The Digital Camera Interview

Photojournalist Pablo Bartholomew A chronicler of the Bhopal tragedy and winner of World Press Photo awards, Pablo Bartholomew’s career is anything but conventional – as Geoff Harris discovers

Call it pride, stubbornness or sheer bloody “What I remember most from those holidays mindedness, but the best photographers was my father making contact sheets from the have a bolshy integrity, an independence of rolls of film that he’d sent to the shop to be spirit, that makes their work so memorable processed,” recalls Pablo. “He would do it by and transcendent. A great example of this is gas light in the house that we’d rented for the Pablo Bartholomew, a leading photojournalist summer. There was no electricity, which is why and winner of the World Press Photo of the we used lamps in the evenings. I watched as Year award. His shots of the child victims of the blank paper was put into the developing the Bhopal disaster, the Kashmir conflict or tray and an image would gradually appear. Profile Mother Teresa’s funeral, stay with you forever, There was a kind of mystery in seeing the ● Born in India, Pablo’s and remain benchmarks of excellence in an images that had been taken a few days photographic career age of image saturation. before, of landscapes or of the family, forming began in his teens. Pablo’s a true maverick, and fascinating to on paper as if by magic. I suppose the magic ● Since becoming a talk to for several reasons – as well has having of photography was embedded from there.” photojournalist in 1983, lots to say about the digital versus film his work has appeared debate, he’s someone who honed his craft in Heat and dust in major news the film industry, working with directors from After being kicked out of school at 15, Pablo publications, including both Hollywood and Bollywood. At the same worked as a photographic processor, before Time, Newsweek, time, he’s a successful developer of photo working within the UN and the Red Cross in his Paris Match and management and delivery software, despite native India. His rigorous dedication to The Guardian. his ambivalence towards digital photography. developing his photographic skills bore fruit ● He won his first Talking to Pablo reveals nostalgia for the when, at the tender age of 19, he won his first World Press Photo sensuousness of film, common to World Press Photo accolade – Best Picture award at 19; nine years photographers of his age (he’s 47). As a young Story – for a series of photographs about later he won the Picture boy, he’d go on family holidays into the morphine addicts in India. “It was the end of of the Year award. mountains of northern India with his parents: the hippie movement and the rise of the ● Pablo trained as a stills photographer on movies, working Pablo on learning his art A children’s choir in alongside leading film Kohima, Nagaland in the directors/producers, “If you don’t go through school or any kind of formal including Merchant/ North East of India, Ivory and Richard photographic education, the only way that you can learn proper sings in a playground Attenborough. after having a break for

lighting and, as it were, pay your dues, is on the job” Bartholomew / Netphotograph.com Pablo a mango drink

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Mother Teresa The morning after Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, her body was at her offi cial residence called Mother House. Nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, surrounded her body for a last farewell before the body was put up for public display. Pablo Bartholomew / Netphotograph.com Pablo

was a great opportunity to learn and further Interview my career,” he explains. Indeed, Pablo believes passionately that working alongside In the bag Pablo great movie directors and cinematographers On a digital job, Pablo packs a selection of while on location in India transformed his Canon SLRs; three zoom lenses (17-35mm, Bartholomew photography, particularly his lighting 28-70mm and 70-200mm); a camera- technique. He cites the infl uence of Sven mounted fl ash unit; 1GB CompactFlash junkie movement. But although I was thrilled Nykvist, who shot all of Ingmar Bergman’s cards; a laptop with every sort of connector; a phone wire; to win an award, it didn’t do much for my fi lms and, of course, Satyajit Ray: “he wrote, Ethernet, USB and career. I was living in India, and although being art directed, composed his music and was the Firewire cables; a a press photographer was developing, at that operating cameraman on his fi lms. It was a small, light tripod; and time it didn’t mean too much”. So Pablo great learning process.” a good canvas camera moved to Bombay and started working on Pablo then began working on commercial bag with padding. Bollywood fi lm sets. projects, but the same drive for independence A spell with famous Indian fi lm director that ignited his career soon made him tire of Satyajit Ray in Calcutta led to an introduction the demands of a brief. “I got fed up, I was to Richard Attenborough, and Pablo became impatient and the art directors maddened me. Needless to say, Bartholomew’s the stills photographer on his 1981 production I was angry all the time.” Not for the fi rst time independence was undiminished: “During that of ‘Gandhi’ and later on Merchant Ivory’s ‘Heat in his life, he decided that enough was time I followed all the big Indian stories but, and Dust’. “If you don’t go through school or enough. “After ‘Gandhi’ I was able to gather much to my agency’s horror and anger, I’d any kind of formal photographic education, the enough money and go to Paris and New York take off for three or four months and go to a only way that you can learn proper lighting and I fi nally found an agency,” he recalls. The very remote area, where they couldn’t reach and, as it were, pay your dues, is on the job. agency was the Gamma Liaison Network, me, and work.” Working on fi lms, with renowned directors, where he worked for almost 20 years. As time went by, various agencies were being bought up and subsumed into super agencies and, as Pablo describes it, “We Pablo on working for picture agencies could see the digital era galloping at us. I I hitched a ride from Chittagong decided that if I was going to be with a big airport in Bangladesh with a minister “I followed all the big Indian stories but, much to agency and I was going to be far more who was surveying the area after the independent, I was going to have to develop 1991 cyclone. The pilot went as low my agency’s horror and anger, I’d take off for three an internet delivery system. Having built mine, as possible to this horrifi c scene, or four months and go to a very remote area” I was then able to offer it as a system to other which looked straight out of hell. photojournalists who had been in the

Pablo Bartholomew / Netphotograph.com Pablo business for 20 to 25 years and were going

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Chittagong, Bangladesh Manganyar After the 1991 cyclone that hit the Chittagong area Fine musicians and singers, who come mainly from the of Bangladesh, there was tremendous sadness and Jaisalmer and Barmer districts of India. ‘Manganyar’ a lot of crying by women who had lost their homes means ‘one who begs’, and indicates the low status of and families. these superb artists. Also mostly converted to Islam at some time, they do still continue to sing for their Hindu patrons the Rajputs and Megwals, and like the Langas, are the guardians of the oral tradition of the family they belong to.

Interview

Pablo Bartholomew / Netphotograph.com Pablo Bartholomew / Netphotograph.com Pablo Bartholomew independent or not sure what to do. Initially, curse,” he says. “So I think I’m of the old 20 years and had thousands of images but commissions. Of his return to commercial the rawness of youth and the freshness it put us on a par with the digital age in terms school. Whenever young photographers ask couldn’t or didn’t want to work with the newly work, he says, “I often wonder ‘what am I of the eye and not knowing. When you become of a delivery system. Now, more and more of me about photography and how they can learn cobbled agencies, were going to be left out in doing here?’ But I’ll do it because it more sophisticated in your looking you tend Inspired? us are shooting with digital.” more, then I say that there’s no better way the cold. It was for these reasons that to have supplements my income and allows me to do to want to be more controlled and I think that Pablo’s top 5 tips than to be able to shoot print and process in a presence on the internet, your work needs my own longer term projects.” sometimes, control can be a bad thing.” A blessing and a curse black and white. The gamut of it allows you to be seen, searched and delivered.” But doesn’t the celebrated photographer When it comes to advising younger ● Avoid backlight as cheaper digital For Pablo, the biggest advantage of digital is understand each of the processes and how Pablo’s company is also a technology of the Bhopal tragedy have mixed feelings photographers, Pablo also points out the cameras still don’t handle this well. the speed with which he can deliver work to much fl exibility and control you have.” partner of the World Press Photo Foundation about working for big US corporations? “I importance of mental toughness and self ● Avoid patchy light as extremes are clients. While grateful for this, he’s aware that Pablo is adamant, however, that modern and its educational programme: “Since 2001 see no confl ict in working for corporations. reliance: “To be a freelance photographer is a not handled well by the sensor and there’s a price to pay. “Digital photography photographers have to move with the times, we’ve built a solution where the participating If I worked for Union Carbide or Dow hard life. There are sacrifi ces that have to be you’ll have hotspots with no details. has made me a slave to the computer and I and accept the new realities of the digital age photographer and their tutors can meet online Chemicals, yes there would be a confl ict as made, and these are easier when you’re young end up spending much more time editing and or risk disappearing into obscurity. “The and share work.” they are the owners of the gas plant at and unmarried. You have to have staying ● Shoot when the sun’s at an angle delivering the images. I also think we’re too mergers and acquisitions among photo Bhopal. But I can select and choose. I don’t power both fi nancially and in your vision. A lot and has colour – that is, rising or reliant on the technology. If a camera agencies threw up a lot of problems for Gut feelings have to work for everyone.” of patience is required. You have to also spend falling (from sunrise to about 10am company doesn’t come out with a high photographers who couldn’t adapt to the new Nowadays, Pablo spreads himself across As a recipient of the World Press Photo time meeting picture editors and developing and again from about 3pm to enough megapixel camera and you’re forced working styles with different teams at the new various fi elds, working with his photo- Picture of the Year, Pablo was invited onto the personal relations. The period of long sundown). Shooting in the middle of to migrate to a competitor’s system, then, agencies and their working styles. Many database projects, working as a judging panel in 1999 and 2000. He describes assignments is gone. You also need to realise the day gives your subjects deep yes, you’re dependent.” photographers, who had been working for over photojournalist, and carrying out commercial the experience with characteristic that there are too many photographers around shadows under their eyes and there’s Currently, Pablo works half on fi lm and half thoughtfulness, “Assessing awards is these days, and that the magazines are little or no colour in the daylight. on digital, often shooting on Canon interesting. With a good image, there’s always getting meaner and have smaller budgets ● Shoot in open shade as much as equipment, and using minimal Photoshop that feeling in your stomach – something that for photography!’ possible during high noon. enhancement – tweaking Levels/Curves and Pablo on judging awards takes your breath away.” correcting colour but leaving the rest to the When he compares his work of today with ● To be a freelance photographer publication. “I still enjoy shooting on fi lm, but “Assessing awards is interesting. With a good the images that he shot when he was younger, PABLO BARTHOLOMEW Want to see more of requires staying power, both digital does work. I don’t know how much it image, there’s always that feeling in your stomach Pablo says, “I’ve got more polished, but I think Pablo’s work? Head to www.netphotograph.com. fi nancially and in your vision. A lot of works, as I see myself working on the that my strongest work is what I did in my late Share your views with other readers on our patience is required. computer much more, so it’s a boon and a – something that takes your breath away” teens to my early twenties. It has to do with forums at www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

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