Some of you may find this interesting. Do any of you know or have you heard of Ed Kashmi??
Its an article on a photographer so it should belong here i guess 
Footloose, NOS, The News International
“I chose camera
as my conduit”
A chat with award-winning photojournalist Ed Kashi who was on a National Geographic assignment to capture the open-minded nature of Pakistan
By Alefia T. Hussain
He never aspired to be a photographer as a child. But clearly felt the desire inside him to get into the lives of other people – to tell their story. And that’s how it started for Ed Kashi who has, for the last 30 years, looked at the many facets of this world, its people and landscape, through the lens of his camera.
An award-winning photojournalist, filmmaker and educator, Ed Kashi’s work has been published in prominent magazines, newspapers, books and websites all over the world. His imagery has been recognised for the sensitive rendering of human conditions – the social and political issues that define our times. I met up with him recently in Lahore at one of the city’s five-star hotels over a cup of coffee. Sipping his steaming, frothy cappuccino, he gave insight into what may be called a rather intriguing past and his experiences in Pakistan.
Kashi was in Lahore on a National Geographic assignment to capture the open-minded nature of Pakistan in the midst of rising extremism and militancy. “I’ve been struck by the general cooperative spirit, the lack of animosity or aggression and the openness of the people. Other places like Nigeria or the Middle East often have state security breathing down your neck or the general aggressiveness of the people to foreigners.”
But, on this bright autumn Sunday morning, he seemed pleased to say that “I haven’t felt that this time around in Pakistan.” He has been coming here to work since 1994. “I feel Pakistan is such a misunderstood country. My friends and family back home in New Jersey are all ooohs about my being here.”
Still he came to Pakistan. “I look for stories that not only have a human angle but also an edge. So in this case, I said to myself, why not Pakistan which in current affairs is such a critical country.”
He grew up in the 1960s and 70s in America, when there was an amazing protest in the form of rock music, when music was more poetry, when there was Bob Dylan, Beatles and others amid, what he calls the “blossoming of social conscience”. All that deeply impacted him. If he had got into a university of his choice, he probably would have been a sociologist or psychologist. But his good fortune “saved” him. And the passion to tell people’s stories took preference.
As a 16-year-old student living in the outskirts of New York, Ed Kashi would study the tired, unhappy faces of businessmen taking the train in or out of the 1970s’ Manhattan. He would imagine their worries, like mortgage, and “all the weight on their shoulders.” It was at the same that he was taking Literature classes, learning about storytelling and getting embroiled in great novels when he realised: “Ah! I want to be a writer. I want to tell stories, I want to meet people. I want to travel… I want to see the world”.
Kashi pursued this goal till he got “a cold slap of reality” in his university days. “I wasn’t much of a writer.” Coming from a modest background (his father died when he was 10), he learnt that he could not afford to spend 10 years just being a writer. “As a freshman at the Syracuse University I felt a moment of reckoning… I had to stop thinking about being a writer. It was not a realistic goal in terms of making a living soon after graduating.”
Yet, he remained passionate about storytelling. He fumbles with words, “Was it hype,” he pauses, looks out of the window, takes a sip of his cappuccino and continues: “No it was rich,” he finds the expression that satisfies him. “Yes, the idea of storytelling was very rich to me.”
Around this time Kashi made a career decision: “Okay, I know I can’t be a writer. But I have to tell stories. So why can’t I do that using a camera, I thought.” And, what can be better than to be paid to observe people and tell their tales through the camera lens? I ask. “Nothing at all,” he accepts, and elaborates, “In fact, camera is a tremendous buffer, especially in dangerous situations.” Then he stops. A long meaningful stop: “I did not care about money, mind you. All I cared about was to survive; make a living. And to pursue my passion for storytelling, I chose camera, not a pen, as my conduit.”
He had, nevertheless, not taken a picture until he went to university. “At most a polaroid family snap, you know,” he says in his very American accent explaining his unfamiliarity with photography early in age. He remembers, how he begged his brother (who was also his trustee) one night on a pay-phone to lend him 75 dollars to buy a camera required for a photo course. “Thank goodness he said ‘yes’. Believe me, that small amount of money actually gave me direction; in choosing photography as a full-time career.”
His first picture with the 75-dollar camera was a can on a grass, he recalls. “It was hardly a piece of high art,” he shakes his head, as if embarrassed, and gives out a slight laughter. Then turns serious, and says, “I think writing and painting are the highest forms of art, because one starts with a blank sheet or a canvas, whereas a photographer has a lot to work with.”
His first published picture? He takes another sip of coffee. “Probably in my college magazine.” However, Kashi says his big artistic breakthrough came in 1979 when he moved to San Francisco. Soon after the shift, he started getting assignments for national magazines. By 1988, after almost nine years in the Bay Area, “I realised that most of the assignments I was getting were of portraits. I was going to photograph Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or someone else manufacturing a chip in the Bay Area. I was not doing news or politics – and that’s not what I wanted. I was taking pictures of things I didn’t care about.”
He moved to Northern Ireland the same year and started working on a personal documentary project on the Protestants living in the area. “I made pictures of what I thought was more wow; was more journalistic.” And since then he has shot in Iraq with focus on the Shia-Sunni conflict (his parents were from Iraq), Jewish settlers in West Bank, in Afghanistan and other conflict areas. His work, particularly in Nigeria, where he documented the negative impact of oil development on the impoverished Niger Delta, and of Kurdish people is extensive and has won several awards.
What is it like to be in frontline? “War reporting is treacherous. The general idea that journalists are neutral observers of war, and hence not to be targeted, has changed. How can we ensure safety? In this age of car bombing, suicide bombing, is someone going to give me a battalion of soldiers… even then I’m not safe. Given the nature of my work I’m often in the centre of bull’s-eye. It can be very distressing.” He clears his throat, and adds: “I have a wife (Julie Winokur, writer and filmmaker) and two children (a son, 14, and daughter, 11). I can’t do much of that kind of work.” For instance, when he went to Iraq in 2002-03 he found it too dangerous. He had to stop. “That’s not the kind of work I excel in. I like in-depth, narrative storytelling; not being in the frontline, capturing today’s headlines. That’s not what I am best at.”
Kashi says he never waits for people to call him for odd assignment and theme projects. He usually comes up with ideas and executes them. One such project was on aging people in the US. “In the mid-90s, I decided I needed to turn the camera on my own country. I identified the issue of aging, how America is growing old, what are the issues we need to think about and how are we going to care for these millions of people who will not be able to climb mountains and wind surf. Most will be depressed.”
He was accompanied by his wife on this project titled ‘Aging in America: The Years Ahead’. Together they worked on it for eight years, and produced an award winning documentary film, a book, a website (www.msnbc. com) and a travelling exhibition. It received awards from the Picture of the Year and Word Press. “It became one of the great themes of my lifetime, I think.”
A photojournalist for the last thirty years, his work has not tired him still. While this National Geographic project in Pakistan may strictly be print, he often does multi-platform storytelling by using video and audio.
But he thinks, having works published in leading publications such as National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times magazine and many more is just the beginning. “Because it is great to reach people through mass market publications, greater it is to take media materials – stills, video, audio, text – reformulate them and develop teaching and advocacy materials for activists and to broader audiences to raise awareness about issues and themes I have covered.”
He explains: “I’ve never been more passionate about this. It has increasingly become a focus of my attention and vision.”