livebooks blog

Soy fields near Belterra, Para State, Brazil, with isolated Brasilan nut trees. ©Daniel Beltra

Miki Johnson: Tell me about this award and how it will work.

Daniel Beltrá: For me, the most exciting part of this award is the book. We are working with Stuart Smith, who is one of the best book designers in the world. Amongst others, he does books for Eliot Erwitt and James Nachtwey. The idea is to create a very limited edition book of only 500 copies. Prince Charles is going to offer it to prominent people, and heads of state around the world. There’s a conference in November and he’s going to be giving this book to many presidents as a personal present from him. All this is to gear up the world and get them to commit to stop tropical deforestation as a way to tackle global warming.

Of course every photographer that makes a book hopes that it will have some impact, but I’ve never seen one used at this level before. They have very clear ideas of how they want the book made: They only want it to be 70 or 80 pages; they want big pictures; and they want to reach an equilibrium between the biodiversity, the indigenous populations, the impending destruction and sustainable solutions. This is a worldwide problem so they don’t want to point any fingers or blame anyone — it’s everybody’s responsibility. Tropical deforestation creates 20% of the CO2 released, which is more than the entire transport sector in the world. If you stopped all the trains and the planes and the cars and boats in the world, you still would manage to drop the CO2 level more if you just stopped tropical deforestation, so it’s a no-brainer really. So what Prince Charles and his Rainforests Project want to do is create a huge fund where the world would put money for these countries so they don’t cut further and further.

I haven’t done a book before, so I’m excited but it’s such short notice it feels like a sprint for six months. Luckily there are a lot of very capable and talented people around me and that’s going to help a lot. Sony for example is putting so much effort in because they are launching a new line to the professional market. And they have great technology. We’re going to be doing exhibitions and they have these big weatherproof screens that can be set up outdoors to show the images.

Purple flowers of the Jambo tree in Bellterra, Para State, Brazil. ©Daniel Beltra

MJ: It sounds like you are on a pretty tight schedule. Is it hard working with NGOs sometimes that don’t have realistic expectations for how long photo projects take?

DB: I basically have three to four weeks per country to go to three places: the Brazilian Amazon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia, which is probably going to be Borneo and Sumatra. The shooting list they gave me originally was too wide, so we’re going to use some of my past photography, and that will help a lot. The portfolio I presented for this award was 30 of my best photographs. Those were images I made during nine years working in the Amazon. I’m not going to get the same thing in a few weeks. My personal idea was to have good photography drive the project and not a really specific shooting list, because there’s not really enough time for that. The Amazon is the size of the continental U.S. or Europe. You could spend weeks just trying to reach a particular spot. The distances are enormous and many of the places need to be reached by plane, so it’s a challenge. But I’m confident we’re going to produce a good piece.

MJ: It must have been interesting to find yourself sitting with the Prince of Wales, showing him your photographs.

DB: The commitment Prince Charles has made to this issue is really global. When we met in London and I was showing him my photos, he really knew a lot about the issues. He was saying, oh this is palm oil in Indonesia, I’ve been working with this and I went there last year. He’s very knowledgeable and he’s very passionate about the environment. There are so many people who are so high in the world, who could sit back and have a relaxed life, so it’s very humbling to see how committed he is.

Between Cuiaba and Manaus, Brazil. ©Daniel Beltra

It doesn’t make much sense. My career has been a complete snowball. I started in photography in 1988. And until 2005 I didn’t participate in a single competition. But in 2005, Tom Stoddart saw the story I did on the drought in the Amazon and he said, “You need to send this to the World Press.” And I was saying, “I don’t know.” And he said, “Daniel, please trust me, send this to the World Press.” And then a week before the deadline Tom called and said, “Did you send that to the World Press?” And I said no. He said, “Daniel, send it!” So I did — and I won an award.

That really opened the world for me. I went to Amsterdam and I met all these other photographers and I thought, wow, I don’t feel any more like this crazy guy who works 90% of his time on environmental issues, because at that time conservation wasn’t such a hot topic. In 2007 I got another World Press award then last year I got the inaugural Global Vision Award from Picture of the Year International (POYi) and I’ve gotten 10 big awards in 4 years. Then, a couple years ago, I was invited to join the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). It was such an honor to be part of a group of dedicated photographers I had admired for so long. So it’s been a total rollercoaster for me.

So suddenly, you become a name in photography when a few years ago you were nobody. It doesn’t mean that much ultimately, and I don’t want it to go to my head. I want to have time to go and shoot. There are so many important stories that need to be told. But this publicity is also a great way to expose what’s happening to more people. So I am more and more open to doing exhibitions and giving talks, but it’s difficult to handle sometimes. And at the end of the day, I need to figure out how to make a better business decisions so I can hire help and have more time.

I remember until just a few years ago, when I would turn in a story to Greenpeace, who I work with a lot, I would just try to rest a little. Now it’s like I’m more busy when I come home than when I’m shooting. It’s almost a relaxation to go in the field. It’s like, no more email, no more phone, and whatever happens, I’ll deal with it when I’m back. Nobody is obliging me to do this, I am extremely lucky and can’t complain. But I want to make sure I’m maximizing the impact of my work and I also want to have a life.

Gertz HS student Gigi Rodas taking a picture of her mentor, Immigration Attorney Victoria Duong

Carmen Suen: Tell me about how the “I Dream To…” program works.

Amy Tierney: It is a semester long program where me and my co-instructor, photographer Emily Hart Roth, go to the participating schools every week for a one-and-a-half-hour class to teach the girls the skills that they need to be a photojournalist, including how to use a camera, how to use Lightroom to produce edits, how to conduct an interview, and so on. Each of them has to choose a woman who they want to do an interview with, usually someone in the career field of the student’s dream, or someone who inspires them.

Towards the end of the semester, they interview their subject, take pictures during the interview, and write up an article as their final projects. We then post these articles on the “I Dream To…” blog, so others can see their work. We also take the girls to a photography studio so they can see what a true working studio and a photographer’s daily work life is like.

But the highlight of the program is the exhibition. Not only do the girls get the chance to show family and friends their own work, but they can also be introduced to different people in the community. It’s a great way for them to practice their social skills.

LA Leadership student Narvy Vasquez, as photographed by her fellow student Jacky Rodriguez

CS: What is your role in this program?

AT: I am actually a founder and mentor of the “I Dream To…” program, which started in 2007. At the time, I was already involved with StepUp Women’s Network’s L.A. Chapter. One of the mission of StepUp is to inspire and empower high school girls in underserved communities to achieve their dreams. I believe art can help us understand the world around us. And so I decided to bring art to these high school girls. Because of my own background, photography seemed to be the obvious choice.

Through photography, photojournalism in particular, you get the opportunity to interact with a multitude of people. I think people skills is one of the most essential skills for one to succeed in life.

CS: Do you feel like the program is achieving its goals?

AT: I would say it’s very well received. Jamie Kogan, Step Up Women’s Network’s program manager really keeps us going.  This year is the third year, and the program has expanded from L.A. to Chicago and New York. We got so many hugs and thank-yous at the end of each semester. Some of the girls who have participated in the program have taken a serious interest in photojournalism and have decided to pursue it as a career. That’s a very big encouragement for us.

We also have to thank our sponsors for helping us financially. Our organization is non-profit and depends largely on financial assistance from our donors. We hope that they will continue to help make this program happen.

Paul Krolowitz, 53, says goodbye to his friend Richard "Grasshopper" Liggett, 55, who is fighting advanced liver and lung cancers. Krolowitz and Liggett worked for many years together in the Angola State Penitentiary carpentry workshop. Liggett spent the last months of his life under the care of the Angola Hospice program.© Lori Waselchuk/Courtesy OSI

Carmen Suen: What is the most important thing for photographers to note when applying for this grant?

Yukiko Yamagata: It’s important that photographers identify what impact they hope to have on a given issue, and to explore the best ways they can reach the goals they establish. It’s also helpful for them to do a lot of research on what efforts already exist in social justice and human rights efforts, so they are not reinventing the wheel. That way they can build on what’s already been done, identify obstacles other people have faced, and understand how the use of photography can help to overcome these obstacles.

We encourage photographers to look outside the field of photography and to become familiar with what’s happening in other fields that employ visual means for advocacy, civic engagement, community organizing, or public education. For example, reading case studies and critical analysis of public and community-based art could really inform photographers about methodologies and best practices for partnering with organizations, working with a community, and engaging the community in the actual development and implementation of the project. The Community Arts Network, Animating Democracy, and the Walker Art Center Education and Community Programs Department are just a few examples of organizations that provide helpful resources for developing art-specific engagement projects.

CS: What are some of the things to consider when looking for a partner for this grant?

YY: Find a partner organization that has a successful track record, and is already engaged in that issue or the distribution mechanism you’re proposing. You also want to engage with partners that bring in new areas of expertise rather than duplicating your own skill set.

In certain cases, you may want to have more than one partner organization. For example, if you’re thinking about creating educational curricula for high schools in the U.S., you could have a partner who is advocating on the issue and understands the community you’re trying to reach, and another whose expertise is in developing and distributing educational curricula.

CS: Are there any common mistakes that applicants should avoid?

YY: We often get projects that talk about “educating the public” or “raising awareness” in a very general way. It’s important to go beyond that and think about what audience is best positioned to create change on the issue you’re addressing. Is it policy makers? Or is it community advocates? Or perhaps the community itself? Once you figured out who your audience is, the next step is to find out what venues or outlets would reach that audience most effectively.

Another important element is the mechanism used to engage your target audience. Often what happens is you have this beautiful photography exhibition that is incredibly powerful and moving, but by the time the audience members go home, you’ve lost them. You need to show us some of the ways that you will incorporate programming and follow-up activity to mobilize the people who see your photographs and inspire them to take action.

In terms of the actual writing of the proposal, we encourage applicants to present their project in a very clear and concise way and to avoid jargon. Definitely be clear about the goals of the project, the partner(s), the target audience, and why you chose a particular venue.

CS: Are there a few recipients who were especially able to use the grant to create positive change in communities they documented?

YY: We funded a project by Lori Waselchuk last year that just launched last week where she is working to encourage the integration of hospice programs into prison health care. She is collaborating with the Louisiana-Mississippi Hospice & Palliative Care Organization to mount a photography exhibit at Angola Prison and she plans to tour it to correctional facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana.

This project is great because, number one, the partner organization is just as committed as she is to the project and it’s really taking the lead to place the exhibit to other correctional facilities. The venue that she has chosen targets people who are in the position to make decisions about prison health care, and she presents the materials directly to them. By placing the exhibit at the prison, she is able to bring the public to the place where these decisions are being felt.

We also funded a project by Nina Berman in which she documented American soldiers wounded in Iraq. She toured the exhibition to 10 high schools throughout the U.S. that were targeted by military recruiters. By bringing the exhibit to these schools and organizing lectures with a soldier from her photographs, she is able to bring attention, in a very personal way, to the impact the war has on soldiers’ lives. She was very strategic in her thinking in terms of the venue and the audience, and how the photographs would help high school students not only learn about this issue, but also provide an alternative narrative to what the recruiters had been telling them about the benefits of enlisting.

Afganistan seen through a woman's burka, by Aina-trained photojournalist Farzana Wahidy.

As a photojournalist I have observed an important thing, that most coverage of world events — especially in places like Afghanistan –- is done by white men between 30 and 40 year old. All those male journalists do interviews with Afghan men but have no access to the lives of the other 50% of the Afghan population. What about Afghan women’s stories? Who can tell them? Even if you have one or two women journalists there, the minute they have their own male interpreter and bodyguards, they cannot go inside the houses. They may be able to go inside some open-minded families’ houses, but they are are only talking to a tiny percentage of Afghan women. So who is the best to cover Afghan women? The Afghan women themselves.

This was how we started the Aina video project for Afghan women, asking them to make documentaries. The first ever documentary like this was called Afghanistan Unveiled. We trained seven Afghan women to hold a  camera for the first time, and nine months later their film was shown on PBS, the National Geographic channel, more than 20 international channels, at festivals…everywhere. In 2005 it was nominated for an Emmy award as one of four best foreign documentaries. It was because the story was totally different from what we’d heard before. The women knew where to go and who to talk to and how to express themselves. We also had one of Aina’s former student, Farzana Wahidy, who got the National Geographic All Roads honor. She was the first Afghan female photojournalist to receive this award.

In these ways we continued to develop the idea that Aina was founded on. Then one day the UN came to us saying, Reza, what would be the best tool to send out messages to the maximum number of people in the villages and cities? Obviously, as a visual person, I came up with this idea, which was used before in many countries a long time ago, of the mobile cinema project. We have mobile units going from village to village, school to school, with big screens and nice projectors. And Aina students make films that are informative and educational. It connected the population immediately and the whole cycle became local.

We also created a children’s magazine designed to provide both children and their families with important  information. It’s not an entertainment magazine; it’s about understanding each other and the whole world, which is especially important in this part of the world. so little-by-little this children’s magazine and women’s radio have become our main projects.

I think that the 21st century needs a new humanitarian organization, and for me this is Aina. I call it a “third-generation” humanitarian organization. It’s not giving people bread; it’s helping them to make their own bread. The big difference between all the existing NGOs and what we are doing is that we want to train local people, help them to become independent completely, to take their countries in their own hands — and then we leave.

So today, after almost nine years in existence, here are some very brief figures: Aina has trained 1,000 Afghans, three to four hundred of whom are women. The first Afghan independent media, called Kabul Weekly, is still going on, and it’s highly respected. We launched an Afghan women’s radio station; we launched a kids’ magazine; we have this production unit making films. And we created the first Afghan photo agency, AINA Photo Agency. It’s an independent photo agency, whose shareholders are the photographers that we trained. They are the owners of their own agency. Kabul Weekly is 100-percent independent media that seldom needs outside help.

By creating a national messaging system, we’ve created all the tools now to replace these psychologists we would need to help people in war-torn countries heal. But the biggest result will be long term. When you start educating women and girls, you are educating the next generation of mothers to educate their children. And we not only trained 1,000 people who then found fantastic jobs, we also created jobs.That’s why Aina, as the first of this kind of organization in the world, has such a positive outcome. That’s why in 2009, with the help of the National Geographic Mission Program and for which they named me a fellow of the National Geographic society, I’m going to launch an international organization to bring the most important aspects of Aina to other countries.

Rufo, 7. Her mother can afford education for only one of her seven children, so every morning Rufo accompanies her sister Loco to the school, says good-bye, and then returns home to her daily chores. ©Phil Borges, courtesy CARE

Miki Johnson: Tell me about how the Women Empowered book and exhibition was conceived. Was that a new thing for CARE to do a whole project around a photo project?

Valenda Campbell: It was definitely a learning experience for me. I had put together some exhibits before but this was my first time working on a book. Having published many books before, Phil came into it knowing what he wanted to produce. I let Phil know right up front that I’d never worked a book, but I was looking forward to learning a lot from him and that I’d do my best to keep up. CARE hadn’t done anything like this since I had been here. We had published A Gift from America back in 1996 about CARE’s 50th anniversary, but that mostly involved pulling materials from the archives.

At one point photographer Fred Housel was shooting quite a bit for CARE and some larger exhibit projects came from that partnership. So between that and the Connections photo exhibit, which I led in 2004, CARE had some limited experience with large exhibits. But since I had been with CARE we just hadn’t had the right opportunity or any specific clarity to justify a book and traveling exhibition.

When things started falling into place with Phil, we saw a lot of potential for the awareness it could raise around issues of women’s empowerment and CARE’s poverty-fighting work. But it was a bit of a hard sell because I had a pretty ambitious list of what we wanted to accomplish and what it was going to cost –- not to mention a lot of people would have to spend significant time helping us pull it together. Taking on a project like this is an organizational commitment that impacts everyone from the photo library, to finance, to the country office staff in the field.

It was also a hard sell because people don’t always appreciate the influence of social documentary photography. Everyone enjoys the creative products of projects like this, but they may not quite appreciate the impact, the number of supporters behind it, and the variety of networks that are created and plugged into it. I explained how Phil’s book and exhibition would reach a lot of people through new venues while also providing high-quality material for our regular venues.

Committing to this type of high-level project is a tough call because it’s not easy to illustrate how this channel, through a lot of dotted lines and connections, will get us to our target audiences. In the end, though, there was enough potential there to get started and see how it went. Then when the project started coming together, everyone thought it was great and were very excited.

MJ: What have been the lasting results from Phil’s Women Empowered project?

VC: The Women Empowered book and exhibition have allowed us to reach new audiences. There’s the audience of photography enthusiasts in general, the professional photography networks, photo collectors, and the arts community — it’s so widespread. Like the magazine you worked for [American Photo, which included Phil in its "Heroes of Photography" issue]. Everybody who is a photo enthusiast gets that magazine at one point or another. Also, coverage in Photo District News is a great avenue to reach out to the photojournalist and documentary side of photography, which helped us connect with resources and support. In these ways, Phil’s work has also made other photographers aware of what we’re doing and it helps us recruit a higher caliber of potential photographers to work with.

I may be biased, but I would say that Phil has been one of the most valuable communications relationships we’ve built in recent history. Everyone who has had his wonderful material available to them has been thrilled with the opportunities it inspires, the doors that it opens, and the conversations that it starts. Because Phil is a photographer who is pretty worldly and well-traveled, he has a lot of insight into examining indigenous cultures and telling those stories — he’s seen so much first hand. It’s also good to have a man’s perspective included in this women-focused communications platform that CARE has adopted. Ultimately it adds a lot of credibility to CARE that he’s so committed and passionate about helping tell the stories behind CARE’s work. It means a lot having somebody of his stature, experience, and talent make that kind of commitment to supporting our work and our mission.

One thing that’s interesting about this project is that we went into it with the specific understanding that this was not going to be a CARE project — his was going to be a Phil Borges project. It was going to have his look and it was going to be a message that he was bringing by telling these stories through the eyes of CARE’s work. We didn’t want it to be an overtly CARE piece and have people think we were trying to sell or solicit something. For instance, on Amazon.com I don’t think people are searching for books under CARE, they’re searching for Phil Borges. When the book stores are adding titles to their inventory or when we exhibited Women Empowered at the U.N., it has Phil’s name, his look, his brand, his stamp on it. Yet he’s telling CARE’s stories by sharing what he saw when he visited our projects. This way it’s a message about women’s empowerment, not a message about CARE. So even if somebody decides to throw their support behind behind another organization that empowers women in developing countries, whether it’s through CARE or not, it’s a win — because we were able to get someone engaged in those issues.

The Red Hills, Wood-Tikchik State Park. ©Robert Glenn Ketchum

MJ: Do you think it is a good idea for other photographers to approach publishers with the publishing model you’ve developed, one that distributes books through non-profits instead of retail distributors?

RGK: If you were to go to a smaller press, such as The Mountaineers, and you bring them a book that is even remotely interesting, then you say: I have my funding and my buyers in place. I can guarantee 3,500 of the run. At $10 each, you’re coming into the meeting with $35,000, and that puts you a long way up. You might not be covering 100% of the publisher’s costs, but you’re already coming in the door with something that looks good.

If I had an advocate-directed book, I would presume that the publisher felt his market impaired by the political point of view. I would therefore compensate coming through the door with either a network of distribution or a network of sales and distribution already in place — such as a non-profit I was working with. Then you can also explain that funding of some kind is already in place, so the book doesn’t languish on bookshelves and it doesn’t have unrealistic financial expectations.

Maybe not everybody has this access, but I know on-press people, I know editors, I know book designers, and I know presses in Hong Kong and Europe. Likely with my next book I will publish it myself with my own team. I’ll write into my grant proposal for an organization, likely the Hearsts, all those books at pre-publication cost, besides whatever goes into the market. We’ll just distribute it ourselves through the internet. Then I will probably go to the book fairs and see if we can pick up some sales and get broader distribution. But it’s not worth it to me, all that stuff that gets lost and logged into the middlemen warehouse distributors. It’s not worth the energy and it doesn’t put the books in enough of the right places.

Streams And Tree Islands in Wood-Tikchik Park. ©Robert Glenn Ketchum

MJ: Is it a hard sell to convince publications and publishers that these conservation issues are hot topics?

RGK: It has always been a hard sell and it’s still a hard sell. I’m constantly amazed at how people are fawning and apologetic about not having supported a project like the Tongass and they say, “We would never miss another opportunity like this again. The next time you have something going on, please come back to us.” Then the next time I come back to them, it’s like they’ve never talked to me before and I’m starting all over again. So it’s very frustrating.

Until recently my Bristol Bay work has been like sitting on a very steep greased board — I had no traction whatsoever. People were paying attention but only just barely. People like the Smithsonian Magazine and Audubon, who I offered Tongass to and they both turned me down. Then they came back to me years later when they were doing Tongass articles, big features, and said stuff like, “You were so far in front of the curve. That was the biggest mistake of our lives not taking that article when you offered it to us. Please bring us something like that again.”

So I bring them Bristol Bay. And you know what everyone said to me? Why aren’t you up in the Arctic Refuge taking pictures? And I said, first of all, I counseled Subhankar Banerjee, who is there, and I think he’s probably going to do a good job with it. It also happens that my friend Theo Allofs is there and Art Wolfe is there and I think there are enough photographers up there. Also, the Arctic Refuge has been used as a smokescreen, drawing a lot of public attention to the battle, while other places are being savaged and no one is looking. I’m bringing you a project you ought to be paying attention to, which I did when I brought you the Tongass, do you remember? And they all acted like I was out of my mind and Bristol Bay was a no-starter.

I submitted this collective story about the Bay to National Geographic three times in five years, and they told me it was a story of no interest. Then  they sent somebody on their own staff up to do the story and paid me a finders fee. Men’s Journal looked at the story several times over three years and said it was a no-starter — then finally four months ago they realized it’s smoking hot now that Sarah Palin ran for office, so they sent their own guy.

It is amazing to me that virtually everybody who said, “Come back to us with any new stories,” once I was introduced to them through the Tongass, basically ignored me when I brought them Bristol Bay. You’d think at 60 I’d finally have some respect, but I don’t. This story is important. I’m glad it’s now at National Geographic. I’m glad it’s at Men’s Journal. It will put more pressure on the legislators I’m visiting and will revisit this year. If there is a way I can place a set of books in Obama’s hands, I will. But not to a legislative assistant or somebody else. It has to be me to him. I want to know that he sees it. In this kind of a lobbying effort, the personal contact carries weight. John Muir lobbied Teddy Roosevelt; Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, and David Brower aggressively lobbied the Congress with their Sierra Club publications; and now I am the next generation to inherit this advocacy mantel.

Covenant House headquarters in Manhattan during a candlelight vigil for homeless teens. ©Nina Berman/Do1Thing.org

Miki Johnson: Tell me how you’re working with other non-profit organizations.

Najlah Hicks: We’re working with two major non-profits. The first and the biggest is the Covenant House International. Covenant House is the largest provider of services to homeless teens. Our second partner is StandUp For Kids, which is an all-volunteer group that helps teenagers on the ground. We believe that in order to produce good work, we have to partner with a non-profit that is on the ground every day and has a long history of working with this population.

Again, we’re not experts on homelessness. For us, it’s very important to figure out who the expert on homelessness is and then partner with them. Working with those organizations gave us access to kids that we would never have access to otherwise. We ended up partnering with over a dozen non-profits. But the biggest is Covenant House, and we drove all donations to them.

All of the photographers or editors we work with, even Pim Van Hemmen and I, the co-founders, we’re all volunteers. We raised –- we’re still calculating what’s coming in –- but we know so far about $30,000 in cash donations, and tens of thousands of items were donated nationwide. And we didn’t charge Covenant House a penny.

Our idea for long-term is to pick a cause each year. It could be AIDS, it could be cancer, it could be famine, but always something that affects youth and children. Then we find who’s doing the best work in the non-profit world and we partner with them.

MJ: I was blown away to see the big names on your list. Why were photographers and editors so eager to collaborate with you?

NH: A lot of people thought we would have to give them a hard sell. I didn’t have to give them any sell at all. We asked somebody and boom, they’re already on top of it. That’s how we ended up with 32 Pulitzer Prize winners and 75 editors, photographers, and designers.

Leandra Hollaway and Michael Cunningham check out their new room at a friend of a friend's. ©Judy DeHaas/Do1Thing

We started off with photographers we had worked with at the Heart Gallery. Nina Berman, Mark Peterson, Ron Haviv, many of the VII photographers, Martin Schoeller, Bob Sacha. Those guys knew first-hand the power of what they’re doing. The kids that they photographed at the gallery are getting adopted. So when I told them, look, this is what we want to do, it was an immediate yes. Then they contacted their friends, who contact their friends, who contacted their friends. It took literally less than two weeks to get a phenomenal team to come together and do it all for free. If you were to quantify what this would cost, it would be a million-dollar project.

And now these photographers want to go back. They want to do more. They want to follow these kids. Want to know if they can stay long-term. This photographer Mark Peterson was shooting for three months, documenting this one teenager, and will continue to document her. He’s looking to do a two- or three-year project on her. Again, all for free.

I think what happens is, when you get to the point when you’re in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, you realize you’ve covered everything that you can cover: famine, wars, floods, fires. You get to the point where you ask, When I leave this life, what do I want to be able to say about my work? Yes, I documented history. That’s great. But how much greater is it to be able to say that I changed the history of a life?

Esperansa, 9, is the first girl in her family to attend school. Her mother, Catarina, although illiterate, leads a group of eighty indigenous women in their struggle to gain gender equality and end racial discrimination in Ixtahuacan. ©Phil Borges, courtesy CARE

Miki Johnson: What were the logistics of how you collaborated with Phil?

Valenda Campbell: We took our basic system for executing a photo commission and sort of tweaked it. We knew that Phil wanted to really understand the projects, the community context, and the culture in order to develop more meaningful stories. That meant he would need some time in the communities to suss out the best subjects. Up to this point, most of our photo commissions were typically teaming up photographers with the local country office staff who would take you and a writer out to a community. The writer would interview, the photographer would take photos, and you’d spend an afternoon there doing that. The country office staff is usually anxious to hurry on to the next community so they could show you the next great project to photograph. So this time we had to say, “Okay, we need to be able to spend four days in a community. And we need to be able to stay either in the community or very close to the community so that we can maximize our time there.” It was actually quite a challenge, and still can be, to shift their understanding as to how we needed to carry out this work.

What we typically try to do with a commission now is close to what we did with Phil. We coordinate with our country office, give them some dates, and tell them what we want to focus on. We want to go out and see this type of program, we’d like for them to talk to their field staff in hopes of identifying any particular women that really stand out as stars. Hopefully, we can find people who are not too shy, who are articulate, and who can help us tell this story through their experiences. So the country office provides all the logistical support: the in-country transportation, the lodging, translator, driver, etc. And then we go out to the community and stay for a few days. We started this process with Phil’s first trip with CARE to Ethiopia where he met the people who the field had staff pre-identified. We needed to get everything started in advance because for Phil, spending four days in a community is considerably less than what he would do if he were working a project more independently. So we just tried to get everything lined up as best we could and made sure he wouldn’t need to worry about the logistical support so he could focus on finding those stand-out subjects.

But CARE wants to be careful and considerate about the disruption that we cause with the community when we come to visit and any particular burden that we put on them: keeping them away from their daily lives and the way they generate income or food for their family. We can’t be too disruptive and overstay our welcome. We also like to be there to help make the introductions and answer questions about the programming or the local community, so that Phil has an expert on hand and he can be really tuned into what he’s seeing and what he’s hearing from the interviews.

MJ: Did you have different specifications for the images from Phil than you normally would have because you were thinking ahead to a book project or an exhibition?

VC: Usually when we’re doing a photo commission, we want to produce photos that could be used for anything and everything. We’re a non-profit with modest budgets, so we need to make every dollar we invest in these photo commissions yield the most value possible. So, while we went into this project with the primary objective of creating an exhibit and producing a book, we also wanted to make sure that in working with Phil we were able to help populate our stock of images. We rely on that stock for calendars, annual reports, brochures, posters, and the web site – basically everything. We wanted to make sure that, in the end, we had something that not only reflected Phil’s style but also really represented the brand of CARE and our messaging around the empowerment of women.

At the time CARE was also launching a new marketing and print PSA campaign –- “I Am Powerful” — that had a distinct type of image we were looking for. We put together a creative articulation of what the images for this campaign should convey; we were looking for that portrait that compels the viewer to feel a connection with the subject. Through the image and her expression, the viewer should see or sense the latent potential within this woman, her determination to make her life, her family’s life, and her community’s life better. So we offered some creative direction, but Phil’s style of portraiture just naturally nailed it. It was like preaching to the choir.

In general we write up scopes of work that spell out all of the different things we could possibly use the images and caption information for. We try to give the photographers we work with an idea of the important aspects the program and what we find to be visually effective in helping to communicate what the project is about. We give them some ideas to think about but ultimately look to them to use their unique creative and journalistic skills to execute the idea.

What we asked for from Phil — and he was already doing — holds true today. We want engaging environmental portrait photos, but we also want to show people in action and carrying out their daily lives, overcoming their greatest challenges, along with CARE’s program in action. We try to make the photographer aware of what is most important to CARE to capture and what else we find really useful. Over the past eight years we’ve worked hard to strengthen our scopes of work.

When I first started the standard scope of work was pretty much give us everything and take pictures of anything that moves. But now we’ve really refined them to convey that the images that are most useful to us, and that most accurately reflect CARE’s work, are the images of actual project participants. We certainly appreciate the pictures you just can’t help but take because it’s just such a nice shot. But in the end, we won’t be able to get as much use out of those images because we can’t speak about that person as an individual and how their life relates to the work CARE is doing in the community. So we have really tried to get photographers to keep their focus on our programs so that their images and supporting caption information is very applicable to our communications. We want to make sure that the photographers are able to focus their efforts on delivering what CARE needs most, and what supports our efforts to accurately and effectively tell the stories of the women who are so committed to overcoming poverty for their families and their communities.

Afghan women clad in burqa on a windy day in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo by Farzana Wahidy

In 1983, I was a photographer for TIME and LIFE magazines. At the time, Afghanistan was occupied by the Russian army and was closed to the media. There were all these refugees, and the terrain was so difficult. My first assignment was in Kabul, and it took me three weeks just to get there on foot, which is only 150 miles from the border. Then I realized immediately how important that story was, and how little the foreign correspondents could  do to cover it. The country is huge — if you have to go on foot, it would take three months to reach the other part of the country. I also realized there would be no media that would accept a correspondent being there for six months on foot to do the story. TIME, CBS, and other media were giving a couple days to a couple weeks maximum.

When I came back from  Afghanistan, I thought to myself, the only way to cover the whole thing would be for Afghans to do it themselves. I thought, so let’s train some photographers. I went to refugee camps, explained my idea, and started training people and giving them cameras. This was all on my own. The following years I went to South Africa, under apartheid. Again, I realized how hard it was for foreign correspondents to cover, because the government was blocking entrance to journalists. So I thought the best way would be to train younger people living in the townships. I began training them, and the whole time I was also covering the story from the inside. It gave me a totally different perspective. Because usually when I went somewhere to cover a story, I was finding myself with the same group of photographers in the same hotels. The local people would be better storytellers.

Photo by Fardin Waezi, another AINA student.

The second thing, which was much deeper, came to my mind later, when I was in refugee camps especially. I realized there are two different destructions in wars. One is material destruction: buildings and bodies. That’s what we photograph. The houses that are destroyed and the people who are suffering the loss of part of their bodies. But the reality of wars and conflicts is that there is another trauma — the destruction of the human soul, of culture, and of human connection. One day, I was reading in a newspaper that there was a shooting in a school in the United States. And what really took my attention was that all the police went to the school immediately, and then the ambulances. Then a group of psychologists was sent because people had been traumatized by this shooting. And that was just one shooting. What are we doing in conflict zones? We are only helping to rebuild the material destruction. But we don’t care about the psychologists that are needed.

In humanitarian efforts, 99 percent are just for buildings. The United Nations and NGO’s help to build schools, roads, wells, and to make the artificial legs. But where is that group of psychologists for countries that have been in conflict for years and years. Where are the psychologists and who can they be? I realized, you can’t send American or French psychologists to talk to Afghans or Cambodians. It has to be from inside. But you also can’t send psychologists to talk to people one-on-one. So I thought maybe the best tools were media and communication tools. If they were used collectively, maybe they could replace these psychologists.

At that moment, I also saw there was no opportunity in these countries for a group of people, journalists or artists, to express themselves. We need to help them to express themselves. We need to train them and give them the tools, which are all the tools we use in the West: cameras, video cameras, and computers. They don’t have access to these. This was one main thing that brought me to Aina.

Tikchik Mountain, Wood-Tikchik State Park ©Robert Glenn Ketchum

The next place this special publishing model I’d developed came into play, and really the place it came into full force, was Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska. In 1998 there was no mine proposed, no oil proposed, just this huge wild area called Southwest Alaska that is larger than the state of Washington. And it’s the habitat for the richest, most productive salmon fishery in the history of the world, Bristol Bay. And I’m on the board of the Alaska Conservation Foundation (ACF). I’ve been there for seven years. We’re making a big difference. Having a lot of victories. I’m working as a board member, I’m not pushing myself as a photographer, but I’m offering my advice about media.

And the retiring board director says to me, have you ever been out to Southwest Alaska? And I haven’t, so he and his friend, who’s a writer from Wyoming and also an expert fly fisherman, take me out there for a 7-day fly around. And his position as a fisherman is, this is a goldmine for fishermen and conservation, and he thinks I should bring it to ACF, the group I’m on the board of. He is leaving ACF but thinks the Bristol Bay area is going to become an issue in terms of developers wanting it. And I think it sounds like a great idea, and I’m not working on a project, and I’m about to retire from the board.

So I start writing my grants. And I write in the grant that I’ll do a book and it will be about this fishery and its protection, and in funding the grant they can guarantee that 5,000 at-cost copies will be available for the ACF to use in direct mail campaigns to bring more money in. I weave in the grassroots, the foundation strategy, my book strategy, and this advocacy work you can do with direct mail. It was the maturity of all my previous projects coming together. And we went out with that grant, and everyone we showed it to was in. We brought in several smaller family foundations and we brought in one very large foundation, the Turner Foundation. Then, when I was nearly on press with the first book, Rivers of Life, I also noticed I had this extraordinary amount of material specifically about Wood Tikchik Park, which is more than one-third of the water shed. It is the largest state park in Alaska — it’s huge at over a million and a half acres. Just one fishing lodge and everything else wild park.

"Endless Meanders" in Southwest Alaska ©Robert Glenn Ketchum

I talked to one of my friends who was head of department of natural resources for the state, and he said, please do a book on this park and talk about all the inholdings that are at risk. An inholding is an amount of land that was given to a Native American tribal holder as part of his native claims stake when the lands transferred between natives and park. And every person got to extract a certain amount of acreage, I think in 60-acre squares. So they’re all patchworked through these wild lands. And the presumption was the natives would continue to treat them as they had for 3,000 years. But the reality was that parents would be saving them for their kids who would grow up, go to college, and never want to come back to the village, so the traditional values of that land would erode. The parents would look at it and think, well we can sell this to a white guy who wants to build a fishing lodge and we will become millionaires. Among the rest of us there was this feeling of, oh my god, don’t let this happen to these habitats. So with the first book already on press, I began working on a second book with another author, and we wrote the second book directed at these issues of inholdings. So one book was, don’t let this resource be developed by offshore oil and gas or on-shore anything. And the second was, don’t let this land be fragmented by inholdings. Please work with the conservancies and the tribes to see that it all goes into parkland protection.

We took those two books as a set and we did a very substantial mailing and a traveling exhibit. Talk about all these things happening blindly but at the right moment. At the time that we did the mailing, Canada announced plans for Pebble Mine, the largest open-pit gold and copper cyanide-leach mine in the history of the world right in the middle of the biggest part of the fishery. And of course the state leased it. So here’s the two books sitting there and just being mailed and the show’s just going up and they announce the proposal for the Pebble Mine. And then Bush gets Ted Stevens, the Alaska senator now indicted for felony, to pull Bristol Bay off of the no-drill oil moratorium, which it had been on for 18 years, and announced leasing through the Department of the Interior. So immediately the books had more weight.

Among many things that happened because of the momentum the mailing created was a $10 million, three-year grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation flowing to the conservancies in southwest Alaska to purchase and buy into the inholdings when the native villages were willing to strike deals over conservation easements. A 21,000-parcel deal was struck recently with eight or ten very significant tribal elders, which sent out shockwaves in the native community because they don’t really embrace white legal systems. So by those native elders signing on, it has a huge impact at other levels in other tribes. What they did was sell the rights to commercially develop the land. They do not give up their right to own the land. The land is put into an easement that is managed by a conservancy, and the natives can go and use the land any time they want to fish or hunt, but not for commercial development. Even if they sell it, it remains in easement. So it’s a way of putting land into wild status in perpetuity.

Fishtrap Lake And The Headwaters Of The Little Mulchatna River, Lake Clark NP ©Robert Glenn Ketchum

This project was where everything came together in its most mature form, with the Bristol Bay and Wood Tikchik books, the show, and the pre-deemed funding to buy out a portion of the run. The picture books themselves were commercially viable; Aperture sold them in the market. But I would say we got rid of just as many of them in the community by doing direct mail and target-specific sales at lectures and exhibitions. The exhibition has triggered a lot … we took it to all the major cities in Alaska. We triggered discussions between the communities and the mining representatives from Pebble Mine. We’ve had the exhibition go to Washington D.C. as a bi-partisan request from Newt Gingrich and Mark Udall.

In my opinion, the reason some of the projects were so much more successful is, first of all, I enjoy the theater of the advocate role. I’ll go to Washington and lobby directly and use personality. This is an age where cult of personality plays well. You know, James Audubon was an American sophisticate. An intellectual, a researcher. But when he went to England with his drawings of the America birds, he had this fabulous fringe leather suit made for himself and he walked around with his musket. So it’s been theater for a long time. And I’m perfectly happy to play the “outdoor adventurer” Robert Ketchum and show up at Barbara Boxer’s office, especially now that she’s head of the Environment Committee, and ask her to please consider being a co-sponsor to John Kerry’s Bristol Bay Marine Reserve Act. And of course she’s seen the book and all that.

I think if I have had an impact in the book market, it has been to find a way to make the book more useful from an advocate point of view. Perhaps that is a corruption of the coffee table tradition, but so be it, it makes for a much more useful and purposeful publication. I feel like, if these concepts were somehow a secret of mine all these years, they shouldn’t have been, and I didn’t intend it that way. I’m happy to have other photographers think about how to use it. Because a lot of them get frustrated. They get nice books published, they get nice conservation groups all lined up. But then they have a subtle subject like, say, a book on grass prairie, and it doesn’t have a national audience, and it doesn’t really get out there. So it sits and languishes on bookshelves and it gets remaindered. That won’t change anything!