Interview: ‘Photography has been fundamentally the shining of a light in the hope of initiating change’

When he was eight or nine years old, a box brownie camera procured at a jumble sale became Philip Blenkinsop's pride and joy. He shot his first photographs – of an old, metal, pedal car that he had hoisted four feet onto a tree on a rope from which his young brother swung fearlessly – in his backyard. Other early photographs were made during family holidays in Madeira, Russia and Finland.

Blenkinsop, who was born in England and brought up in Australia, lives in Bangkok now. In 1989, at the age of 23, he moved to Asia to document conflict in the region that was largely ignored by the mainstream media. His photographic work has centred around atrocities in Laos, Nepal and Burma amongst others.

Blenkinsop is convinced that photography, through its visual power and reach, can lead to change. "For me, photography has been fundamentally the shining of a light in the hope of initiating change,” he said. “The people with the loads on their backs that I have shot, carry the weight of the world. We should all be angry that such contradictions are allowed to exist. I see no romance in it. Theirs is a real Sisyphean struggle.”

Blenkinsop’s work has earned him the prestigious photography award, the Visa d’Or, thrice. He has also won the World Press Photo award twice.

He will be in Chennai at the end of February to conduct a photography workshop, excerpts from a conversation:

You’ve often been referred to as a photographer of resistances. In its practice, how receptive do you think photography is when it comes to the complex understanding and depiction of conflict? Has it ever limited you, if at all, in your experience so far?
I think that the biggest limiting factor for me has always been time. When I do have time, I often work back into images things that let me tell stories about the people so that it becomes inseparable – the information and the picture. This is important because photography is so accessible now, even deceptive. The medium has so many practitioners who shouldn't be out there because they don’t necessarily have the moral fibre, humanity or the integrity that it needs. The only place I have ever had difficulties shooting were with the Nepali Maoists because there was a real and imposed hierarchy within the group. Commanders would want to dictate the when and where before you pressed a button. Consequently, the opportunities to shoot had to be seized with equal pinches of diplomacy, guile and not a small degree of stubbornness.

You’ve been living in Southeast Asia since 1989, focusing on the invisible issues of the region. What drew you to this part of the world, and how did you work as an outsider (in the beginning) in order to gain access to the areas/subjects that have remained unrepresented in mainstream reportage?
It’s been stubbornness, blind perseverance and self-belief. I arrived in Bangkok in February 1989. The challenges to my first-world sensibilities most definitely went a long way to defining my environment and my relationship to Asia. I was a completely different person back then. It wasn’t easy to gain access but I always wore my heart on my sleeve and I think somewhere people understood that despite the differences in language. I travelled with like-minded journalists, and as I approached my subjects, I was guided by everything that passed through me, most importantly my own values.

Over the interim years, my experiences in Asia have, in turn, shaped the way I view the West and my living here might just make me uniquely equipped to comment through the camera with a vision which, while hopefully respectful, is nevertheless far removed from someone who has lived their whole life in one Asian region.

When working with subjects on either side of the conflict, how do you negotiate your own ethics of working? For instance, you’ve said that when you’re with the guerrillas, you’re never a stranger, but their comrade. As a photographer, how do you deal with your own biases?
It’s all very subjective, yes. However, I’m a firm believer in my inner sense of justice and yes, one has their biases, but my approach is objective. I’m aware of certain situations where there’s been a violation of human rights on both sides. If you look at East Timor, where there’s a ruthless Indonesian army of occupation who use rape as a weapon of war, and where people are outlaws in their own country, I don’t really have a problem thinking that I’m cheering the people on in their battle against these atrocities. And if people have a problem with it, that’s their problem.

You’re quite the traditionalist when it comes to photography, working only on black-and-white film. Your book on the conflict between Islamist militants and the army in southern Thailand is made of bullets, burnt cloth and snakeskin amongst other things. You’ve smeared blood on your photographs of conflict and handwritten your experiences on them. Tell me why you’ve reserved certain practices for certain stories.
I think that it makes situations tangible in a way for viewers. There’s nothing worse for me than a photograph on a white wall because it is completely out of context, and you have none of that sense of fear of experiencing a conflict. It’s never about the aesthetic – it’s about as much information you can bring to the image and it helps people develop an attachment to something that they might find unnerving. It might jolt them when they see the pictures, and it’s important to reach people in a way that stays in their minds much after they’ve seen the image, leaving them inclined to question more.

What do you think of contemporary photographic practices (via newer digital platforms) when it comes to the question of actually bringing change through images and sustaining a visual narrative?
Let me start with Instagram. I cannot understand people’s fixation with this thing. Yes, it’s easier to do things with it, but at the end of the day, that’s all it is. Yes, in terms of access and speed. But I don’t believe in the speed of technology. It’s become dangerously fast and there’s a tendency to publish things before we’ve had the chance to really understand them. In this rush, it’s all about content providing and we’re losing whatever visual literacy we started off with. People now don’t have any knowledge of the history of the image or light, whether they’re learning from painting or photography. I’m fed up of people posting things online that others need to constantly check out and be amazed by. It’s the talk of imbeciles, you know.

How has your experience of working on issues related to the environment in China differed from your other photographic work? It is a different kind of conflict, one on a more visible scale to begin with.
It’s a 180-degrees turnaround from everything else I’ve done before. A huge and obvious environmental issue that we face as a planet is water, and it was water that took me to China in 2008 to work in the Yellow River environs. It was a whole different way of shooting, focusing more on capturing the feeling that permeates a place rather than the players within it. I had a different set of responsibilities in a completely different theatre. It seemed like a far lonelier job than shooting in other places of conflict, where everybody is a brother and on a few occasions, your sister. As against portraits I shot in East Timor, in China, while shooting the environment, I worried less about immortalising characters for the future generations, if one can use that word. It freed me up much more, photographically.

At the Chennai Photo Biennale, you will be conducting a street documentary and reportage workshop. In the introduction, you've said, “I am definitely not interested in National Geographic-style postcards.” What are you hoping for in the city and in the participants?
I haven’t been to India much actually. But there’ll be a lot of old friends and some incredible camaraderie in Chennai. I’m actually looking forward to hot weather and good food. If I have those, I won’t be disappointed (laughs). I expect the participants will have their own ideas, and I don’t think too much about planning the minute details. It’s a subject that’s very easy for me to talk about because it’s the one thing I know very intimately. So I can chop and change and I know I can get back to where I need to be. It’s really about ways of seeing the street and trying to push people to be aware of their environment. In most cases, pictures don’t jump out and say, “Shoot me!” There is a lot of groundwork, walking and the choreography of your mind’s eye. By the end of my workshop, hopefully people will keep the soul of their own work and look at the outside more intelligently.

All photographs: Courtesy Philip Blenkinsop

Philip Blenkinsop will conduct a photography workshop in Chennai on February 19. He will also give a talk at the first edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale, which runs from February 26 to March 13.

Paroma Mukherjee is an independent photographer and Photo Editor at Blouin ArtInfo Monthly Editions.