NEECO-tourism

I've been in confession mode lately. Got a new confession today. Recently, I took part in NEECO-tourism (Not Exactly Eco tourism...). Well, as a photojournalist I have an important job to do, so I guess I am excused, right? Anyway, to check out and document marine life at the Similan Islands, off the Thai coast, I had to (I mean had to, it is a dirty job and all that) get on a speedboat with three 200 horse power engines and race out there at 30 knots. To see .. I mean document... a lone turtle being fed bananas by tourist guides from three different boats, and see .. I mean document..a huge Russian man proudly turn into a swollen version of the Pink Panther.

Elephant in the room

Khao Lak, Thailand: Returning five years after I covered the tsunami aftermath is a bit odd. It is rather unlikely (knock on wood!) that a tsunami will strike just as I am back, so I sleep quite well at night. But it is like nobody really wants to mention the elephant in the room. But it's hard not to see the signs: "Tsunami evacuation route" , "Tsunami shelter 5 km" etc.. Yet a hotel employee told me that since he returned to Khao Lak 8 months ago, not a single tourist has asked him anything about what happened in 2004, or if it could happen again. And the tourists are coming in ever greater numbers. Warning signs and memorials are there, but most hotels have been rebuilt and there is little evidence of the devastation I saw five years ago. But I can understand why people choose to ignore the elephant. Talking to the survivors is heartbreaking.

White flag II

Sometimes you just can't win. As you may have read: recently and reluctantly I got 30 pieces of silver from the government (though they are not in my account yet - perhaps I have been duped?). Anyway, so I find myself in Thailand with some pictures of a certain minister laying down flowers to commemorate those who died in the tsunami five years ago. Next step is to try to sell these pictures. Norway's biggest newspaper (for now) seems very interested for a few hours , then they suddenly decline. Baffled I soon find the answer on the internet: they've been given a picture for free. That's obviously annoying, and I recent VG for going with the handout pictures after expressing an interest in my pictures, but it happens these days. What really made my jaw drop was the byline. The picture came from the MFA, the very same people that gave me a grant to cover this! First they give me money (well, I am still waiting but..) then they knock me out of the competition by handing out freebies.

Up goes another white flag. I throw my cards. I yield. I tear my hear. I open a Singha I had cleverly placed in the hotel fridge earlier. Then another.

Fortunately I didn't spend all the taxpayers money (well, so far only my own money actually..) on photographing the minister and I have a few days left. So I still hope to come home with some material to actually earn some money from this trip. But who knows.

Here is a little "behind the scenes" story. Classic press photography trickery (note: I don't call this photojournalism): In the first scene you you see how the minister is heading out onto the empty beach, to have a solemn moment in the breaks. The second picture perhaps a truer representation of the event, with us photographers (and MFA) nearly falling over ourselves to get pretty much same shot.


As a parting shot I give you the classic politician with baby. It is a well know fact that babies and politicians cannot be expected to stay at opposite ends of a room if there are photographers around. In a Norwegian hospital there may be some red tape when photographing patients, as we have some privacy laws. No such complications in Thailand...

Don't Worry - Be Happy

It is late autumn. The rain is falling yet again from a dark grey sky. The media is dying. The planet is suffocating from CO2. There is AIDS and starvation. There is Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu. And...and..and... Then, as I walk home in the rain, I am given a message right in front of my nose. Placed perfectly to be seen by grim people walking hunched over in the rain, a smiley painted on the street. The world may still be falling apart, but not without a smile!

White flag

Some years ago I accepted a grant from NORAD, the Norwegian Development Agency, to make some features in Sierra Leone. (Yes I know, the money in the picture are Nigerian. Don't worry, it's not important to the story that follows...)



The grant was quite open, the only term was that it was to be spent in one of the countries Norway was working with in the region. It is the ideal situation for a reporter, someone saying: " go make some story in West Africa". Yet I felt a bit uneasy, as my attitude is that as journalists should have no links to organizations or people we report directly on. In this case I really don't think we would've done much, if anything differently, if the money come from a newspaper. Still I couldn't rid myself of feeling I had crossed a line. So I decided not to accept such a grant again. Ever.

Well, that was then...Fast forward four years and I applied for a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And I got it. I took it. I am shortly going to Thailand, partly for Norwegian taxpayers money. So what as changed?

2009 has been an "Annus horribilis" for media, and a lot has changed in our industry. It has left me thinking about the options left in order to do the kind of reporting that interests me and that I think is important journalistically. It is apparent changes needs to be made for journalism to adapt, simply to survive, in this new landscape. So does this mean I have to lower my standards, do we have to "adapt" our morality as well? I wish I could say a firm "NO!" to that. But my conclusion is a resigned "yes".

It seems to me the media as a whole has given up on many of the ethical standards that used to be considered core values in the business. "Content is king" is a worn out catch frase, now replaced by "Free is king". Or better yet "Free content is king". Even the Norwegian union newspaper Journalisten now prefer to use pictures from Flickr, microstock etc, which allow them to use pictures for free (or virtually for free), rather than to give even their own union members priority, follow union tariffs and pay reasonably. This is true for other union magazines as well. When even the unions abandon their values and members, what does that say about the business climate today?
Or when a Norwegian magazine, officially on the left politically, offered me a fraction of the asking price for a story I made in Kashmir because "that is what we would normally be paying a local freelancer in Iraq for such a story"? The same magazine will write about foreign construction workers in Norway being paid less than minimum wage, how they are being exploited as well as how this is undermining the Norwegian workers rights and salaries. And they don't see the irony...

Some of my colleagues have indicated I have been naive about the idealism and ethics in journalism. I am starting to think they may be right: It would seem no one in this industry is giving a shit any more, if you pardon my French.
These days no one is thinking twice about accepting money from the government to afford writing about what the government does. It turns out pretty much all Norwegian media apply for grants, especially if it means getting on a plane to see what the Minister of the Environment and International Development is up to. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of the most generous donors around.

I'd like to think I still give a shit. I still believe there are a number of rules that should govern the way we work as journalists. But on this issue I raise the white flag! I give up. So from now on I will apply for grants that I previously would not have considered. However, unlike most of my colleagues, I will make sure all pictures taken with the help of grants will leave my computer with a reference to the funding. (Such as in this example from Sierra Leone.) I don't know if it matters much, or just makes me feel better. Come to think of it, I am not even sure it makes me feel all that much better.

100.000 images and counting

November 10th 2009 marked a special day for the Felix Features archive: we passed 100.000 images in our online archive. The actual picture that made us pass this mark is a portrait of an Afghan Army soldier, made by Alfredo Caliz, in Herat province. In many ways it is typical of the work we represent: the photographer has travelled far, spent time to document an issue and a place that affects many people, and he has made a great feature. Check out the whole series here.



What started as a personal archive of my own pictures in 2007 has turned into our agency's most important tool. The digital evolution has made it possible for us to run an agency, based on software and servers in the US, at a reasonable cost. Kudos to Photoshelter for this great product that our archive is built upon.

The transition from film to digital pictures revolutionized the flow of pictures around the world, but the process also killed off innumerable picture agencies. The financial crisis that rocked the world this and last year certainly didn't help our business. But Felix Features is still here!

Our strategy is to keep doing what we are good at: "proper" photojournalism. Whilst some media gravitate towards the entertainment and celebrity business when times are hard we have decided to be true to our craft. And we will keep working to have a fair trade profile by taking a smaller commission than is the norm in Norway, making sure photographers get a share every time a picture is sold, and working with our main partner Panos Pictures who in turn gives half their profits to development work.

We've always been confident about the quality of the pictures in our archive. We're happy to have increased the quantity as well!

Faith in Ken

Faith by Ken Opprann - Images by Felix Features

Norwegian photography books are rare. And black and white photojournalism in hard cover about as common as solar eclipses. Or should I say as rare as photojournalism on the artscene. But just the other day my friend Ken Opprann could pour the wine and celebrate his book "Faith" ("Tro" in Norwegian), published on Font Forlag.

For about 15 years Ken has been traveling the world, photographing people as they practice their faith. The result is an impressive 337 page book, all classic black and white photojournalism.

So classic, in a technical sense, that all but a couple of pictures were shot on Tri-X film and developed by hand in his bathroom. But most importantly classic in the sense that Ken has taken the pictures without any directing, fancy technique or fakery. He has used time and his people skills, showing respect to the people he photograph, to get trust and access. The two latter being essential in photojournalism. You can have a good eye, great cameras and technique, but it will do you no good without trust and access.

"Ken" actually means "yes" in Hebrew. I was with him in Jerusalem, it was like Abbott and Costello in "Who's on first?"! Fortunately Ken overcame this and numerous other challenges to take his pictures. If "Fatih" had been a DVD I think the extra material and behind the scenes shots had been as interesting as the main film.

Ken has allowed the people, the settings and the light to be the basis for his pictures. So many photographers are applying some sort of signature effect these days, hoping to stand out in a competitive market. To me it often seems they are putting up a smoke screeen, as if they realize the pictures don't have enough depth (in terms of content) without it. With Kens pictures there is no need for that.