Conversations with photographer Mike Hutchings

The World Press Photo exhibition had not been to Cape Town since 2007, but this year the city got lucky as the exhibition reached it’s final destination at the beginning of February. In order to celebrate this event, the World Press Photo organization hooked up with Iziko Cape Town Museums and together they organized a summer school, full of Masterclasses, readings and panel discussions. As part of the program, award-winning photographer Mike Hutchings spoke about his work to a captivated audience.

Mike Hutchings (London, 1963) is an established photo-journalist coming from South Africa. As a photo journalist he also covers sporting events, and it was one of his powerful images taken at soccer World Cup in 2010 that won him first prize in the World Press Photo Sports Category (photo of Demy de Zeeuw being kicked in the face). Mike studied Social Anthropology at the University and then began starting working as a freelance photographer. He has covered a lot of the political conflict in South Africa in the 1980’s and as well as the release of Nelson Mandela, conflicts in the Democratic republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar and Zimbabwe as well as global sporting events such as the Olympics and the soccer World Cup. He became a photographer for Reuters in 1991.

Can you tell us something about how you got started and how you got involved with Reuters?
Mike Hutchings: The thing to remember with newspapers is that it is not what you can do, but what you can do for them. I had been taking pictures for a number of years and the people at Reuters knew my work. You also need a dose a luck, of being in the right place at the right time, you need to build connections. I used to work for UPI (United Press International) which was bought by Reuters.

I believe that it is important for photographers to talk to other photographers; sometimes you work doesn’t translate as well as you think it does, talk to others, listen to opinions, you need honest and constructive criticism. My support came from advice from friends, various people like Leon Muller, Garth Stead, Eric Miller. It is stimulating talking to other photographers. Cape Town photographers are not a cut-throat breed, it is not that difficult to connect to fellow photographers.

What is your role with Reuters now?
MH: It is a fine balance between working with stringers across Africa, organizing all that, and actually going out taking pictures.

Can you explain what “stringers” are?
MH: Stringers are freelancers or contributors that we work with occasionally or steady.There are quite a few big stories in Southern Africa right now such as obviously the World Cup in 2010, but also Mandela himself, political disasters such as in Zimbabwe or natural disasters such as in Mozambique. Sometimes Reuters can not send someone into a situation and that’s when we use stringers. Which is different from sending in someone from Reuters itself, where someone comes into a situation, does what he is supposed to do and leaves as soon as he’s finished. Those photographers are also known as “firemen”. Stringers are locals and they can access a story differently which can be an important difference in how you cover a news story or event.

Do you own the copyright for the work you do for Reuters?
MH: No, Reuters owns it. One-sided contracts can be a problem but I find working with Reuters very satisfactory. There are different contracts for the stringers as they get a commission when the photo gets sold and that is quite unique is the world of photo-journalism.

What can you tell us about the standard of photography of photographers in Africa?
MH: Well, that’s where it gets complicated. There is a huge range of skills here. In Kenya, for example there is a really high level of skills unlike that in for example Angola. We were very happy to see that one of are stringers, Feisal Omar, in Mogadishu also won a World Press Photo (ed: Omar won first prize in Daily Life Singles) We have 5 stringers in Somalia. I was the editor of that certain photograph. As an editor you are responsible for fact checking (Reuters is very strict about accuracy), writing captions and occasionally cropping.

Fact checking can be a difficult thing in certain countries or situations, and you want to make sure all the facts are correct. Sometimes someone or an NGO sends in a photograph and it they often have their own agenda. So what you do as an editor is ask the photographer specific questions, check the Internet, discern between gossip, conjecture and facts.

How much post-processing do you do?
MH: I am not a fan of over-using Photoshop as you can reach vastly different results. I try to limit Photoshop to less than what I would do in a dark-room. I do crop slightly, mind you in Sports photography you have to crop as you are to far way and you are shooting for the crop. I used a 400 mm fixed lens on the winning photo. Using Photoshop can cause too many problems too easily as you are putting something into an image that you didn’t see. And as a news agency or photo-journalist you want the public to be able to rely on your honesty and not have it question if what you publish is the truth.

How do you keep the resolution?
MH: You can sharpen but you can only go so far before it looks stupid. The image has to be sharp before you start post-processing. As a sports photographer you can not shoot in RAW as it is too slow. Although a magazine like ‘Sports Illustrated’ does work with both RAW and Jpegs. But with newspaper work you have to be faster as the turn-over is faster. It is uploaded into a remote editing systems where the editor will pull it out. The photo of Demy De Zeeuw for example was part of a sequence, and I didn’t see the photo until 3 hours after.Shooting sporting events means you need to be “ready” all the time. If you can actually see the photo through your lens, you are too late. But you don’t want to just push your finger down either. I guess you just follow an instinct for where the action is going to be, you learn to anticipate the moment.

There are things you can do, naturally. You need to be technically ready. I preset the exposure but not the focus as I’d like to be adaptable that way. I bring several bodies and a variety of lenses depending on what kind of sports I’m covering. For boxing, you need a shorter lens than you do for soccer. Some photographers will use a wireless remote while they shoot; they set up a camera behind the goal for example while they stand somewhere else. I prefer not to shoot that way, but you never know what you are getting exactly. You only know exactly what you’re getting when shooting with light-boxes in a very static shoot.

Can you tell us something about how you view photography on the digital high way?
MH: It has gotten a lot easier now. Before you were shooting 36 frames on film that had to be developed, printed, scanned. Photographers were shooting less. Nowadays people sometimes shoot 1,000 frames. With the number of frames photographers take these days, you just need to edit more. I think that photographers were more critical about what they shot as there was a limited amount of film and were therefore possibly more instinctive. The cameras have also gotten bigger which can be a disadvantage especially in social documentary. Shoving a huge camera in somebody’s face can be very intimidating and it puts something between you and your subject. There are ways around that though, it just means you have to engage with your subject more. But I find that good photographers will always engage a lot.

You mentioned that Cape Town photographers are not a cut-throat breed. Can you tell us a little about the competitiveness in photo journalism?
MH: I have always backed away from it, but you sometimes see it in others. There is a lot of heightened tension that comes with this profession but photo-journalists realize that if you can’t get vent verbally and get over it in 5 minutes you are in the wrong business. We also have to rely on each other in dangerous situations.

Do you think that “something” has been lost with digital photography, meaning it has become less physical, less tangible?
MH: I don’t really think so, a photograph maybe changing as an entity but you still have all your files.

Any advice to photographers?
MH: Back up your files at least twice on external hard drives and keep them in separate places.

Enter The Dragon

Happy new year, everybody! It’s been quite some time since my last blog post which is pretty much due to me not having anything to say. If, professionally speaking, 2011 felt like wading through mud with a heavy backpack on, 2012 looks to be very different. There are some definite changes on the horizon, better still, changes are here. And I am stoked.

The year started off good with a couple of guest blog post at Lost At E Minor, which is one of Saatchi & Saatchi’s ‘Lovemark’ brands so that’s quite cool. I’ve also been interviewed by South Africa’s Creative Network which you can read here. Things are only getting more exciting from there on. At least for me:) I booked a flight to South Africa and am flying to Cape Town on February 6th. I plan on staying there for about 4 to 6 months depending on how things go.

I posted a little wish-list on Facebook the other day and lo and behold, one of them came true the very next day:) For you see, I have been a huge World Press Photo fan and have wanting to do a masterclass of sorts for a long time. And hooray, I just signed up for a 3-day masterclass by World Press Photo Winner Jodi Bieber. Oh yes. I signed up for two other lectures as well – one by Mike Hutchings whom I actually know already and the other by Sean O’Toole. Mike won 1st prize in the Sports category and Sean is the editor of Art South Africa, amongst other things.

The prospect of learning is just so exciting to me, I can feel my brain itch as it were:)

I totally should have called this post “How Kate Got Her Groove Back”, ’cause Stella ain’t got nothing on me:)

And rather randomly – I watched Cameron Crowe’s PJ 20 – I can’t help it, I haven’t listened to them in years but I do still love that song. I had just forgotten that I did:)

In case you were wondering about what else is on the wish-list, here it is:

“live in Cape Town, live in Seattle, visit Zim, China, Vietnam and the arctic, study film, find a mentor, work for Rolling Stone, make a documentary, fall in love, speak 10 languages, see the world, meet everyone..”

Sounds like a plan to me:)

Be Sweet

Greg Dulli’s voice is filling up my room. Nice. No one can beg and plead in such a seductive way as he can. Well some, but not a lot:) This should help my mood on this dreary, grey December day. Oh well. Bears have the right idea – hibernation.

At the close of 2011 I entered the Mono Competition by Gomma Books and filed an application for an artist residency in Cape Town. Fingers crossed it will work out:)

For you photographers out there the Sony World Photographers – Open Competition is also still open. The deadline is on January 4, 2012. And kudos to Gomma Books and Sony for not charging an entry fee.

I don’t know about you, but I am totally ready for 2011 to be over and 2012 to start. I just know adventures are waiting:)

The title comes from the album ‘Gentlemen’ by, you guessed it, the Afghan Whigs.

The photo above is one of Lauren Fowler, a hugely talented illustrator from Cape Town. You can see her work at www.laurenfowler.co.za

Jamal Thomas Band

I was very fortunate to be asked to do a photo shoot with the Jamal Thomas Band a little while ago. Jamal Thomas (1954, U.S.A.) is a drummer who has shared the stage with  Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire), The S.O.S band and to this day still tours with Maceo Parker.

In 2009 Jamal met the young talented drummer Alex Bernath and decided to form the Jamal Thomas band.

For more information about the band visit their website www.jamalthomas.com

Up up updated

I updated my website www.kathalijne.com. There are new photos in all sections, like the one below of Lauren Fowler which is found under the Portrait tab. You can find work made in France together with a few portraits in New, there’s Guy Buttery and DJ Akio in Music and work made in South Africa under the Travel tab.

… have a look if you like:)

The Rambling Life Fantastic

“You see, I have a strange serendipitous relationship with Hot Water, but I don’t think they actually know this. Looking back it seems that I always see them around the time of changes in my life.”

Those are my words, written when I interviewed Donovan Copley for Portfolio Collection’s Travel Blog nearly two years ago (full interview here: Talking To Hot Water – Connecting The Dots Through Life And Music). Strangely and amazingly enough, those words are still true. I saw them perform in The Hague this past weekend and it occurred to me that once again, decision-making and the changes that come with that, are on the horizon. Self-inflicted deadlines and self-inflicted limits between failure or success. Why do we do that? How does it happen that one loses faith when first you had the conviction to that what you felt and thought were right? It’s easy to point the finger at others, blaming them for messing with your head, while in fact those voices have always been there and it never stopped you before. Not making decisions has a paralyzing effect on me. I do know that there is only one way back from to and that is to get back on the proverbial horse. I hope it rears up and gallops straight into the fields of possibility.

In case you were wondering about the Hot Water gig last Saturday, it was awesome as always. The band consisted of Donovan Copley (vocals, guitar), Ronan Skillen (didgeridoo, various drums), Andre Schwartz (drums), Soubry Makupula (back up vocals) and I am ashamed to say I don’t know the bass players name. They played, roughly, for an hour and half with songs from their 3 albums. During one of their new songs ‘Lekker Sakkie’ they invited people to come up on stage for a dance contest, a “langarm” dance contest at that. Unsurprisingly, there were not many people in the house who knew what “langarm” was, in fact there was only one couple, a guy from P.E. and is girlfriend. Not surprisingly:)

I hadn’t seen them perform in over a year, and it was cool hearing some new songs as well as a Bob Dylan cover, watching Soubry dress up as a woman and Donovan climbing up onto the rafters during the encore ‘Tribal Man’.

Climbing up onto the rafters… to get a new perspective on things, perhaps? See, I told you I always seem to meet them when the times are a changing. Soon, I’ll be wearing shades:)

The photos photos were taken on Red Hill, just outside Simon’s Town, on a cold winter’s day. The title comes in part  from the Man Man song ‘Life Fantastic”

Towards the end of summer

How do you know when it is time to push through just a little bit longer or to face facts and say this isn’t working? Where’s the line separating determination, knowing what you want and faith in your own ability from plain stupidity? If you know, let me know cause I sure as hell don’t know anymore.

I have got emails to editors, submissions to magazines, introductions letters, entries to competitions, tweets, likes.. you name it, coming out of my ears. I do get published, and I do have work coming in, but I am still not making a well enough living.

Non of the online magazines I have submitted work to, pay for the content you provide. Yes, it’s cool to be published but I also like to get paid. And yes, it is my choice to enter my work in the first place. The thing is, that I feel that something is wrong in this whole set up. To illustrate my point, consider the following.

I personally believe that in order to create a high quality and healthy online culture business, magazines should pay  journalists and photographers for the work they do, and magazines should be paid via subscriptions and through selling ads.

Yet, I just came across an online photography magazine that charges photographers $35 to submit their work to that magazine. Wait a sec.. you are charging me to provide you with free content for your magazine? That is wrong. Isn’t that kind of like biting the hand that feeds you? OK, fair enough, the one that feeds you are the readers buying your magazines and the money you make from the ads on the site, but you can not charge the one who provides you with content. And you do not pay them in return when you do publish their work. Boo..

To be continued.. I need coffee.

Itch

I submitted work to South Africa’s online art magazine, Itch, just a few weeks before I went on holiday. They issued a call for work for there upcoming Infinity issue and I figured my Leon Visser image would work well. Apparently they liked it:)

You can view the page here: http://itch.co.za/?article=631

Coucou

I just got back from a lovely holiday in the south of France, in the Luberon to be exact. We stayed in a tiny village called Cadenet and it was great. All I did was read books, eat, drink wine and take some pictured. I think this was the first holiday ever that I didn’t take any portraits whatsoever.

I will get back to this blog once I’ve unpacked:)

Press Enter

As you probably know, I have been scouring the net for publications, submissions, competitions and whatever -ions one can find. I even entered a competition a few weeks back. Uh-oh:) The deadline only passed yesterday and have  nothing to report just yet.

I came across two calls for entries that seem really interesting, and they maybe something for you as well:
- The British Journal of Photography’s International Photography Award 2011
One can submit singles and series. The deadline is September 15th, at 9 A.M.

- Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award - this years theme is Zimbabwe.
The deadline is September 30th. I would love to enter this and collaborate with some one on this. Send me an email if you do too.

Speaking of collaborations, I would love together with some bloggers/writers on a few project when I get back to Cape Town. Perhaps we can do a feature on Cape Town fashion or music send it off to magazines in SA or elsewhere? Sounds like fun to me, anyway. Please, let me know if you’d be keen.

And yes, I did finish writing the Business Plan the other day. Will fine-tune and print it later today. It was the first time ever that I made a SWOT analysis, and must admit that I find it “clarifying” to say the least. There’s something about seeing your strengths and weaknesses listed like that.

And apparently, the gay bears are totally catching on