Text & Interview by Jean Loo, SIPF Writer

Pablo Bartholomew is based in New Delhi, India. He divides his time between photography, running long-term photography workshops, and managing a software company that specialises in photo database solutions and server based digital archiving systems.

Between 2001 and 2003, he ran photography workshops for emerging photographers in India with the support of the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam.

Pablo has also photographed societies in transition in different locations, and has won the World Press Photo award for his series Morphine Addicts in India (1975) and the World Press Picture of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1985).

He has also taken part in several international exhibitions and has been published in Newsweek, Time, National Geographic and Geo among other prestigious magazines

Pablo conducted a workshop on Documentary and an Evening Presentation entitled Discovering Pablo and his Personal Work during the SIngapore International Photography Festival. He is also one of the portfolio reviewers.

Q: What have you been busy with?

A: I’ve been busy putting together a project that I’ve worked on over the past decade. The project, titled “Marked with beauty”, is about the lives of the Nagas, a tribe that lives on the border of Burma and India. My father is half Burmese and walked over the border to India in the 1940s so I often heard stories of these fantastic tribes which have fascinated me. I wondered who these people were, how they engaged in tradition and modern life. I also just completed some editorial projects for Geo magazine and Der Spiegel.

Q: What are your strongest influences?

A: I grew up in a household where photography was a part of our family. My father had a very strong influence on my work. He was a painter, a poet, art critic, curator and photographer and often expressed himself through his work. After he died, I went through his work and was intrigued by the commonalities our work had and the influence he had on me.

Q: You won the World Press Photo award for your series on Morphine Addicts in India in 1975 and the World Press Picture of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1985. How did that help your career?

A: At that time, India was very isolated and disconnected from the rest of the world. When my series on Morphine Addicts won the award then, I was 19 years old and although it didn’t get me any money, it was an important reaffirmation of what I was doing. The second award put my name in everyone’s head in the west so naturally more doors opened.

Q: Having achieved so much, what motivates you now and what is your focus for the next few years?

A: I’m trying to go back to my earlier work. I’m sort of fed up with the way photojournalism is going for me and it’s been kind of a dead end. I want to go back to stories that I really want to do and talk about the things and people that I really know well. It’s also important for me to share what I know and been through with the younger people to help them understand that things have changed.

Q: How do you think the field of Documentary Photography has changed over the years?

A: It’s harder now for the younger photographers who are starting out. The vehicles are not there. News magazines have changed. They are not doing enough stories that are picture-based. There is over-production and they are busy buying stories from agencies and wire services. There are many images around, but some part of the focus has changed to focus more on entertainment and lifestyle work. It’s becoming a kind of homogeneous situation around the world where magazines are facing huge issues of survival because of challenges from the Internet and the era of digitalization, changing editorial stances and the huge overproduction of photography.

My advice for them is to do a reality check: Segregate what you love to do and how you need to earn your money. You need to be able to support yourself before supporting your passion, if not it will have an effect on your passion and dilute it. These are issues that have to be dealt with separately.

Text & Interview by Jean Loo, SIPF Writer

Black and White/White and Black is a photojournalism project by young photographer Diego Ravier. The albinism percentage in Equatorial Africa is very high. As the few white-skinned in a country dominated by black people, albinos often become victims of racism and are subjected to the prejudice that they possess evil powers. They are also more susceptible to skin cancer and poor eyesight. Often, they live in hiding from the unforgiving communities around them. With physical anomalies that make them look different from the majority, most of them end up illiterate and living deprived lives. Diego Ravier’s work can be viewed on rzandphoto.com

Black and White/White and Black was exhibited at the 2902 Gallery as part of Singapore International Photography Festival in Oct 2008. This exhibition is made possible with kind support of Italian Cultural Institute, SIngapore.

Q: How did you learn about the albinos?

A: It started as a commissioned project for the Ordre De Malte, one of the oldest Catholic non-governmental organizations in the world, to document their activities in Africa. One of the groups they help includes the albino community. I started speaking to one of the albinos, and soon I started to find out more about them and the way they live.

Q: How long did you spend on the project?

A: I spent two months in Bobodiulasso in West Africa traveling around small towns and visiting the homes and families of some albinos.

Q: What difficulties did you face and how did you handle them?

A: These people don’t want to be protagonists. They don’t want to be seen, or even have contact with other people. It took a lot of persuasion and hours of talking to gain their trust before I was given permission to shoot. That was the biggest challenged I faced.

Q: What do you think is the significance of this project to society?

A: I want people to think about what is the concept of normality. Does a shift in skin colour and physical differences determine who you are in society? My work must tell a story and have a social objective, before I can even convince my subjects why they should let me photograph them. I think this series has achieved that goal so far.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: My work focuses mostly on people and how they live in their living conditions. I also enjoy learning from the people I photograph or sharing advice I feel will help them. For example in the countryside, many albinos don’t know how to protect themselves or that they should go to their doctors for regular checkups. Many families don’t know that when a young albino plays in the sun, he should be wearing long sleeves and a cap to protect himself from the sun.

I intend to extend the documentary project on albinos into one that examines the concept of skin and societal norms. Up next, I’m heading to Ho Chi Minh City to document a leprosy centre, then I’m planning to head to Europe to investigate the notion of aesthetic skin treatments like UV tanning salons.