Catastrophe Builds Character

Part 1 - Documenting the People in the Aftermath of Nepal’s Earthquake

My main style of portrait photography is often likened to creation through my inquisitive quests for creative lighting, effects and scenery. 

But one role of portrait photography and photography in general is that as a ‘record’ or the ‘documentation’ of the world. Capturing the essence of what is in front of the lens as a kind of “truth”. Depicting the way things are in reality, not as how you wanted others to see it. 

Recently, I attended TEDxWanChai and had the pleasure to meet one of the speakers Laurel Chor. She’s a photographer and journalist at Hong Kong Coconuts and has just opened a one month gallery exhibition of images she took of the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal.

As a portrait photographer, I love looking at ways in which other photographers capture people. I noticed that the portraits in Chor’s work seem to portray people many of the people affected by the earthquake with a sense of calmness and resilience, despite being through a traumatic disaster.

There’s the image of a boy in a makeshift market, laughing together with his mother and friends as he’s pretending to be embarrassed while changing clothes. Families relaxing and smiling in their tents and a brother feeding his little sister donated food or enjoying some ice-cream in the heat. There’s also an image of a girl getting clean water and a shot of a young boy with a broken arm. In these images, I see a sense of determination and will to survive though the difficult times.

When I asked Chor about the images, she responded that this is what she saw and it wasn’t an angle she intended to take. “So for me, as a photographer, the camera has always been a tool to show others what I see, and how I interpret things”. She had to “think about how different images work together to tell the story” and to show the whole picture, even if the photos are “not necessarily great or perfect as single images”.

With documentary style of portrait photography, I find that it’s similar to “street photography”. You don’t have a lot of time to build up a connection or rapport with the subjects. I asked Chor about how she went about photographing the Nepalese people. 

“I met some local people who were friends of friends and who were kind enough to take me around to see the damage around Kathmandu. I’d walk around, wander each town or village, and pop my head in where things looked interesting. I tried to be as respectful as possible of course, and greetedpeople at the threshold of households and tents and asked for permission to come in before.”

“As long as you said “namaste” people would let you in to their homes, some even serving her food. Chor found these people very warm and welcoming. “Imagine that, these people are living in tents after a devastating earthquake and they’re still taking care of unannounced guests! If people declined to be photographed, I respected their wishes. I also smile a lot. That helps.” 

Continued in Part 2: Photography For Good