rain. It lasted about 4 hours, and would be the only break in the rain for an entire week. However, it was a great break. As the clouds opened up I had a wander around the village before people had woken up. Fog, mist and a vibrant sky made some pretty neat landscapes.
This type of light, combined with moisture creates great layers of fog for landscape photography. Here are other examples of this from the Sierra Nevada range or Malaysia.
The sub-tropical environment also creates some pretty interesting bamboo forests. The bamboo is much more “tree-like” than the species I have seen in the South Pacific or Southeast Asia.
Structures ranged greatly from “house with many walls” to “house with some walls” to “hut with ladder.”
This peaceful serene environment would soon come to an end when 50 Yangshan Village children would come rip-roaring down the street. This is why I was here …
The Anhui Poverty Alleviation Project
To combat the multigenerational cycle of poverty in Yangshan, Shanghai Roots & Shoots sends volunteers to teach children and create infrastructure. Five years ago, they built a school. Since then, they have been continually returning to help the village during the summer.
Most of the students’ parents don’t live in Yangshan Village. When the villagers get old enough to work as laborers, most will go off to big cities leaving their children with the grandparents. This makes for an interesting demographic in the city — everyone is either really young or really old. Regardless, they are all photogenic. The children especially kind of go off the cuteness chart. Since the kids don’t have their parents around, the volunteers of this program end up acting as big brothers and sisters.
The reason I believe this program is successful is its multidimensional effort to help impoverished people. The combination of efforts from hardware to education helps now — and down the road. This year, the NGO made a new bathroom for the school.
This is the old bathroom …
This is the new bathroom …
While the new school and new bathroom are surely a huge step up, watching the children in class was also pretty amazing. The students were far more engaged than at some urban schools I’ve been to. I’m not sure if this enthusiasm is quite as strong when the volunteers aren’t there, but regardless the villagers and students loved having the NGO around.
In the video at the top, towards the end you see a bunch of photographs flash quickly by. The collection of “cute kid” photos I came back with was immense. Here’s some of my favorite that appear in the video, but only for .4 seconds.
If you were wonder, the song used in the video is a classic exercise song that you hear throughout China in the morning hours.
Although there was some tough weather and tough shooting/sleeping conditions, this shoot ended up being a lot of fun and I’m glad I could see Shanghai Roots & Shoots at work again.
