1. What is your earliest memory of how or what attracted you to photography?
As a kid I was extremely shy and reticent, and always thought of myself as a terrible speaker. I remember painting trees and making cartoons of my friends in school. Visuals always fascinated me. But it was only after I borrowed a film SLR from a friend’s brother, that I felt a strange fulfillment in taking pictures. I was in standard nine then.
Photography gradually became an alternative expression for me. It helped me relieve myself from the frustration of not being able to express myself through the spoken word.
2. Having studied journalism and attaining a degree from Kashmir University, what prompted you to study photojournalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism?
Studying at Missouri School of Journalism wasn’t an intended decision. I already had a master’s degree in Mass Communication and Journalism and never planned to study further. I had a job working as an editor for a weekly news magazine called Kashmir Life. Prior to that, I had worked for nearly four years as a journalist and photographer in Kashmir.
It was only after I received the Fulbright Fellowship in 2011 that it became possible for me to study in the U.S. It was a great opportunity for me to specialize in what I thought I was best at and was always passionate about – photojournalism. After receiving the fellowship, I had a choice to apply to four different universities for a master’s degree. I applied to five and was accepted by four of them, including MU. I chose Missouri for two reasons – one, for its reputation as one of the best J-schools in the world; and two, for its association with Pictures of the Year International (POYi), the prestigious photojournalism contest administered by the school.
3. In your opinion, is it important to have a formal training in photography? Why?
Though I do not think that a formal education in photography is absolutely necessary, I firmly believe that it certainly makes a difference, especially if the training is more about learning to be a good storyteller, and not just the technicalities of the medium.
For me, a degree from Missouri School of Journalism, one of the finest J-schools in the world especially for photojournalism, certainly transformed me as a visual storyteller. It taught me that it’s not just the art of taking pictures that makes you a good documentary photographer, but also your skills as a journalist. You can never be a great photographer if you are not a great journalist. And a formal education can be instrumental toward achieving that goal.
I teach so many youngsters who are trying to be good news or documentary photographers, but they sometimes are not able to produce good work because they are not trying to be good journalists. Taking pictures and being a journalist at the same time will definitely play a great role in making you a good photojournalist in the true sense.
4. If you were to design a photo program for young Indian photographer, what would it look like?
I think a workshop or a mentorship program is a great way to hone your skills as a visual storyteller without spending years pursuing a dedicated course in photography or photojournalism. Although a dedicated study of one or two years would certainly increase your knowledge of the field to a great extent, that does not seem feasible for most people. So, my priority would be a workshop or a mentorship program that does not only focus on the technical aspects but also on the storytelling part. For such a program, learning basic rules of journalism would be an extremely important part. I would like to emphasize that you could become a great photographer with proper mentoring even if you have a degree, say, in economics or anthropology or philosophy.
5. You have been conducting documentary photography workshops in Kashmir. Can you please share your motivations for doing these?
I began teaching photojournalism in colleges and universities across Kashmir immediately after finishing my master’s in journalism, in 2007. Till that time, most photographers in the valley did not have any formal training in the field. I started teaching with the sole aim of producing a learned breed of photojournalists in Kashmir.
After coming back from the U.S. in 2014, I began mentoring young documentary photographers through workshops. I wanted to use my years-long experience as a photography teacher to influence a positive change and train young storytellers in Kashmir and elsewhere.
Though photojournalism in Kashmir has grown at an exponential pace since the conflict began in 1990, it sadly has remained confined to hard news photography only. The exposure to serious documentary photography, where the practitioners could go deep into issues through personal stories and long-term involvement, has been extremely scarce. That’s why I felt a great need to train young storytellers and use my work and knowledge to make these youngsters understand the importance of long-term narrative visual journalism. Exposure to documentary photography as a medium to bring attention to pressing issues can initiate dialogue, not only about the serious political and social issues, but also about the medium itself.
6. Who or what has inspired you to pursue photography and/or continues to do so?
Initially, my reticence and shyness was an important factor that pushed me to take photography seriously. For me, expressing myself through pictures became a compulsion and a way of life. A few people who have had great influence on me, and who leveled the ground for me to become a good storyteller, are my cousin Ejaz Var; late Izhar Wani, AFP’s former correspondent in Srinagar; and my university teacher, Faheen. Some people who greatly influenced me when I had already begun my photographic career are my teachers at Missouri School of Journalism, David Rees, Rita Reed, and Keith Greenwood. The greatest influence, however, has been the great photo essayist W. Eugene Smith, whom I consider my spiritual mentor.
7. Is there a book, exhibition or body of work that has really impressed you and maybe influenced your work / life?
In 2008, at the threshold of my career, I came across the works of W. Eugene Smith – most notably, The Country Doctor, and honestly speaking, it blew me away. After that I saw his other works, like The Spanish Village, Minamata, and Nurse Midwife. Smith’s work had a great impact on me and it made me question my own practice. I started thinking in terms of a visual narrative instead of single images. That’s how I became interested in documentary photography and long-form visual storytelling.
8. You lost your brother and a cousin to the insurgency and conflict in Kashmir when you were eight years old. How has being born into conflict informed your photographic practice?
Being born into a conflict situation meant having to grow up with experiences that not only shaped my perception of the world, but also gave a new dimension to the way I expressed myself.
The primary reason that I became a photographer was that I was surrounded by a situation that impacted my society at a very deep level. It had virtually affected everyone and touched almost every aspect of our lives. I believe that whatever is happening in a society is almost always manifested through peoples’ emotions. As a result, I was naturally drawn to social photo documentation of people and places I was familiar with. Working in my own community has not just influenced my shooting style, which is essentially humanistic, but has also made me more sensitive towards the people I photograph.
9. Can you talk about the difference between documenting conflict when one is a part of it, as opposed to documenting the same conflict as an outsider?
For any photographer, I believe the context is extremely important. Though I have worked in different regions, including the U.S., I have no reason to disagree that my most compelling and intimate stories have always come from my own backyard. My work on Kashmir, most of which is conflict-related, is not only about the people I have photographed; it’s also about myself. When I am behind the camera, I look through the viewfinder as an unbiased photographer. I try to detach myself from whatever is happening on the other side of the camera. But when I look at my own pictures, I become nothing more than a viewer – a common man who identifies with these people.
As a photographer, the best way to react to a situation, most of the time, is to keep shooting. All you can do is to channel your emotions into your work. But there have been times, when I have just stopped shooting and put my camera in my bag. There have also been times when I was on a personal story and it moved me so much that I came back without taking a single picture. However, the worst time comes when you are shooting your own conflict, your own people – the people you have grown up with, the people you share so many things with. And at that time, you do not know how to react to or ‘balance’ the situation. For instance, I was taking pictures at the famous Srinagar-Muzaffarabad march in 2008 when paramilitary forces fired upon the huge procession. There was complete chaos. Every time I looked through the viewfinder, I would not only be taking pictures of the dead and the injured, but also making sure that the blood-ridden bodies were not that of a cousin, or a friend’s brother, or the son of a distant aunt, or a neighbor who had greeted me in the morning before leaving my home. That’s the biggest difference between covering a war that is miles away from your home and a conflict that turns your kitchen turns into a battlefield.
10. When you sequence a series of images, what is your process as you create the narrative of the story?
I usually go through a three-step process. The first thing I do is to look at all the outtakes and choose about 100 photographs, if the final narrative consists of 20 pictures. Then I shrink it down to 40-45 images. Finally, at this stage, which is the toughest one, I do what many call ‘killing your darlings.’ I believe the secret to successful editing is to never become emotionally attached to your pictures. It’s important to make the story advance in an objective way.
11. Do your projects typically run in parallel, or do you focus on one project at a time?
I focus on one project at a time, especially if it’s a long-term project. And it’s not difficult to find time for freelance work, which is typically a one-or-two-day assignment job, which doesn’t come too often. I use the time between two long-term projects in various ways. One, it gives me a chance to relax and spend some good time with family and friends. Two, this time is the most conducive for holding workshops. I also spend this time reading about photography and photographers.
12. How do you measure success or that a body of work is going well?
The first sign of success of a project is the photographer’s own satisfaction that the work has been done honestly. So before convincing anybody else, I need to convince myself that a body of work reflects the purpose that I started it with. Then a wider distribution of it through various media also indicates how many people are going to see it.
13. Do you ever find yourself creatively ‘stuck?’ Is there something that is particularly helpful to you in overcoming this?
It happens very often. In order to deal with such situations, I usually look at the works of other photographers; not necessarily the works of famous people. There are some great resources on the Internet, where you can see the works of hundreds of photographers, both young and experienced. I sometimes go back and look at my own work and think about the circumstances in which I shot those images. I also read books by some of my favorite authors including William Somerset Maugham. All these activities help me relax and approach things with renewed energy.
14. How much effort do you put into getting your work shown? Is this important to you? Does showing your work feed your creative process, or does it distract you from it?
If you are not able to put your work out into the world, then there’s no purpose doing it. This is especially true about social documentary photography whose primary purpose is to bring attention to an important social or political issue.
15. Do you feel that there are adequate opportunities and avenues to share / show your work in India, or do you always look for such opportunities abroad?
With some honorable exceptions, there are not many platforms in India for the kind of work I do. Because my work has strong political undertones, no media in India likes to showcase my work. That’s why I almost always look for international platforms for my work. The New York Times and the Washington Post are the two publications that have regularly published my works.
However, I am thankful to some brave editors in India who have published my work in a way that needs a lot of courage.
16. Documentary photography does not always provide one with enough to make a living. Some augment this by doing commercial work, others teach. Are there other photography-related areas in which you are able to supplement your living? Some that you would recommend that aspiring photographers consider?
That’s true. It’s very difficult to make a living working as a documentary photographer. I am able to manage because I live a very simple life. I also do some NGO work and hold workshops. This makes things a bit easier for me. I would suggest that aspiring photographers begin doing video and not shy away from doing some commercial work or even weddings.
17. Digital technology has changed photography drastically over the last few years. Did you initially embrace the changes or resist them? Do you believe the changes have been good for the medium or not?
To be honest, I was very reluctant to embrace the change initially. In those days, I was unusually particular about the quality and believed that digital could never match the quality of the film. As a result, I felt quite uncomfortable switching to digital at first. I remember buying my first digital SLR years after most of my colleagues had already switched to the digital medium.
I certainly believe that technology has brought a positive change to photography and will dictate the medium in the future. Once I started using the digital medium, I was amazed at how much easier it became to take great pictures. The ease of use, the speed of the process of making photographs – especially for photojournalism – made me a fan of the new photographic technology.
18. Do you think there is a universal language that photography uses? Do you think that Indian photographers are finding that they are judged by western criteria and standards?
Of course, photography has a universal language. And I also agree that photographers from the developing world are judged by western standards. That’s why many brilliant photographers succumb to that notion and work according to the western taste. While doing so, we miss a lot of things. We start looking at our own world through western eyes and fail to have our own ‘indigenous’ visual style. That’s problematic, because we lose the advantage that otherwise would help us represent our people as honestly as possible. There’s been a trend going on where some Indian photographers are creating work not to influence the public opinion, but to win the next year’s photojournalism awards.
19. With your years of experience, of the lessons you have learned, what is the one thing you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?
I jumped into serious documentary photography very late, nearly four years after I had already begun my career as a news photographer. And during those four years, I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. I wish there was someone who had told me how powerful narrative visual storytelling is, because it’s documentary photography that introduced me to the contemporary trends in the field. It opened up so many great opportunities for me, not only in terms of career-building, but also the way stories can be told. It put me in a position where I was able to find my own space in the international photography scene.
20. If you didn’t do photography, what other career might you have pursued?
As a young boy, I was obsessed with becoming a cardiac surgeon. But now I find that to be a distorted ambition. Had I not been a journalist / photographer, I would have been a school teacher.
Copyright © 2021, PhotoSouthAsia. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © Showkat Nanda
20 November
