HOPEFUL from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

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China’s history and reputation with environmental protection is far from positive.

However, in my experience in China over the past four years I’ve seen a number of examples of the next generation of Chinese starting to take action to start fixing some of the problems their parents’ generation have caused.

China’s youth will inevitably face these problems in a much more serious way than their parents. Compared to two decades ago, there is tremendous pressure from the outside world for China’s economic development to not come at the expense of the environment. But now, the pressure also seems to be coming from within China.

In many ways, China’s environmental problems become the world’s environmental problems. For example, China’s growing deserts affect communities across oceans and continents. At the same time, the world’s environmental problems affect China. Changing global atmospheres are causing glaciers to melt faster than they ever have.

Friend and colleague Sean Gallagher’s recent work from the Tibetan Plateau can help show the seriousness of this issue.

In the end, we live in one world with one connected environment.

However, the world seems to point fingers at China telling them to clean up their act, without the same act being reciprocated from China. But on the ground in China, I see signs of reform. Even signs of hope. Recently, one came across my desk.

Friends of Nature, China’s oldest registered NGO approached me a few months back about making a short film about their battle with an environmental criminal in South China.

In the past, these battles were not so easy for NGOs to take part in. But now, a new amendment to a law is helping to even the tables.

The new amendment states:

“In instances where the public interest is threatened, such as environmental pollution or violations of consumers’ rights, relevant organs or social organizations may file suit at the People’s Courts.”

The effect of this amendment means NGOs in China can now sue private or state owned companies in a court of law. And Friends of Nature is one of the first to try.

Instead of writing open letters, protesting or creating public awareness campaigns, the NGO is taking a factory to court after they dumped 5,000 tons of chromium six into a reservoir outside a town. They are suing for human and environmental costs.

This chemical, made famous from Julia Roberts and Erin Brokovich has caused cancer rates in this small southern Chinese village to skyrocket. Cancer rates are up, fatality from cancer rates are up and cancer rates amongst youth are up — although a lot of the numbers seem to be elusive and debated.

When this happens in China, villages often become labeled “cancer villages.”

But a grassroots NGO is still extremely out weighed in a court of law compared to a factory with a budget. In fact, the NGO’s budget is next to nothing. Their lawyers, are probono. The research, is done by themselves. Collected evidence, also on their own initiative.

Much to the demise of the factory, the NGO has been making regular trips to the village to collect water samples, dirt samples, taking photographs and talking to villagers. The NGO expressed very serious fears about repercussions of their actions from the factory. They have been threatened physically and have been told to stay away.

While trying to keep out of harms way, they need to be on the scene. At the same time, they don’t want to jeopardize their case and are attempting to get the necessary information they need to make their case in court, without being harmed by factory thugs.

The equation became more interesting to me when I met the whistle blower who first started calling media and the NGO about what they knew.

When I met him, we were on the side of the road in a city about four hours East of Kunming. A black audi with tinted windows, whom ordinarily I might assume to be a politician rolled up. Both the NGO and my driver didn’t want to be seen with a foreigner in this place so I stayed in the car and watched as the man stepped out of his vehicle.

A short, bald man with a gold chain and sunglasses talked to my friend from the NGO about how to get into the cancer village and avoid the factories thugs. Funny enough, this man looked a bit like a hired thug. I wondered about his motivation behind his actions and asked my Chinese assistant to keep his ear out for details.

While I didn’t find out any concrete information, it did seem he had some personal reason for putting the factory in a bad light. It wasn’t out of a love for the environment, or from a hope to help the village — but something personal. Perhaps revenge? Perhaps economic gain? I’m not sure. But his purpose was certainly different than the NGOs, whose goal is to actual help this place and these people.

And this is how environmental reform in China is working today.

It takes a lot of ingredients in the pot, to make the right soup. A new law; a smart NGO; a lawyer willing to work for no money; an citizen with a shady motivation … maybe even a filmmaker looking to help spread the word … its a little different than reform in the West.

And right now, the law suit isn’t finished. But regardless of who wins or what the outcome is I do believe it is a win for China’s environment. It shows the government is comfortable giving more power to the people to help protect their own environment. The case shows ordinary Chinese citizens care about their environment. And it shows that change can happen.

And this is “hopeful.”

Jonah M. Kessel Showreel 2011: China, Tibet, Nepal, India, The Philippines from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

NOTE FORM JONAH: This was originally a guest blog, written for Camera Obscura. Read that post here.

For years, all I wanted to do was take pictures. I traveled to far off places and met strange looking strangers.

After I was hooked, I decided to go study visual journalism. While working on my degree I shot for a local paper as a stringer. I was tenacious and willing to do anything if people would pay me to take pictures. Back then I didn’t really care what I was taking pictures of. A baby, a bar or a blueberry: if people were paying me, I was shooting it.

After university, I applied for jobs at newspapers. Hundreds of them. Once in a great while, I would get an offer from a paper smaller than my college publication in someplace horrible for an embarrassingly low salary. But for the most part, I was happy when people bothered to even write me rejection letters. And there were many …

A Changing Landscape from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

When I finally got my first staff job at a newspaper, it wasn’t as a photographer. It was as a designer. But, I was one step closer.

As soon as a staff photog couldn’t make an assignment I would volunteer. On my day off, on the weekend, at 2 am — it didn’t matter. I pushed and pushed until I weaseled my way into the photo department from within the paper.

Things evolved from there. They got a little easier, but not easy. But my energy to shoot never really died down. Which, was good because for the next couple years I got work shooting, but I had to always do something else, too. I was a photography and design consultant; I was a creative director who infrequently was unleashed from a desk; I was an interactive art director who acted as a photo editor, but not so much as a photographer.

HOPEFUL from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

Some years later I look back on that period and find it funny that I was willing to do so many things — just to take pictures. Even more funny, now I make my living with a camera, shooting what I want to shoot, being where I want to be, and making enough money. But after all of those years fighting to shoot, now ironically, I don’t take that many pictures.

I’m not sure what it was: market demand, technology or me — but somehow, I became a video journalist.

I still shoot with a DSLR, but I’m not part of the daily grind. Although I’m freelance, I’m accredited with the New York Times who I work with regularly out of China where I’ve been for over three years. I do still take stills for newspapers and magazines but the large majority of my mind is obsessed with video now. I shoot editorial, nonprofit and commercially oriented videos.

Word Crimes from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

And I love it. I live it and breath it everyday. Literally, 7-days a week work and life are one thing.

Being a freelancer means every job represents me. This equates to never worrying about my hours I’m working, never accepting something that’s not up to my standard — and making sure my standard is always raising. Everything I do I critique to hell. As soon as I finish a project I think: if I were to do it again, this way would be a better way. Hindsight is always a lovely thing.

And although my primary medium is video, I actually still think of myself as a photographer — or when people make me label myself, I say visual journalist.

If You Want to go Far, Go Together from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

Working primarily as a video journalist in recent years has actually changed me as a still photographer. I’ve become much more calculated. I think about a still picture and think about the events that would happen before or after the frame. I think about what my subject is hearing. I think about the place the photo will be published as I’m taking the photo — a double-truck, a magazine page or maybe an advertisement. I think of still frames as part of a sequence that will be unseen by the audience. Growing up shooting, so much of it was natural, or instinct.

At the same time, my still photography impacts my video style. Some of my friends who are cameramen, DPs or were native to video tell me they can tell I was a still guy when they see my videos. This always makes me smile.

But maybe that makes sense. When I shoot video, I look at frames as still pictures. I set them up, how I would a still photograph but with the anticipation of movement.

Just Because: Tricycle Calligraphy 水书法器 from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

However, what I find the same about both of them, no matter what I’m doing: designing, photographing or making videos: I want my images to tell stories that matter. And while I worked myself to death getting to a place where I’m finally not doing one thing, in order to do another, I believe all of those places I was in, shaped my vision for what I’m doing now.

Some of those places included: Vermont, New Orleans, Oregon, Hawai’i, California, Nevada, New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, East Timor, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, France, Italy, China, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, India, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines — to name a few … for every good place I’ve landed, there’s been an equally difficult place. For every good job, there’s been an bad job.

But one thing I am certain of today: where I am now, is where I need to be. And that has been true all along the way.

A Stranger in Paris from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

In an over saturated media environment, in an era where digital cameras find homes in every single person’s pocket — our paths as photographers are not always straight just as our destinations are not always clear. Shooting pictures of houses for real estate ads, designing pages of parade photos on community newspapers or taking the 6th-grade basketball team’s portrait was never part of the plan, but all of those experiences got me to where I am now.

And while I’m not exactly sure where that is, I do know, I’m happy here, creating images and telling stories.

I also wonder, if my current obsession with video and past obsession with photography have actually converged into one thing or if they are morphing into something completely different.

The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

I get a couple emails a week from young photographers asking for advice. Funny enough, I don’t think I should be giving it. I’m just figuring it out as I go along. I was writing the same emails no so long ago. But I think the main thing they are missing, and I was too, was all those places we have to go to get what we wan’t shape us to be better photographers. My career as a designer, made me a better photographer. My career as a photographer, made me a better videographer. All of those careers shaped my way of storytelling today.

Looking back at the past decade of having a camera in my hand: I do know, where I am now, is where I need to be. That’s been the case the entire time. As photographer’s our paths aren’t exactly clear or easy. But if you trust in your passion, I believe you will find yourself someplace meaningful.

I have.

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NOTE FROM JONAH: This is Part II of a blog post looking at the viral video market. For Part I “Forgetting Italy” click here.

What’s Wrong with View?

Actually, nothing is wrong with you. But there is something wrong with views when measuring success in the so called viral video market.

About once a week or so, I get an email or call from someone who claims they want to make a “viral video.” So — what is a viral video? Our friends at Urban Dictionary tell us:

The term “viral video” refers to video clip content which gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or instant messages, blogs, and other media-sharing websites, such as YouTube. Viral videos are often humorous in nature and may range from televised comedy sketches such as Saturday Night Live’s Lazy Sunday to unintentionally-released amateur video clips like Star Wars Kid.

“I posted this vid of me and my friends lighting off fireworks in our pants and its all over the web man”! his video has become a ‘viral video’

However, the term has become so common I believe it actually now transcends popularity into a genre of video. Much like the music label “Indie” which technically stands for “independent.” But we all know, the Shins or Strokes aren’t really “independent” from anyone. However, they have a sound we all know as Indie.

People now have a type of video in mind when they say a viral video.

A Stranger in Paris from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

But when businesses call asking for these things, rarely to they actually understand what they are requesting. Furthermore, I don’t believe many small businesses or companies without dedicated social media teams understand what’s actually happening in the viral market.

So what is actually happening here?

To break this down, viral videos can largely be broken down into two categories: the real kind and the fake kind, although the result is often the same.

Type one: the real kind. These videos are usually taken by amateurs and often had no intention by the creator of ever being shown to anyone outside of their friends and family, ala Star Wars Kid, above. We know these videos all to well. These videos often feature life’s most embarrassing moments.

Then, there’s type two: the fake kind. These are commercially shot videos that become internet sensations — however, they were made with the intention of becoming popular in this online venue. Sometimes these videos truly gain popularity out of the merit of the content, such as PSY’s Gangnam Style. But more of the time, the popularity behind these videos isn’t exactly what it seems.

What is commonly misunderstood about these type two viral videos is that there are massive teams behind the videos making sure they get popular. Whether its tens, hundreds or thousands of people or simply robots — digital armies embedded and link to the videos across the internet like a gardner plants vegetables across a field. The videos are scattered through the internet on blogs, forums and social media outlets. And just like a garden requires water and sun, these videos require maintenance to make sure they become popular.

After the videos are seeded, teams of people and bots are deployed to post comments, responses and to hit the tactically relevant ‘like’ button — because after all, popularity is contagious.

This creates the perception of popularity — which sadly enough, can create “real” popularity. However, more of the time than not, the views you see on these videos are simply not accurate. But this might not matter. Now, the social media teams and PR agencies carrying out these tactics can show their clients how popular their videos are. And if their client is happy, perhaps they have been successful.

But I always ask: Has the target audience been saturated with the message of these video? Its hard to say.

Sometimes I try to check. I see a video which has been shot to look like an amateur shot it. There are menacing corporate tactics going on here. Then I see a couple hundred thousands views, so I look further.

Funny enough, often, the geographic region of viewers seems to frequently come from Asia or Russia (sometimes from places where the site is even banned …). Then I find results like: interesting that 300,000 people from Russia thought this video was interesting but only 5,000 in America. Or more suspiciously, like in the case of the pepsi video above, the geographic stats are turned off from the public. So, how setup is the video above?

Only the creator and company funding it actually know. Are they using other bottles? Or do they really just use Pepsi bottles?

A quick Google search for “get more views” will show you a lot of ways consumers can get views, without the resources of big businesses.

Twenty dollars will get you a quick hundred thousand views. Or, a free download or signup to a web site can get you repeated viewing of videos clearing caches in between each click.

With so much shadiness and straight up inaccuracy surrounding the analytics of views, its hard to imagine using it as a measure of success. From a video creators perspective — it simply negates the actual merit of the video and encourages quantity over quality. In addition, we can assume that popular videos have been maintained, like a garden, and therefor the views don’t really equate to quality in any way.

If You Want to go Far, Go Together from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

However, at the same time if a client wants 100,000 views, and they don’t care if they are from robots or from a room full of ladies named Vladlena, then that is their business. However, if they are paying you to make the videos, it can become your business as well.

I participated in a project from Italy a few months ago whose aim was to get the most views.

Quickly, the program ran into problems when some videos were jumping in views in the tens of thousands over night. After much lamenting, the contest changed mid way, although still used views as a methodology of measuring success. That contest ends at the end of September. My video (at the top of this page) is supposed to have 7000 views.

Sadly, I don’t really like the video too much. However, trying to reach my quota and inflate popularity I’ve had to promote it. This experimental program sheds light on this new dilema filmmakers can find themselves in, if value is placed on views. Another downfall of the analytics of online success. A tool to make filmmakers promote things they don’t like?

While this is confusing, there are a couple things we do know:

• (1) Views do not equate to actual people.
• (2) A high view count does not mean you have reached your target audience.
• (3) A high view count doesn’t mean you have made a good video.
• (4) The count is never actually accurate. Ever.

Sadly, the nascent market is in a place where organizers, corporate decision makers and even worse — the audience, might not fully understand what’s going on behind the curtain.

This will change as audiences become more hip to advertisers goals and tactics. But in the meantime, its good to be at least aware of what’s going on with this false indicator of success.

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Unlike a cooking recipe, there is no exact formula to making a video go viral. But leading up to Can’t Forget Italy I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I knew I had to participate in a “viral video contest.” The idea being, that the filmmakers involved in the contest would have to promote their films, giving the client more presence online (apparently a good way to find quasi-free marketers).

So what goes viral?

There’s always some constants: kittens, farting, ATM surveillance footage, cell phone footage of crime in the street. Or even better, the always popular “kittens farting in the background of a crime scene caught on ATM surveillance cameras.”

However, the possibility of me getting the “kittens farting in the background of a crime scene caught on ATM surveillance cameras” shot while on a 7-day shoot in Italy, seemed pretty unlikely. Furthermore, looking at videos that do go viral, its hard to put any type of sweeping generalizations on them. However, you can make sweeping generalizations about the videos that don’t go viral.

I’ve never seen a video go viral with a boring intro. If the first 10 seconds of a video doesn’t spark my interest, I will inevitably click off. This doesn’t mean it has to be fast paced, super exciting or something amazing: but it must be at least intriguing. Sometimes those other attributes will be enough to make me watch on; but in general, we can assume that a video must have a compelling intro to go viral.

Next in the list of generalizations of characteristics of videos that don’t go viral is — story.

Very, very rarely have I ever seen a video go viral that doesn’t have a compelling story. WIth the introduction of the 5D Mark II, and soon after that a range of DSLRs that shot HD video, a new generation of filmmakers was born, myself included. However, we also saw a boom in crap films.

Perhaps the most common thing we see is a song (frequently unlicensed) with a series of quasi-related images strong together (often from someone’s vacation). The images have been placed in a specific order but really, they are mostly interesting to the people in the video, their families and the people who made them. There’s a lot of these out there.

TimeScapes: Rapture 4K from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

One exception to this story rule, we often see is in timelapse videos. Relatively frequently compared to other viral videos, dramatic time lapse sequences with mechanized dolly and jib movements go viral. The Timescapes folks being a great example of this, but certainly others also exist. If you haven’t checked out their work, its pretty easy to see how and why it goes viral.

But unless you have extremely unique and amazing photography, a strong story is absolutely necessary. A kid who starts a cardboard arcade in his father’s garage, a guy who figured out how to make light from pepsi bottles or a politically fueled NGO video — people find them interesting.

Videos that draw wide-spread attention have to appeal to the masses. These are usually human interest stories — they have to do with people.

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

Beyond mass appeal, the subject, story and images have to be accessible. Extremely complicated videos can have cult followings and collect fair amounts of hits and views, but they won’t be for everyone.

Looking back to the Can’t Forget Italy experiment, trying to make a video go viral seemed even more difficult. We didn’t have a subject, we had no real story beyond ourselves (which is a bit painful to film unless you are a bit narcissistic) and we moved from place to place every couple hours. This isn’t to say one couldn’t make a nice video from the experience, but not one which would likely actually go “viral.”

In attempt to not have a vacation style video with quasi related images strung together, I tried to pull off a visual metaphor and found a person to talk to. However, its a bit of a stretch and to be honest, I find it medium, at best. Medium, in the scale of “interesting videos that you probably have no connection to,” that is.

The 4000+ views it has, I had to push pretty hard to get and based upon my list of things videos need to go viral, mine doesn’t have real potential. So while the experience in Italy was fun, I don’t think I’ll be remembering the video so much.

Perhaps the greater lesson from a filmmaker’s perspective here is we shouldn’t be trying to make our films go viral — we should be trying to make good films. Sometimes, you need to go all the way to Italy to find that out.

More on that and the false analytics of success, in part II of this post: What’s Wrong with View.

A Changing Landscape from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

NOTE FORM JONAH: Сайн байна уу? – Sain baina uu and hello! Welcome back! Summer has been comically busy for me this year, traveling and working in Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan, Qatar, Vermont, New York, Boston, Montreal, Mongolia and France (yes, all this summer). In that time I’ve seen amazing people and things and have been busy publishing over 10 different videos and articles. Thus, a hiatus in the blog became necessary. Life has returned to “normal” and regular blogging activity continues today — in Mongolia (proper).

NOTE FORM JONAH DOS: The product of this trip can be seen at nytimes.com “Though Not Yet Open, a Huge Mine Is Transforming Mongolia’s Landscape.” To see Part I of this post, click here.

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In between Ulan Bator and Khaboldg, there was nothing.

But the 22-hour drive gave me plenty of time to pontificate about the oddities of Mongolia.

Like, why are so many people’s steering wheels on the right hand side of the car (British style), but they still drive on the left hand side of the road (US style)? Or, why is 90 percent of the female population wearing tight spandex exercise pants, even in office buildings? Why is everyone interviewed on Mongolian TV news programs holding a baby? Do journalists require interview subjects to be in a nascent parenthood stage? Or maybe journalists hand out babies to the interview subjects to lighten the mood. Furthermore, when they dub Hollywood movies, why can’t they bother to take out the English voices underneath the Mongolian? Other countries seem to have figured this out …

After a dozen hours of driving without roads your derriere starts feeling the pain.

Trying to take my mind off the never-ending gyration of the car, I looked back at my Instagram pictures on my cell phone from Ulan Bator.

A pizza with BBQ chicken, teriyaki beef, peaches, mushrooms, olives, sweet peppers, mozzarella cheese and tomatoes slices sounded much less funny bouncing up and down in the van, knowing then that it had given me food poisoning. But I sure thought it was funny when I was ordering it. But the next picture of a typical Mongolian grocery store checkout magazine stand was funny enough to cheer me up. And then I see the Mongolian TV news anchor, who resembled Morbo, from Futurama enough to make me laugh out loud.

But really all I was doing was trying to keep my anticipation from killing me.

And after 22-hours of driving through the nothing, when I finally arrived my first impression was simply — “that’s it?”

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but this looked like a movie set from a Western that someone might tip over if they leaned over in the wrong place. However, what I did know, was the population of Khanbogd had more than tripled over the last decade, since the mine began digging. When you hear “it’s tripled!” You think of someplace thats kind of big. But here in the Gobi desert, this relatively undeveloped place is a major center for the entire region.

A decade ago, this town had barely 1000 people in it. Today, numbers vary but mine officials told us 7000 people live in and around the town. But, the mine employes an additional 10,000 people.

So the question is — what happens when a town’s population goes from 1,000 to nearly 20,000 people quickly.

Surprisingly, not as much as you’d think. This is both good and bad as the product of this trip, A Changing Landscape points out.

The towns people live in gers and small structures. They have electricity for parts of the day, but it is not available all day long. There are no paved roads and houses don’t have running water, plumbing or bathrooms. On the outskirts of town, facing away from the buildings were small shacks with holes in the ground, not equating to a squat toilet common throughout Asia. These “outhouse” type shacks, give the participant one of the more unusual and flat views, any pooper could ever ask for.

However, these are actually very common traits in Mongolia. Most towns, including communities on the outskirts of Ulan Batar where half of the country’s population lives, don’t have water or bathrooms at the household level. However, these other places aren’t sitting on top of the world’s biggest gold mine.

Even before production begins, Oyu Tolgoi makes up about 30 percent of all of Mongolia’s GDP. They’ve pored an astounding 6 billion dollars into getting the mine ready for production this fall. Profits from the gold and copper found within the will be enough to fuel the country’s economy into development. Underneath the camels that roam the outskirts of town is roughly 41 million pounds of copper and 21 million ounces of gold.

And here lies an interesting question: What responsibility does the mine have to the community, and country around it? Rio Tinto has an enormous investment into the area. They’ve created thousands of jobs and industry has been created around those jobs. Hence, the boom in Khaboldg.

Because the mine will be making millions, should they be improving conditions for the local population?

Oyu Tolgoi not only says yes, but they already are.

In town, I saw ambulances with Oyu Tolgoi logos on them. The dentist clinic was donated to the town. A community spokesperson in Ulan Bator told me “The company has contributed 30 million to community development,” already.

While I don’t think she was lying when she told me this, I’m still a little confused about where that money has gone. They told us about community programs on multiple levels, however, the profound resources of the mine didn’t seem to be trickling down to the community at a level which would bring the town even close to a modern standard. You might think that a 6 billion dollar investment would give you paved roads in the town around it. But the mine says, they had to make the dirt roads.

For various reasons mining has become a sensitive subject in Mongolia. Currently, resource nationalism tops the list of sensitive topics; however, environmental issues concerning water and dust are big. More issues surround health and cultural impacts.

This being the case, my interviews with Oyu Tolgoi were not only watched, but a bit orchestrated. The company did agree to talk to us, but based upon a pre approved set of questions that they thought wouldn’t interfere with the current political situation. I do understand the company’s need and right to do this, but it doesn’t exactly create a conversation, more of a mini PR conference where we hear quasi-rehearsed answers. However, after loosing official access to the mine earlier — these were far better than nothing.

Although the town isn’t anywhere close to the level of development of a western country, or even that of China, the people in the town have clearly seen a developmental difference. Most people in the town now have jobs either at the mine, or somehow connected the mine. Many people told us — they were happy with the mine. It was providing them with a life line.

Many others expressed health and environmental concerns. One primary concern was respiratory worries and dust. We noticed this driving around the town and the desert. Trucks make dust. The more trucks there are, the more dust you have. The population boom, employees commuting to the mine in buses and a general increase in trucks in the area made it seem like I was often driving through an explosion.

Making a video about this was relatively complicated. Visually, we didn’t have any access to the mine itself. Content wise, we didn’t have complete answers from the mine. But perhaps, my biggest goal was to not attack the mine and try to show the situation in a balanced manor, while not sugar coating the issues.

In some ways, it was actually hard not to blast the mine. Quote after quote of inflammatory remarks were cut trying to be fair.

With so many issues and trying to be fair to both sides — the video turned into longer piece in the video journalism realm. Many of my videos are in between 2 and 4 minutes, so putting together a nearly 8-minute piece was challenging. In fact, there was so much information the video was made four different times with completely different plots. One, highlighting China issues. Another, highlight cultural issues. Yet another, focusing on dust.

In the end, we cut some topics but tried to mix a variety of other issues surrounding the mine’s impact that could flow into a narrative. But this can be painful. I wonder when I’ll ever have a chance to show a stampeding flock of camels running through the Gobi desert? But, it just didn’t fit into the final script.

Even more challenging was keeping the pace up while maintaining interesting information during the 7+ minute video, working with a limited amount of footage. How often do you not click while watching videos online, after five minutes? Its tough. I’ll actually be impressed if you’ve read this far down the blog.

About 90% of the footage was shot in a 24 hour period of time, another 5% on the way to and from the town and the last 5% in Ulan Bator at Rio Tinto head quarters. But within a week, 14 interviews were transcribed, 6 different scripts were written and four versions were actually made. Then, another dozen tweaks between the video desk in New York and here in Beijing. This is not exactly, an over night process.

While I’m happy with the video, I feel like it is actual just part one. To really understand this story, we’ll have to go back in 5-years and see how the town is doing. Has dust increased? Has research been done to study respiratory illness in the area in correlation to an increase in dust from the mine? Has infrastructure finally improved? Do people have more money? Are herders still in the area?

Right now we know this mine is transforming Khanbold and with it — Mongolia. But many more questions are left unanswered.

- – To read Part I of this post Nothing in Mongolia click here.
- – To read the New York Times’ story “Though Not Yet Open, a Huge Mine Is Transforming Mongolia’s Landscape” click here.

A Changing Landscape from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

NOTE FORM JONAH: Сайн байна уу? – Sain baina uu and hello! Welcome back! Summer has been comically busy for me this year, traveling and working in Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan, Qatar, Vermont, New York, Boston, Montreal, Mongolia and France (yes, all this summer). In that time I’ve seen amazing people and things and have been busy publishing over 10 different videos and articles. Thus, a hiatus in the blog became necessary. Life has returned to “normal” and regular blogging activity continues today — in Mongolia (proper).

NOTE FORM JONAH DOS: The product of this trip can be seen at nytimes.com “Though Not Yet Open, a Huge Mine Is Transforming Mongolia’s Landscape.”

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I’ve driven across the United States. I’ve driven across Australia. And I’ve driven across Tibet.

While the Dakotas, outback and Himalaya can be pretty desolate, I’ve never seen so much nothing — until I drove across Mongolia.

You hear about rolling planes, the expansive grasslands and the Gobi Desert — the Mongolian Steppe! But what no one tells you is what’s really there — nothing. Now, don’t get me wrong: this nothing is a very beautiful nothing, but dont be confused — it really is Never Ending Story style nothing.

If you drive across the the Australian Outback or Death Valley you will find your occasional rest stop, town, gas station or community — be them few and far between.

However, 5-mintutes after leaving Ulan Batar on a road trip recently, the road stopped. And with it, so did civilization.

Let me rewind.

Late July, I flew to Mongolia to shoot a couple videos and a couple print stories. The main article I was pursing was for the New York Times. I was sent to investigate the effects of mining on a community in the South Gobi desert.

Before I went to Mongolia, I had a lead. Through some networking I was introduced to fellow Vermonter Sas Carey. Although Sas resides in Midlebury, Vermont she has been working in Mongolia for almost 2-decades. She started an NGO called Nomadicare which helps train the nomadic herders of Mongolia in both traditional Mongolian medicine, but also western medicine. Her organization has been providing both medical supplies and medical training throughout the countries most remote regions.

She works with the Reindeer people of the Taiga to the desert nomads of the Gobi Desert.

While in China, Sas invited me to come with her and see a community Nomadicare was helping in the South Gobi desert and at the same time — see the world’s largest undeveloped gold and copper mine, Oyu Tolgoi. This mine, owned by Australian mining giant Rio Tinto is found near the border of China. The mine has been in a preparation state for nearly a decade and is scheduled to go into production before the end of 2012.

While economic benefits of mining are clear for Mongolia — what is a little more elusive are the environmental, social and cultural impacts, especially for those closest to the mines.

The community closest to Oyu Tolgoi, Khambogd, has seen a boom like no place on earth, since the discovery of the untapped natural resource.

I went to look into these effects.

However, after arriving in Mongolia — through either a miscommunication or something different, Oyu Tolgoi decided they didn’t want us to see the mine. They told us, they needed more notice and invited us back for the official opening of the mine this fall. They did agree to answer some preaproved questions in Ulan Bator — but they would be no help in showing us the site.

More troubling then this — was access to Khambodg, the real subject of the story. While there is an airport at the site, the mine controls the air field. This meant, I had no way to get to Khambogd.

Unless, I were to drive.

Within 24-hours of loosing access to the mine, I had a driver, a translator and an old van ready to take what would be a 22-hour drive across Mongolia and the Gobi Desert to access the town. I’m all for a good car ride, road trip and adventure — so the 22-hour ride didn’t bother me so much. But what I didn’t know, was how little roads there would be in this country.

And this brings me back to — the nothing.

Turns out, there aren’t so many roads in Mongolia. 5-minutes after the car left Ulan Bator the driver turned off a paved road, onto a grass plane. It was clear, cars drive here, but I wouldn’t equate it to what I would consider a dirt road. The next 22-hours would be spent, without roads, signs and for the most part civilization.

Sometimes this meant driving across enormous grass planes. Other times it meant driving across rocks and dirt. But at no point for the entire drive was there a street sign and it seemed like gas stations were positioned to be the maximum distance anyone could possibly make it.

The topography of Mongolia is one of large expenses, followed by small hills, followed by enormous expanses. Where I was there was never a real mountain, forest — or any other any recognizable land mark. Even more interestingly, it turned out our driver had never made this journey, nor did he have a map or a compass.

For many hours one question rattled in my head: How on earth does he know where he’s going? All there was — was nothing. Not even a tree. We passed horses, camels and sheep. In the distance you might see a ger (yurt) or a man riding a horse at full speed across an enormous plane.

Truly, it was nothing. But unlike South Dakota or the Australian Outback, this nothing was epically beautiful. Being able to see in all directions to the horizon with almost no variation in the landscape is compellingly interesting.

So how did our driver know where to go?

The answer is: the nomads.

During the 22-hour drive across the country, we only saw 3-4 small villages. But, what we did see quasi-frequently were nomads. Sometimes they would be herding their animals. Othertimes they would be riding horses. And other times, we would see a felt covered ger in the distance and just drive over to it.

With no hills and almost no vegetation larger than a small rock, roads aren’t exactly necessary. If you see a tent in the distance, its easy enough to just straight tale it directly toward the tent.

When we saw a person or tent, the driver would just drive straight for them. When we reached the person, he would stop the car, jump out and proceed to walk directly into their tent. There was no knocking, or hesitation if anything private could be going on inside the tent. The driver would simply walk into the tent like he had lived there for 20 years.

Proceeding this, usually a man in a colorful suit would walk outside the tent and the two men would stare off into the expanse, chatting with the occasional finger point in some direction that looked just like the other directions.

Then, the driver would hop back in the car and we would drive, like the bird flies, into that direction.

We would then drive in a straight arrow in that direction, until we saw the next nomad and the process would repeat itself.

A much more social form of the GPS, this human-to-human directional system actually works in a country where people know the land, because they spend their lives wondering around.

I think there is a common misconception that nomads wonder aimlessly. To clear things up — Mongolian nomadic herders don’t. They might not put their tent in the same place overtime, but they have seasonal patterns they follow, based upon weather, their animals and available resources. These people, know their land.

Our human GPS system worked for the most part, although at some point we ended up driving into a mud pit, so deep the car bottomed out.

When something like this happens, the first thing I do is look at my phone. No service. Of course, there’s no service. There’s no people, no towns. Just nothing.

I think if AAA did exists in Mongolia, they would have difficulty finding people.

We tried pushing. We tried pulling. We tried putting wooden planks under the tires. But when a heavy van is in mud up to the bottom of the car and your tires are spinning — there’s not much you can do.

After becoming completely covered in mud, I walked away from the car and looked around.

Nothing.

No cell service, no people. Nothing, except a storm approaching.

When the storm hit, the rains came down, sinking the car deeper into the mud.

But then, as luck would have it — another car appeared in the distance. A truck. As it approached the driver walked outside and waved at the approaching vehicle.

As the truck came closer, it slowed. And slowed. And soon it slowed so much, it stopped. It too — was stuck.

However, our man power increased. We now had 8 Mongolian men, 1 Mongolian woman, an Englishman and an American.

The group collective went ankle deep in mud and tried to push the car as the loan female attempted to drive the car backwards out of the mud pit. No luck. The rain started to come down harder and everyone took shelter in their respective vehicles.

An hour past. Then another.

Looking into the distance in all directions, all I could see was rain — and nothing.

No one really seemed to mind though. It was seemingly a normal situation. Just business as usual for the 9 Mongolians.

Eventually a third car past and an exchange of words happened. They drove off. And within a couple hours another truck came. This one — of Russian origin. A powerful car big enough to pull our van out. And it did.

And once again, we were on our way — into the nothing.

One amazing thing about the plains is your ability to see so far away. Photographically this gives you the opportunity to see weather patterns so far away, it almost changes the perspective of everything’s size. Clouds can look mini, but once you put a person near them, they look huge.

While I certainly wouldn’t want to do it again, the 22-hour ass-numbing (literally) drive across the country is something I don’t regret.

Sometimes getting a story requires some less than comfortable situations. This was one of them and the ride back, perhaps even more so.

But 22-hours later, I arrived in the town of Khaboldg.

The blog picks up in this frontier town, next.

Just the Beginning: The Million Tree Project from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

NOTE FORM JONAH: Сайн байна уу? – Sain baina uu and hello! Welcome back! Summer has been comically busy for me this year, traveling and working in Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan, Qatar, Vermont, New York, Boston, Montreal, Mongolia and France (yes, all this summer). In that time I’ve seen amazing people and things and have been busy publishing over 10 different videos and articles. Thus, a hiatus in the blog became necessary. Life has returned to “normal” and regular blogging activity will begin again today — in Inner Mongolia.

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In a country full of rumors, scandals and frequently negative news, its nice to see a positive item from time-to-time (that doesn’t revolve around something that the West simply thinks is bizarre).

In my time in China, I’ve watched many NGOs attempt to make change in their communities. While some are successful many more seem to fall to the great challenges any organization faces, attempting to make social reform in an authoritarian state. However, this week a project came across my desk that overcame these challenges that I thought worth a mention.

In 2007 a bright eyed bunch of volunteers in a nascent NGO called Shanghai Roots & Shoots, had a dream to help fight desertification in China. Their dream: to plant one million trees on the edge of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China.

An Inner Mongolian Farmer plants trees in the desert of Inner Mongolia.

China’s deserts have been growing for many years and in response, the government’s Great Green Wall program has planted trees across China. However, often in places where tree planting was not appropriate due to environmental conditions and often lack of ground water availability. In addition, many of these trees have not been cared for and up kept after financial incentives led farmers to simply drop them in the sand.

Shanghai Roots & Shoots had a different plan. Not only to plant trees, but to take care of them and educate the communities around the desert of their potential benefits. In addition, experts helped the NGO identify areas where ground water was available to give the trees the best chance of survival.

This was the Million Tree Project.

Volunteers Plant trees in Kulun Qi.

Their aim was 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. It also encompasses true capacity building as the local population became involved with and benefited from every step of planting, maintaining and monitoring the trees.

The Million Tree Project was designed to improve both ecological and humanitarian conditions of Kulun Qi, Tongliao municipality, lnner Mongolia. They chose this project site because the area suffers severely from desertification and its consequential sandstorms, while at the same time, having available ground water. These sandstorms strike Inner Mongolia and its surrounding areas each spring, destroying local homes and forcing many people to flee their native land.

An Inner Mongolian child, shows the effects of living in an area prone to sand storms.

The NGO cooperated with national and regional government as well as local communities to help secure and rebuild the land. Since 2007, thousands of students, individuals and corporate donors have donated time and muscle to buying and planting trees.

This summer, the NGO planted their one millionth tree this summer.

I had been shooting this project since 2009 when they called and asked me to make a quick video that they could share with their volunteers and tree donors. While the video is intended for their audience, I believe their project is a good example that shows actual results from an NGO working in a difficult political and social environment, worth sharing with a greater audience.

A member of Shanghai Roots & Shoots helps monitor tree planting in Kulun Qi.

Looking into the future, the NGO is now pledging to plant one million more. The first million, was just the beginning.

To Shanghai Roots & Shoots: Congratulations on this massive accomplishment.