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©SAS Becker

5. What might a weekly schedule might look like for a full-time wedding photographer?

In the perfect world, I would shoot three days a week, edit for two, schmooze for one, and do nothing else. Okay, realistically for a portrait/wedding shooter, one could hope to shoot for 3-4 days a week, mostly weekends. Do editing and post production during the traditional work day. Arrange to go out to at least one business-contact meeting a week outside of your client meetings. Make check-in calls to clients at night.

Business growth and development can happen in your off season; January and February are traditionally slow months if you are on the East Coast. You’ll need to plan your personal time off in advance. It is so important to keep up on the more mundane tasks when you are slower because (hopefully) you won’t have much time to prepare during your busy season. One of the hardest things I have found being self employed is that after a very productive shoot I feel like I deserve a vacation. Well, guess again… that’s when you should be planning for the next one. Which isn’t such a bad thing after all, when you love what you do.

A so-called "alternative logging operation" in 1991 at Tofino Creek, Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island. The image ended up being a poster for Greenpeace's campaign to end clearcutting. ©Garth Lenz

Some photographers who approach ENGOs are already established. Since I started working with ENGOs very early on, now when I approach an ENGO I have not worked with previously, I almost always know someone there and they are already aware of my work. So how did I start working with ENGOs before I was an established photographer? Local groups in my hometown of Victoria were working to protect the Carmanah Valley, one of the last large and intact watersheds of old growth coastal temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island and home to the recently discovered tallest trees in Canada. It was all scheduled to be clear-cut in the very near future. At the time, I was still teaching piano to support myself, but photography and environmental issues were exerting an ever stronger pull. I had recently visited the area and was equally impressed by the devastating clearcuts, majestic forests, and the committed individuals I met there who were building trails to help the public access the area and learn what was at stake.

An image of the Carmanah Valley on Vancouver Island, from Garth's first feature assignment. The area was slated to be clearcut but later protected after a lengthy protest. ©Garth Lenz

I spent a few days in the area hiking and photographing, and upon my return to Victoria, I introduced myself to the local chapter of the Sierra Club and showed them my work. Shortly thereafter, Canada’s weekly news magazine, Maclean’s, decided the issue warranted national attention, they contacted the Sierra Club who referred them to me and I had my first published photo. Not long after that, our national newspaper the Globe and Mail decided to cover the story. The Sierra Club recommended me and I had my fist assignment, shooting aerials, which I’d never done before.

How you approach work with an ENGO or any other NGO will depend on how established you are and what subjects and areas you have in your photographic inventory. For someone in the early stages of their career, I think it is best to start locally. Is there an issue you care about that a local NGO is trying to promote? Do you already have images depicting this issue? If the answer to both these questions is yes, then you have an excellent foundation to begin building a relationship on. How you approach this will depend on how established you are and what subjects and areas you have in your photographic inventory. Of course, there are also other ways to make an initial connection.

1. Offer to give a lunch hour presentation of your work to staff. Or you might ask a local group to host a public presentation on an area you have visited and feel strongly about, perhaps splitting any proceeds from the event with them. Most NGO’s have a good base of supporters and may be able to assist in getting a larger audience than you would on your own.
2. Consider donating a print for one of their fundraisers.
3. See if you can organize a photo workshop through the NGO. Ask the NGO to organize it and perhaps for every paying customer they bring in they can have a free spot for a staff member.

Basically, you want the NGO to get to know you. They need to know that you care about the issues as much as they do. Thinking that you will walk through the door and come away with a paying assignment after your initial meeting is, in most cases, just not realistic. Okay, maybe that happens for some of the photo-gods and with very large NGO’s but for most of us mortals, being sent on a paying assignment by and NGO is something that only comes later.

A local woman at the Amber Fort in Jaipur poses for money. "Such a bummer," Ed says. "It reminds me of how the world has become spoiled." ©Ed Kashi

1/6/09

What strikes me about being in India is the growing gap between village and city life. City life is dirtier and more chaotic. People are drowning in their own excrement and sullied air. The calm of silence is hard to find, and the constant blaring of horns and the sounds of a civilization on it’s out-of-control march towards modernization leave me questioning the future of mankind.

Rural life is simpler, often set in magnificent landscapes and rich environments, yet impossibly poor by first-world standards. There are too many children, not enough education and health care, and a toughness to daily life that leaves me feeling as uncertain about the fate of man as the city does. If India represents the future of human civilization, an emerging economic superpower, I fear mankind is doomed on this earth. The common denominator between this imbalance and the one I’ve witnessed so graphically in the Niger Delta is a clear lack of sustainability. The more I travel the world with my peering eye and my questioning mind, accruing a privileged wealth of firsthand knowledge, this lack of sustainability is my overwhelming impression.

A Hindu god immersed in rose petaled water. ©Ed Kashi

From my upper-middle-class-but-progressive New Jersery neighborhood to the oil-spoiled countries of Africa and the Middle East, to the overpopulated India and China, to the dirt poor communities across the globe, particularly in the southern hemispheres, we have created an international human community that is in imbalance and cannot possibly sustain itself from the point of view of resources, pollution, overpopulation, and the associated social, economic, and environmental strains. Unless we change our ways fast, failure seems to be the only outcome. Maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually.

These thoughts leave me less than sanguine about life, yet on a daily basis I also witness the spirit of human ingenuity, the life-sustaining power of people’s survival instincts and the glimpses of solutions, both on a small community level and at a global level as practiced by the most progressive corporations and institutions. Take for instance an initiative we learned about, which preserved and developed medicinal plants and herbs native to this Rajasthani community. They have created a nature preserve dedicated to this cause, thereby providing income for the community. While being a photojournalist can be damaging to one’s sense of hope and drive you into a deep hole of despair, there are also uplifting moments and glimpses into how people survive and help one another. It’s this constant cycle of destruction and renewal, part of the life cycle, which I get to witness on a constant basis through the privilege of my roving observations.

Students on assignment at the National Geographic Photo Camp in Rajasthan, India. ©Ed Kashi

Every National Geographic Photo Camp I’ve worked on has impressed these notions upon me, and as I get older, the need to receive and give nourishment and cross pollination becomes essential. Being in this rural community in Rajasthan makes me wonder if the future of sustainability, or at least any hopes of survival, will come from the simple, centuries-old agrarian lives people here live. They are not greedy, they live within their means, eat fresh food and all seem to have one need. Yes they could use surer, cleaner sources of water, more reliable electricity, stronger houses, much better education and health care….all the extraordinarily important elements of a healthy life. But at least they live within their means while the developed world lives far outside of theirs, relying on a structure that is unfair, destructive to the earth’s environment, and self-serving.

I am eager to teach, give information to, even lecture my children because I want them to learn what I’ve learned — sooner rather than later. Maybe they’ll be able to take advantage of the information and avoid some of the mistakes I made growing up. This desire also holds true for the photo students I encounter in my workshops. Photography is so much more than image making, particularly photojournalism and documentary work. There are deeper responsibilities and moral and ethical issues connected to your work when you are given permission to enter people’s lives intimately to witness their pain and joy. We photographers become agents of communication, bridging worlds, charged with healing as well as slapping our viewers in the face with information they must know. Students and young photographers must learn this as early as possible to better serve the purpose of this work. We must learn to make the world a better place by shedding light on dark places but also by providing solutions and hope. It took me years to understand this, having spent so much time just trying to make my mark in this profession and struggle with making a living and gaining influence to get my stories out. I want my students to understand these critical elements sooner rather than later.

Chris's favorite shots are the result of careful planning, like knowing exactly where to stand to capture this dye release into a glacial river. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI

My first Arctic expedition was also my first foray into digital photography. This was 2002. The D1, with a whopping 2.74 megapixels, was Nikon’s flagship camera and lower priced bodies like the D100 had not yet hit the market. But the premise of our project was that we would be updating a website daily with images and text, so Woods Hole sent me out with a 5-megapixel Nikon point-and-shoot as a supplement to my film SLR gear. I had never used a digital camera before and had only rudimentary experience with Photoshop. The learning curve was steep. I practiced with the camera before the trip but there were huge limitations compared to using an SLR system: the zoom lens had a small range of focal lengths, creative control of aperture and shutter speeds was limited, and, perhaps worst of all, the camera responded very slowly (both in terms of shutter lag and frame rate).

Yet, shooting with that first digital camera opened my eyes to the power of digital. I could see my results immediately — I knew when I had the shot or didn’t. Using a small point-and-shoot with a tilting LCD also allowed me to get some really candid shots that would not have been possible with a huge DSLR. The following year, I upgraded to a D100 and said goodbye to film.

Doing his research allows Chris to anticipate where to stand not only to get the shot, but also not be crushed by equipment or swept overboard. ©Chris Linder/WHOI

A more important lesson I learned (and continue to learn) was how to photograph scientists. This may be patently obvious, but scientists do not have training as models. A surefire way to destroy a really intense moment, like a group of researchers discussing a recent result, is to wave a huge SLR in front of their faces. More than anything, I learned how to get the shots I needed while at the same time preserving the scientists’ respect and trust. Remaining unobtrusive is key. I always keep in mind that the fieldwork I am photographing is the result of years of hard work to get funding and prepare for an expedition. Time is a precious resource when you’re in the field, so I make it a point to never interrupt their work to stage a scene.

Everything I shoot is completely natural and unscripted and sometimes quite raw. Which isn’t to say that I wander about aimlessly hoping for lucky shots. I apply the same patience I learned from the grant writing process to carefully researching my subjects. This means I know what is going to happen (like when and where an instrument will be brought on deck) and will wait for the players and light to come together, sometimes for hours. I usually spend this observation phase with the camera ready but down, out of sight. As the hours and days go by, I eventually fade into the background, and voila, I’m invisible. Of course, it’s also essential to do your share carrying boxes, washing bottles, making dinner, or otherwise showing that you’re part of the team and not afraid to get your hands dirty doing real work. When you’ve earned the respect of the team—when you become a member of team—it’s a lot easier to get the shot.