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Like so many shooters around the world, I’m a convert.

I come from a still photography background but as my career and technology have advanced I’ve been transported (gladly) into the video journalism world. While initially this was creating two minute feature videos all shot on a stationary tripod that accompanied a print story and photo, today my technological and journalistic world have been spun right-side-up and I’m making independent short films where I feel like I’ve reached a gray area of video journalism that merges into documentary film.

You might ask yourself: What’s the difference between video journalism and documentary film making? A couple years ago you might have talked about production value and venue of dissemination. However today, given the production value you can bring to news video along with the fact that your target audience might likely be web based, the two forms of visual communication have certainly crossed paths.

In the past I always identified myself as a journalist, photojournalist or visual journalist. Recently, I finished a project with journalist Kit Gillet that received some media attention. In newspapers and press releases I was reading things like “… documentary makers Jonah Kessel and Kit Gillet found …” I was like “Wow, now I’m a documentary maker. That’s a bit different.”

We made an interactive package for the Asia Society that included a three-part video series, two still slideshows and a digital tour of our subject. Given that you watch the three films sequentially it does follow more of what we might recognize as documentary film style. While I won’t decide if its a documentary, news clip or something completely different, this gray area is certainly a sign of converging media and the converged journalist. So — now the question is: Why does all this matter? Who cares if you are a documentary film maker, video journalist or a photographer?

In my mind, the answer has three parts.

1. AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF MEDIA: I think people will perceive things differently if they hit play thinking they are watching a short documentary film vs. a news clip. Perhaps people watch news clip thinking the content is unbiased, or perhaps they watch a documentary knowing that the film makers invested so much time on the subject, they have gained intricate knowledge that a typical journalist on a deadline probably couldn’t get. Regardless of how they receive the information, there is a culture shift in perception, be it a subconscious one.
2. PHOTOGRAPHER’S IDENTITY: This culture shift also effects how we shoot. Does how you identify yourself impact your photography? I believe if you set into a project as a documentarian you might get a different result than if you were a journalist. In the documentary world, its total fine to take an angle (ala Michael Moore) and go with it. You might have a point and then go and (attempt to) prove it where a journalist would go and record what has happened and then let the audience decide what to take away from it. By calling yourself a documentary maker are you taking more control of the audience?
3. SUBJECT, PHOTOGRAPHER COMMUNICATION: You will get different types of interviews and quotes if you approach your subject and tell them you are a journalist rather than a documentary maker. During this project, almost all of our sources were found by walking around talking to strangers over and over. Since we were making the films for the Asia Society, a nonprofit organization — we always made it clear we were working for an educational institute and not a newspaper. However, sometimes we introduced ourselves as journalists (mostly out of habit) and subjects would almost always become more shut off and more apprehensive about their words or talking to us at all. When we introduced ourselves as film makers, they were much more open to talking to us candidly.

If our work ends up in this gray area it also transplants us as photographers into a gray area with clear costs and benefits. As DSLR shooters we can end up here pretty easily and a lot of it has to do with the technology we use. These films were shot with (what I would call) a very, very basic kit:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
• Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
• Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
• Rode VideoMic: On Camera Directional Video Condenser Microphone
• 3 meter nameless Chinese jib
• HDV-Z96 LED light

With this small kit and a laptop you can produce a feature film or a 2-minute news clip using the same technology. And in this case our product was a (combined) 18-minute feature, or 3-part Web video series. This project started ages ago, with a single photograph I took of a friend’s former neighborhood after it had been half-demolished. From a photograph, to a photo series, to some video clips, to a video, to a video series, to an interactive package — the content developed over the course of a year. It was just a project in my back pocket for a long time. When the Asia Society jumped on board I grabbed friend and journalist Kit Gillet and we began forming content into what you are seeing here.

It’s obviously ok to be both a journalist and a documentary film maker. Or for that matter a photographer, videographer and a sword-swallowing-carnie: but given technologie’s impact on what we do, I think it’s worth a thought early in the process — it might change what you create.

– To see the greater project “The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs” click here.

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After some long delays, I now present to you — The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs. About the movies:

In the face of China’s rapid modernization, the world’s most populous country is struggling to preserve its cultural heritage, and nowhere is this more visible than in the ancient alleyways and courtyards of Beijing.

Once a ubiquitous feature of Beijing, the hutongs are more than simply housing; they are actually a way of life. Entire families live in single, crowded courtyards, often with no bathrooms. Yet despite the lack of modern amenities, the communal aspect to life within the hutongs means that few want to leave – even as their neighbourhoods are being demolished and redeveloped. UNESCO estimates that more than 88 percent of the city’s old residential quarters are already gone, most torn down in the last three decades.

In a three-part series, filmmakers Jonah Kessel and Kit Gillet explore the vanishing world of Beijing’s hutongs, the realities of life within the narrow streets, and the future for these culturally-irreplaceable areas of China’s capital.

Now, for those interested — some backstory:

This project started ages ago (first mentioned on this blog, May 2, 2010), with a single photograph I took of a friend’s former neighborhood after it had been half-demolished. From a photograph, to a photo series, to some video clips, to a video, to a video series, to an interactive package the content developed over the course of a year and grew like a snowball falling down a hill. While Coverage of the hutong issue had been widespread in the East and the West, I was often offended at the quality of some of the journalism I was seeing. Especially since these stories were about the area where I have been living in for almost two years. I saw things in Western newspapers that said things like “The Chinese government wants to Disney-fy Gulou.” I was like … well, that type of editorializing doesn’t help tell people what’s going on. However, particularly the multimedia I had seen produced in a bilingual format seemed to be leaving out the most important part of the story – the residents.

I wanted to give them a voice — but I also wanted to give the voice of their reality. The area of concern here has tremendous cultural value; however, the living conditions of the area are not that of a modern society. The real question is: how can you modernize at such a rapid pace and preserve your culture. In answering that question there are a couple agendas that you can see:

• You have the developers and the officials who seem to be holding hands down the aisle — they have a clear agenda to create revenue – quickly. However, the government does invest millions of RMB ever year into the old city. But how that money is spent is an elusive and questionable topic.
• Then you have the residents. Most of their agendas are to have better living conditions. They want hot water, kitchens and indoor toilets. They want access to emergency vehicles. They want homes which contain heat so they don’t have to rely on coal throughout Beijing’s harsh winters. However, they do hold dear the communal atmosphere of the hutongs.
• Then you have conservationists, whose agenda is to keep old Beijing — real. However, they do understand the reality of the residents. Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Agency’s (CHP) approach to educate the population on the value of the culturally significant area has been very effective. They have gained media attention on the subject which puts more pressure on the government, developers and officials to think twice before gentrifying Gulou.

So I began shooting and filming attempting to give all parties involved a voice, while keeping my opinion out. We talked to current residents, past hutong residents, city planners, professors, activists, NGOs – even lawayers who deal with displacement cases.

As a foreigner living in China, it can be hard to really understand how complex issues can be, especially with such an enormous population. And I think over population is the real key to this problem. There isn’t enough space. For example, if you want to have an indoor toilet in your house, someone will have to move out. And for most of the residents living there, moving isn’t financially feasible.

The hutong issue goes far beyond Beijing. How Beijing deals with the problem will be a model for other cities in China. This problem exists throughout the country and the developing world. When you think about how to deal with the problem, a couple options jump out right away:

Should the government Renovate, Redevelop or gentrify? We found almost all Beijingers were against gentrification. Person after person told us how much they disliked fake hutongs and particularly the Qianmen area. Residents were also against redevelopment, but at the same time don’t have money to renovate. Many felt economically trapped in the hutongs. They want better living conditions but feel powerless unless the government relocates and compensates them.

Compensation was another big issue. With rising real estate prices, the compensation isn’t enough and residents are often forced to move to areas far outside the city center. Ten years ago, the money was enough, but now residents feel cheated.

This project was a large collaboration and the community really got behind it. Journalist Kit Gillet and myself spent hundreds of hours trying to piece this together along with the Asia Society who financed and coproduced the project with us. However, without the help of others it wouldn’t have been possible — including music by the unfathomably talented composer and guzheng player Wu Fei, historic imagery from Beijing Postcards, audio post production work by Jules Ambroisine and countless hours of translation work by Ami Li and Xiaoming Wei. Beyond this tremendous support from the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP) and Beijingers of all kinds, sizes and sorts made this possible.

The greater project includes three videos, a digital hutong tour, two slideshows and an interactive package that can be viewed here.

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Sadly today’s event “The Fate of Old Beijing: A Vanishing World Documentary Screening & Dialog” has been canceled or perhaps censored. This event has come during a politically sensitive time and although I don’t have all the details, local press has been proving us with some information from some unknown sources.

Today was suppoesed to be a screening of the hutong project I’ve been working on:

On Saturday, March 19 I am excited to present a long term project I’ve been working on with journalist Kit Gilllet. This project, co-produced with the Asia Society will be published shortly at their site at which time I will go into more detail on the subject and filming; however, for those in Beijing there will be a live screening next week.

Global Times picked up the event with a feature last Monday:

Two Western journalists, annoyed by what they saw as sensational and sloppy reporting about the destruction of Beijing’s old neighborhoods, have shot a series of three short videos intended to add nuance to the issue. The resulting project, A Vanishing World, portrays the dilemmas faced by residents who are reluctant to leave their old single-story courtyard homes, but at the same time crave conveniences such as modern heating, hot water, and indoor toilets.

Unfortunately, the event was canceled after similar articles appeared in both Chinese and English press. The organizers of the event said:

“There was too little time and we rushed too much with the planning,” the center’s PR manager Wu Qiong told the Global Times Wednesday.

Later in the week, Global Times reported some other details:

“After announcing the event, the police requested a review of the film before it could be shown to the public. The police will not give an answer (yes or no) in the current time frame for Saturday’s screening,” the source told the Global Times by e-mail. “The films take on a neutral perspective, with the filmmakers giving a voice to many parties. What those parties say may or may not be what the government wants published or presented without their opinion interjected,” the source said.

While I am sad this event was canceled as it functioned as an educational forum, the full project which includes more media will be published this week on the Asia Society’s Web site.

I hope all who could not attend today’s event will help share the films next week upon release.

Cheers,

Jonah

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As a freelancer I often find myself chasing ideas before they become stories. A lot of these ideas pop up just from simply living and working in China.

Recently I noticed that a lot of my favorite Xiaochis (小吃 ) were increasing their food prices. For those not in China, a Xiaochi literally means “small eats,” refering to hole-in-the wall restaurants often run by mom and pop. I eat at these type of establishments frequently – both because I like them and also because its a fantastic way to save money. Eight steamed dumplings in my hutong normally cost RMB 4 (about 61 cents). However, last week I noticed there price went up to RMB 6.

While I’m still happy to give my local neighbors RMB 6 (91 cents) for a meal — percentage-wise it is in fact a huge increase in price. This got me thinking about photographing food in Beijing and specifically raised the question — how on earth do you feed a city of 22 million people? Where does the food come from, and what would one of these large food markets look like?

After working primarily with video as of late (3 more videos on there way soon!), last night I got a burst of motivated to go take some still photographs at one of the world’s largest wholesale food markets — officially known as Xinfadi Agri-product Wholesale Market, but known locally simply as Xinfadi.

Above, is this massive market which looks like a city itself.

I’d been by this market once before but hadn’t really spent time there when it was at its busiest. Interestingly enough, this market is most crowded at around 4:00 am; when restaurants, families and markets travel to the far south of Beijing to get their supplies from what appears to be a self-sustained city filled with produce, fruit, meats and grains. Xinfadi never sleeps: according to state-run China Daily the market is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is also said to supply up to 70 percent of Beijing’s vegetables and 80 percent of its fruit.

So — I figured the best time to go was at 4am. Fortunately for me, it (or perhaps the state) decided it would be the best time for Beijing’s first snow of the year. I decided that was not going to stop me and so I jumped in a cab to travel an hour south of the city and started snooping around.

The maze of food spreads in all directions. In the dark, it has a seemingly shady characteristic — as if everyone was doing something illicit. In dark corners, behind trucks, vendors and customers slyly exchanged large stacks of bills. People whisper as they bargain so as not to let other customers know the price they are getting.

Some vendors were asleep in their vans, while others chop endless piles of meat. In short, this is how Beijing feeds 22 million people.

After collected these images and also some video — its clear there is a story here, whether it is on the city of produce itself or rising food prices.

We’ll see if what started as me chasing an idea, can turn into a story … stay tuned.

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The first of December marks the end of a 1.5-year-long contract with China Daily, China’s National English Language newspaper.

While China Daily provided me with some great opportunities I’m very excited to move on from this position and this organization to pursue independent projects. I will continue to be based out of Beijing working as a freelancer with video, still photography and design.

Although its a little scary jumping into the freelance network in a city of 20 million people, my independence from China Daily allows me to work with a greater range of clients from all over the world. Working on my own terms will also allow me to travel more and pursue some longer term projects that require extended periods of time and geographic mobility.

When I first graduated college I spent some time as a freelancer, scrapping for work wherever I could. Years later, it feels funny going back. Although I have work already rolling in, in some way it takes a little bit of getting used to being – self employed and not unemployed.

I know a large network of freelancers here in China and throughout the United States. Looking at the difference between this freelance group and my friends who are staffers at newspapers is pretty interesting. As a large generalization, the general happiness level of my freelance friends seems to be higher than that of the newspaper staffers. Although, its pretty clear that the pockets of the staffers are deeper.

When you are freelance, you don’t have to worry about layoffs … When you are freelance, you don’t have to worry about furloughs … However, as a staffer you don’t have to worry about money coming in, health insurance or finding a place to publish stories and photos.

There are clear benefits to both sides — however, the glim shadow of the newspaper industry’s state seems to be hanging over the staffers’ heads a little more than that of the freelancers. Although to be fair — both sides are clearly effected by the obvious economical and identity problems going on in the news industry.

I think to avoid the newsroom, you have to ask yourself — how unstable are you willing to be? If a paycheck from a job comes in 6-months late, can you still pay rent? And perhaps most importantly, are you self motivated enough to play the freelance game, constantly pitching stories and getting strung along by potential clients that don’t always materialize.

While I don’t have an answer to some of these questions — at this moment I’ve switched to the freelance side after five years as a full time staffer at different news organizations. If (and hopefully when) the right staff job comes along, I’ll jump back; however, at this moment in time — some freedom from a staff job and the Chinese media system is pretty exciting.

Some early observations

WHO TO PITCH TO: While this might seem obvious, for photographers it can be a bit tricky. Writers and reporters can pitch stories directly to editors. However, for photographers — we often find ourselves pitching to reporters, who in turn pitch to editors. While photo essays can sell and run independently, for the most part, assignments must include a story. Once you become a stringer for specific organizations, work will come to you — however, if you just sat around waiting for that to happen you would be wasting time you otherwise could be finding work. This is one reason why video production can be a little easier. I can pitch stories directly and complete the entire project independently.

WHERE TO WORK: There seems to be three options here: (1) Work at home (2) Rent an office (3) Work in coffee shops. After one week I’m finding working at home is more productive; however, there are distractions everywhere. Having a distinct environment to work in seems important — however, if your home and work environment become one, you might always feel like you are working — or worse, never work. The option of renting an office seems more healthy and productive but your monthly expenses sky rockets. I’ve been experimenting with coffee shops, which seems ok once you find the right one. Friend, neighbor and freelance writer Mitch Moxley works out of coffee shops daily. He says, he spends about 70 RMB (10 USD) a day on coffee. While this isn’t cheap, it is cheaper than renting office space — and it is catered.

UPDATING YOUR BIO: Whenever you move on from a job you need to update your resume. However, in this digital age its not as simple as updating one document. Photographers and journalists have bios all over the place. Every social media outlet (I think looking at at least 20 web sites) I subscribe to needs to be updated, Web sites, blogs and professional associations. While this isn’t that big of a deal, it is something different than what people did years ago.

TRANSFER FEES: For a couple clients who are based in Asia, I’ve been extremely amazed at what people charge for international electronic payment. In some cases for small jobs, I’ve found the wire fee is almost 20% of the total payment. This is tricky, because 80% is surely better than 0%, however, at a certain point it doesn’t make sense to even take money in this form. I have bank accounts in China and the US — but keeping too much money in China can be a problem for legal reasons here — in the case you need to leave the country.

WHEN TO TAKE A JOB: Should a freelancer take any job? While the bottom line plays a big factor in this, I will repeat advice photographer Corey Rich once gave me. When asked when he decides to take a job or not Corey responded (paraphrasing): To take a job it must meet two out of three criteria. The job has to either:

• (1) Be something I really want to do, or something I really want to photograph.
• (2) The job has to be with good people — who I would like to hang out with.
• (3) The job has to pay a shit load of money.

If it doesn’t meet two out of three of those criteria, he wouldn’t take the job. I think this is great advice that would certainly make your life meaningful and more fun and something all freelancers should aspire to.

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Today at an “exclusive interview” with Yao Ming, I realized how short I am.

Although I’ve seen him on television before, you really feel small when you stand next to a 7 ft 6 in man trying to take his picture. For reference I am 5 ft 5 in. If your unfamiliar with Yao Ming, Wikipedia tells us:

Yao Ming (Chinese: 姚明; pinyin: Yáo Míng; born September 12, 1980) is a professional basketball player who plays for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is currently the tallest player in the NBA, at 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in).

Although he is very famous in the United States, he is a pop icon in China, and a very positive symbol. The interview was 30 minutes long. At the end, I got about 45 seconds to take a portrait (the shot above). I was fortunate to have a mobile lighting kit with me today (the interview was filmed for chinadaily.com.cn).

The shot above was taken with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM (at f=1.2). I can’t say enough good things about this lens and its ability to give you raser sharp accuracy with depth-of-field.

If you notice, in this shot I’m actually looking down at the man who is more than 2-feet taller than me. Although I thought about bringing a ladder, it didn’t fit into my backpack. Friend @beijingdaze recommended:

Since I didn’t have a chainsaw or bat with me I ended up climbing the wall of the hotel room we were in, until I had a foothold high enough to shoot down on Yao Ming, allowing me to catch one of his eyes in focus (which his PR people thought was very entertaining), in my allotted 45 seconds for the portrait (not much time to screw up).

The other 30 minutes proceeding the above portrait, I spent watching the interview and shooting. However, there is two cameras rolling which makes it pretty hard to navigate the room without getting in their frames. On top of that — in this situation, you are really just shooting a man sitting in a chair (be it, a very large man).

Since the cameras were rolling, it also stops you from using a flash. As a self admitted ISO snob, this could be a problem. For this interview, I managed to stay under 400 ISO, and given the Canon 5D Mark II’s sensor, it didn’t produce much grain. The lights also produce some very warm temperatures in the film representation. Most images all had to be bumped down to around k=2800.

The images from the rest of the interview, mostly are tight frames (like the two above) of his head, in an attempt to find some emotion in a relatively emotionless room.

You may have noticed at the top of this post, I quoted the words “exclusive interview.” This was an interesting lesson I learned today. I’ve noticed the Chinese use this term differently for a long time, but today it really clicked what the difference is. In the west, we consider an exclusive interview an interview that no one else gets. However, in China — it only means that you (your media organization) is the only one in the room at the time. So even if the subject gives 15 interviews on the same subject that day, if you were the only one there — it’s exclusive. Non-exclusive interviews refer to those that happen at press conferences.

Surely the funniest part of the shoot was while we were packing up. One of the camera man asked me if I thought it would be ok, if he asked Yao Ming for a photo. I replied something simple like “it probably wouldn’t be very professional, and I wouldn’t do it.” But sure enough, about 2-minutes later I’m taking the China Daily staff’s picture with Yao. He’s standing about .5 feet behind the group, and still towers over them. Their expressions are priceless.

On a final note, I wanted to point out that Yao Ming is actually quite the philanthropist (unlike Tourise). The Yao Ming Foundation helps the lives of children in the U.S. and China. Check out his official NBA page here, his foundation’s page here and his fan page here to get an idea of the scope of Yao Ming’s reach.

Update: Thursday, July 21, 10:17 am

At the request of friend @sueannetay, author of Shanghai Street Stories, I’ve added a shot where you can see his legs. In the photo above you actually get an idea of how big he is — the person doing the interview is not a small guy; however, next to Yao he looks miniature.

FINDING CREATIVE INSPIRATION FOR PORTRAITS

Last week I took a portrait of revolutionary Chinese poet, artist and photographer Zhai Yongming 翟永明. Although hard to tell from the photograph above Yongming is 55-years-old. Yongming was sent away during the cultural revolution to “learn from peasants” by doing manual labor. When she came back to city life in 1976 her poetry, “inspired by the breakthroughs that were taking place in literature in the early post-Mao period,” became known as China’s first feminist writings. She is now an icon of culture.

Before I take a portrait I always spend some time researching the subject. I look for other portraits that have been taken and information on the history of the subject. Any bit of information that can help you:

• (a) Understand where the person is coming from and hopefully connect with them.
• (b) Help give you an insight into something creative you might be able to do with the frame, light or subject.

When researching Zhai Yongming I learned the literal translation of her name means “eternal light,” however, her poetry is of a darker nature. Poetry International Web writes:

Although her name means “eternal light”, Zhai Yongming is primarily a poet of inner psychological darkness and the best way to read her is in utter gloom. At the heart of Zhai Yongming’s poetry is a certain idea of femininity. In a statement made in 1986, Zhai declared that she wished to be a poet rather than a poetess, but that in her life she was first and foremost a woman. According to traditional Chinese thought, the feminine or yin principle is characterized by darkness, water and the spectral light of the moon. All these images are on prominent display in Zhai’s work.

I took the portrait trying to show dark shadows representing her work, and a slightly ethereal brighter light, representing her name. The shot above was photographed with a Canon EF 50 mm F1.2L USM lens at f/1.2. The focal plane falls right on the inside of her eye, creating a large bokeh on both sides of the subject. The bokeh falling on the soft light gives that slightly ethereal look.

China Daily reporter Chitralekha Basu wrote a nice story on Yongming in today’s China Daily. Read her story here.

DIRECT TRANSLATION AND PORTRAITURE

The above example brings up a greater point about photographing people whose names have a direct translation. While the name “Jon” has historical meaning, the stories and etymology associated with it can’t necessarily be captured by using light, an object or finding an environment or interesting frame that helps tell the person’s story.

This creates a lot of possibilities for photographing many Chinese people or even people with biblical names. My name, Jonah — according to the online etymology dictionary means:

Jonah: masc. proper name, biblical prophet, from L.L. Jonas, from Gk. Ionas, from Heb. Yonah, lit. “dove, pigeon.”

This could give a photographer a couple ideas into making a creative portrait with a subject with my name.

Here’s a couple examples of other methods I’ve used used to take creative portraits, when people’s names don’t mean “eternal light” or “dove.” More portraits at my site here.

This is part of a greater photo essay called The Will to Live, see essay here.

This is part of a greater photo essay called Isolation in Desolation, see essay here.

This is part III of A busy month behind the camera: Planes, trains, automobiles, donkeys, police cars and tuktuks, a travel log that details the month of April where I traveled through Xi’an (central China), Shanghai (East China) and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (far North China).

This post brings you to Inner Mongolia for an article on desertification with China Daily reporter Daniel Chinoy, who I’ve worked with on a couple assignments now. In this part of China, degraded grasslands, nearby deserts and strong wings across what used to be rolling green hills, are some of the causes which create an effect called desertification. Sands are growing at such an alarming rate — they are making the land unfarmable and unlivable. Roughly 28 percent of China is now classified as desert. That’s an area of about 2.6 million square kilometers, or about seven times the size of Germany.

We followed Shanghai Roots & Shoots, Jane Goodall’s NGO, in a tree planting program. Trees help create a stable top soil which can stop the sands from spreading. The NGO’s “Million Tree Project” aims at both actual tree planting and adult and child education.

The most interesting part of the trip came when we decided to walk aimlessly into the dessert — in attempt to see for ourselves the spreading desert. The photo below is a 360 degree, 11 photo (242 megapixel) stitch of a high point I found in the desert. Click here or on the photo for a larger version. This is a bit confusing. The mound on the left side of the photo is the same mound on the right. However, the perspective on the right mound is facing South, while the perspective of the left mound is facing North. This enormous area was once completely covered with grass. Farmers lived here for thousands of years in a sustainable way. Now, you can see — this land is hardly farmable. However, if you look to the right hand side of the photo you can see five small silhouettes of people. These are Mongolian farmers.

Lessons from getting into a drinking
match with Mongolian farmers

I saw these farmers in the distance — and we decided to approach them to find out what they were doing out in the middle of nowhere. Turns out, this was their land. Growing up, their families farmed this land. They had herds of sheep and cattle that used to graze here. Coincidently, when we found them — they were also planting trees in attempt to gain their land back. These farmers were doing this independently under no government organization, program or NGO. They were sustenance farmers — only farming to live. Now, they are planting trees to live. However, the effects of tree planting are not quick. Ecologists with us said it might take over a decade to see the effects of their efforts.

The woman at the top of this post was one of these farmers. We spent the afternoon with the farmers watching them plant trees in sand. Since we had walked hours to get into the desert, the farmers offered us a ride back on their donkey cart, which than turned into an offer to come back to their house for some drinks. While debating if we should take up their offer of Mongolian hospitality, freelance photojournalist Sean Gallagher who was with us said with his most polite British accent, “well, we could go and have just one … it might be rude to say no.” These were Sean’s famous last sober words.

45 minutes later, we are in a stone house sitting at a table with 5 Mongols backed with pictures of Mao and Genghis Khan being taught how to pronounce the Mongolian word for “bottoms up.” Possibly spelled “Эрүүл мэндийн төлөө” and pronounced “Hundter,” this is not a friendly word like “cheers.” This word is for starting and finishing whatever is in your glass; it is far from a casual drinking idiom. In Chinese they say Gan bei 干杯 (“dry the cup”) and in English we might say “bottoms up.”

While this might not be a big deal if you were drinking beer, it is a big deal when you are drinking unlabeled, homemade Baijiu 白酒 served in a former vinegar bottle that would be filled up instantly if it were not full. If you’ve never had Baijiu, it tastes a little like gasoline mixed with Jägermeister and grappa. It is by far the most popular alcoholic drink in China and is pretty much everywhere in some form or another. If the above description didn’t make you want to throw up, drinking it surely will. Sean’s polite gesture to have one drink turned into about 10-15 from what we can all remember. Although this experience was very painful the next day, we did get some great stories out of the Mongolians about life in the desert today — and how different it was from their days growing up here.

The two lessons to take away from this hangover are:
1) Sometimes to get your story — you have to drink local booze and hope you don’t go blind.
2) No American or Englishman will ever out drink a Mongolian farmer.

Vanishing Grasslands: China’s Growing Sands

In four days in Inner Mongolia I took about 700 pictures and recorded about 20 GB worth of video. About 6 photos will be used next week in China Daily and a mixed media project will go to chinadaily.com.cn. You can see an early preview of the video here now as well as an extended edit of photos. This is a good example to show how much work we produce versus how much work is actually published. You can tell which photos I like or thought were the best by which ones appear in the video below. If your in China, and not using a VPN, the YouTube video won’t show up below. You can see the Quicktime version here).

I’ve just donated this media (photos and video) to Roots & Shoots. The video is also being turned into a 30 second spot ad for Roots & Shoots for television and iTouch media. So look out — you might be seeing a mini-version in Chinese cabs soon.

Last week I answered some questions for journalist Steve Buttry on my thoughts on photojournalism and entrepreneurship. I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of Steve’s lectures a couple years back in Reno and have kept in touch with him through Twitter since. Recently, Steve was recognized as Editor & Publisher’s 2010 Editor of the Year for:

“his leadership in transforming the newsroom not simply to adapt new technology to newsgathering, but to engage the community in deeper ways reflecting the two-way communication that is today’s media reality.

Steve’s motivation and direction in journalism is an exciting breath of fresh air and something to keep your eye on in the future. While many in the industry are stuck in the doom and gloom mentality, Steve is pushing creativity and innovation in technology to make “the complete community connection.” You can (and should) read about Steve’s ideas in his Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection as well as his call for a mobile-first strategy. Steve recently left Gazette Communications and started a new path as the Director of Community Engagement of TBD.com, Jim Brady’s digital local news operation covering the Washington area for Allbritton Communications. This new startup is right up my alley and I’m excited to watch how things play out for them. From what I can gather, they seem to have the right attitude toward navigating today’s media environment. This attitude is even symbolic in the new Web site’s recently decided name “TBD.com.” They had trouble finding a name for many months. Finally, they wrote on their site:

In a mixture of humor and frustration, Editor Erik Wemple began signing his emails, “Editor, TBD.com.”

Before long, we realized Erik had stumbled upon the perfect name for our site. The traditional news culture is that you don’t publish or broadcast a story until all the questions are answered, all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. The evening newscast or morning newspaper is presented as a finished product, the culmination of a day’s work for the news staff.

But TBD will never be a finished product. On the web, on mobile devices and on our 24-hours cable news channel, we’ll always be in motion: constantly updating, improving and evolving; seeking more details, reaction or community conversation. We’ll be a place you visit to watch the news unfold in real time.

Traditional journalism says you answer the five W’s in a story: Who? What? When? Where? Why? We’ll answer them, but perhaps a couple at a time, with the rest TBD. We’ll be honest with our community about what we know and what we don’t know. We’ll tell you what questions we’re still pursuing and tell you how you can help us find the answers.

This attitude could break down barriers and walls which have separated journalists and readers since the Guttenberg. It should kick many journalists off the pedestals they sometimes stand on and could create a different type of news flow many newsrooms are striving for, but can’t break tradition enough to actually get it. Add a notion of new media story telling for a mobile and Web based audience and I’m sold. Who know’s, maybe they’ll even make Google Wave useful …

Advice, thoughts and ideas on global imagery

You can read Steve’s original entry here. Some people mentioned they thought it was a good read for aspiring photographers — with Steve’s permission, I’ve reposted the Q&A here. Steve’s questions are in bold and I am the regular type face.

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Jonah Kessel and Carmen Sisson discuss
entrepreneurship and photojournalism

April 28, 2010 by Steve Buttry
One of the classes I will be speaking to at the University of Iowa today is a “Global Images” course. I will be discussing changes in visual journalism in the digital age. Some of the differences I wanted to address are the necessities of multitasking, online promotion and entrepreneurship.

I asked two excellent visual journalists I know who are multitasking entrepreneurs with strong web sites, Jonah Kessel and Carmen Sisson.

Jonah is a designer and photojournalist who fits perfectly in the Global Images course. In the past year or two, he has worked in Algeria and China, and has produced stunning images from both countries. Carmen is a freelance journalist struggling to make a living with writing and photography in the South. Her Fearless Journalist blog about her travels and struggles is one of the most compelling personal chronicles about journalism that I have seen.

As a good blogger does, Carmen answered my questions with a blog post that I will let speak mostly for itself. She offers lots of practical career advice for photojournalists, like this nugget:

Learn to like numbers. There’s a tendency among freethinkers to eschew all things that smack of corporate ennui. But here’s the thing: Those boring spreadsheet columns ARE freedom. Take as many business classes as you can, even though they’re not required.

Jonah answered in an email, which he gave me permission to post here. It follows in full, lightly edited, with my questions in bold:

First, a general description of how I (Jonah) am navigating the visual business world today. I have two Web sites — a blog and a more commercial style showcase site (formerly kesselimaging.com, now merged into jonahkessel.com for SEO purposes).

My heart is in editorial photography and multimedia storytelling. However, to get by financially as well as stay employed as a staffer (and having benefits) my work spans an enormous range of visual fields including wedding photography, commercial food photography, videography for television and private businesses, Web and print design as well as commercial advertising including billboards or product photography. Last year I redesigned three newspapers including the China Daily (The National English Language Newspaper of the People’s Republic of China), La Voix de L’Oranie (a French daily tabloid in Algeria), and Sawt Al Gharb (an Arabic daily newspaper in Algeria). Previous to this I had designed and redesigned tabloids, broadsheets and magazines in the US.

• • •

What sort of traffic do you get from the site?

The following stats are not counting bots. Over the past 6-months my blog received over 5,000 unique visits with an average user visiting 7.63 pages. The average user spent 6:05 on the site. The commercial site received over 7,000 unique visits in the same time period. Some of these stats are a little deceiving because of Flash. One page might have 50 images on it, but the analytics will only count 1 click with the user only visiting 1 html page.

Of this traffic, 46.79 percent came from direct traffic, 43.71 percent came from referring sites and the remaining 10 percent came from search engines.

From the 43.71 percent of traffic coming from referring sites, 15 percent came from Twitter, 15 percent came from Facebook and another 15 percent came from other social media aggregators such as ShareThis, hootsuite, visualeditors.org, etc.

Does it generate freelance business for you, or do you sell any pictures from the site? Or is it mostly a place to showcase your portfolio for prospective employers?

Both the sites generate freelance business as well as help sell prints and licenses. Print sales are minimum; however, there is no effort involved in the print side – I’ve been using free automated services that print and ship. On an average month I’ll take in $100 with prints – on a good month $500.

The big goal is to sell licenses to use photos. One license, depending if it’s an editorial use or a commercial use, generates anywhere between $50 to $800. When I have images which I feel will be useful to an individual person or company I setup direct URLs for potential customers and send them links like : www.kesselimaging.com/stevebuttry.

I then monitor these pages individually to gage how much interest the potential buyer has in the images – or if they even look at all. Once that link is hit, and I haven’t given the link to anyone else I can track the visiting IP address to confirm if its who I’m trying to sell images to. If I then see 10 IP addresses on the images with 300 hits, I have a heads up on them that they are interested and can gauge a price. I’ve sold images to an enormous variety of people like this from commercial airliners to political parties to restaurants.

I also use this method for weddings. Before I left the US, about 15 percent of my income was coming from wedding parties. These days I’m busy enough I don’t have to do this anymore, but for years of being paid poorly in the US, this was a pretty helpful tool to gaining extra income to buy gear.

I also track IP addresses for potential employers. I’ll send links to interactive resumes, or even PDF resumes and can watch if potential employers click on them. Especially after college trying to get jobs, and applying to hundreds, I found that at least 75% of job offers never even looked.

Now, I rely heavily on my sites for potential employers. I believe it would almost be impossible to get a job in today’s market without having some type of Web presence for employers to see. The days of sending out photo books and portfolios are long gone – either people already know who you are and or you have to sell yourself online. In the past when I have been applying for jobs, I have designed entire Web sites specifically directed at a single potential employer that may include flash animation, html, video and photos.

Any insight you have on photojournalism today? Your observations on photojournalism and consumption of photography from your travels?

Well – that’s a broad question – here’s a couple thoughts:

ON GLOBAL MEDIA: On a global scale, we don’t all share the same definition of what the media is, or what its supposed to do. The role of journalism in China is very different to the role it has in Malaysia, Madagascar or the US. It’s completely normal for a journalist in Africa to only write articles when they are paid to do it directly from a source. It’s also normal for that same journalist to sell the story to three different newspapers with three different bylines. The openness of the media in Germany might make the US media look mild hitting at points. I’ve seen articles be translated 4 times before it goes to press. More than words can be lost in translation.

This can complicate global communication and create a lot of misunderstanding when a journalist reports from one society back to another often implementing their values onto another set of cultural beliefs.

As the globalization of mass media increases, I see more commonalities in the look of the media we consume. However, a wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf. There are very deep-rooted cultures behind the media we consume.

ON GLOBAL PHOTOGRAPHY: Although photography is highly subjective in nature, I used to believe we could all agree on “what a good picture was,” although we might disagree on “which the best picture was.” Working internationally I believe that thought isn’t so true. Our inherent cultural understanding of society which is heavily influenced by the environment which you grew up in makes this subjective nature even more subjective.

When I got to Algeria, newspapers would blur out almost all faces appearing in a photograph. When I asked “why?” I might get a response like “we think it looks better” or “we don’t wan’t to upset anyone.” There were no legal requirements to do this, but everyone was doing it. After months of discussions on what the public benefit might be to showing faces, we began showing them. After one newspaper did it, other newspapers started to follow. Often with 3rd world developmental journalism you try to make change on a micro level with the hope of others following suite to foster change on the greater media environment.

Family values in China are so strong — if you show a Chinese photo editor two photos, one with children in it and one without — they’ll choose the photo with kids in it the vast majority of the time. The value of representing youth here is so high it out weighs the visual importance of the other image.

A have lots of little examples of different tendencies in global visual communications. When someone dies, its very normal to use a black screen behind the copy. It would be extremely offensive to make a tight crop on a Chinese politician – yet, we would have no problem cropping Obama’s eyes out and using it 7-columns wide on a broadsheet (that would get you fired here if you did that with Hu). Insetting a person’s mug shot into a dark photo would imply that that person was dead in Asia (which is ok with me because I hate insetting photos). On a day of mourning, a newspaper in Asia might only print in black in white.

ON PHOTOJOURNALISM TODAY: Today’s world of photojournalism is fiercely competitive. I believe in today’s media environment a photographer needs a solid understanding in HTML as well as sound engineering, video shooting and editing and the ability to wield social media’s power in making content viral … and of course, just because you create images doesn’t mean you don’t need to know AP style and be able to write stories and cutlines. The rapidly growing mobile industry also means we have to think about many platforms. My new commercial site has different entrances for Flash users, HTML users, blind Internet users, mobile, iPhone and iPad users. If your not visible on a mobile device, your not visible enough.

Attitude may however be the most important thing. With converging media, you need to be able to work cross platform happily — I don’t know too many photographers that only shoot still pictures. You need to be able to collaborating with citizen journalist and other staffers – rather than compete with them. This isn’t an easy task. Having a positive attitude really helps with the challenges we face.

This is the continuation of a blog formerly hosted by PixelPost. The old blog contents are all still available here.
So why the massive overhaul(s)?

Welcome all to Nomadically Curious Visual Thoughts — Part II.
Its been years since I’ve actually had time to stop doing side projects for other people — and update my two Web sites. Although I don’t really have time now either, I stopped taking most outside Web projects so I could improve my photographic Web pressence. Along with this new blog, I’ve also launched a new commercial site at jonahkessel.com. This site takes the place of my former commercial site kesselimaging.com.

While both sites were in need of redesigns, for SEO purposes and to make a more congruent look and feel between the two, I merged the commercial site and the blog under the domain name jonahkessel.com.

New Photo Blog

The goal of my last blog was to be as simple as possible. All I wanted was one image to show at a time – forcing people to focus on the image with out bells, whistles or gadgets and widgets.

While I still believe in the same philosophy, it ended up being — too simple. While PixelPost does have many themes, none could meet my needs for multimedia. I also wanted to incorporate more of a visualization of time into the blog. Now, you will be able to see more than one post at a time on the landing page. The new comment system now allows for threads and a more visible discussions forum than the former blog.

I also wanted to expand the focus of the blog to include technical discussions on photography, gear and software. To help visualize these conversations a new platform was needed, and Wordpress became the best option.

The blog will continue to show you images from my work and my travels.

New Commercial Site

While the former photo blog functioned alright, the former kesselimaging.com did not. I put a lot of thought into the new site — mostly concerning load times, usability, searchability, upkeep, SEO, the mobile platform, multimedia and longevity of code. The former site — built independently in Flash using Action Script 2.0 was invisible to the mobile platform, loaded slow and in general had a pretty low Web profile.

Although most of you will see the new site in Flash, it has an HTML back — making it accessible to disabled users, and crawlable by bots, spiders or search engines. There is also an iPhone and iPad portal for Apple users that is not based in Flash, and allows me to share content while staying out of the war between Steve Jobs and Adobe.

The former site required all manual updating — there was no actual backend file management system. After browsing through hundreds of photographer’s Web sites I eventually decided to have a custom made site by Livebooks, a company whose reputation in the photo world has expanded tremendously in recent years. Although I designed the front end that you see on your computer, Livebooks has a visual backend that allows me to easily manage content quickly and remotely.

While I wouldn’t describe Livebooks as cheap or quick (it took about 4 months for my site to go up), I am happy with the editSuite (the backend) as well as the site and their customer service, despite some hickups along the way. Most importantly, looking into sustainability of the site — I’m very excited to have a company that is keeping up with technology to be hosting my work and finding solutions for a changing industry.