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Published on November 29, 2007

 Award-winning American photographers James Nachtwey and David Alan Harvey, whose images also appear in the best-selling coffee table publication "9 Days in the Kingdom", are currently taking advantage of the many photo opportunities offered by the City of Angels.

They aren't snapping for themselves, though. The two veterans, who share a passion for Bangkok, are running a five-day workshop to help young professionals find their own authorial style.

"I told myself that if I succeeded in my craft, I would give back," says Harvey, who took a photography workshop with professionals in New York at the age of 22. A keen lensman since the age of 11, the self-taught photographer used a second-hand Leica to capture his family and neighbourhood. He went on to shoot more than 40 essays for National Geographic and has published four books.

The long-time friends decided to use Bangkok as the base for their first workshop for 28 professionals and semi-professionals from around the world. After taking their places among the 55 photographers who contributed to the historic "9 Days...", they felt Thailand was a great place to work, with friendly people and an interesting environment. Each knows Bangkok well, having used it as a base for their exploration of Southeast Asia on several previous occasions over the past 15 years.

The workshop isn't about photographic techniques, but about concept.

"The keyword is authorship," says Nachtwey, which he defines as the way to find an individual's signature style. A former student of art history and political science, Nachtwey is also a self-taught photographer. He started working as a news photographer, went on to become a contract photographer for Time magazine and found his own signature style as a photojournalist and war photographer.

Putting all your good photos together doesn't mean anything, says Harvey. Authorship means having a special vision from a style or psychological standpoint.

For the workshop, the 28 students, two of them Thai, are working on photo essays under the pressure of a deadline. The course is divided into two sessions, with the mornings set aside for talks and discussions, and the afternoons for shooting at selected sites around the city. Participants choose their own subjects, depending on interest.

Even pros have a hard time on assignment, stress the veterans. Harvey says one of the most difficult things in an assignment is finding the right shot for the subject. "The subject was so obvious, but I still suffered."

Nachtwey agrees. "Sometimes I was afraid to go out, I was so stuck for ideas," he admits. "Because the good [written] quotes aren't necessarily visual."

Harvey cites an example of a fishing story. If the writer is working on the fishing situation in a given country and offers a series of graphs, the photojournalist's job is not to interview the minister of fisheries. Instead, he would choose to spend four days on a fishing boat collecting a series of complementary photographs to illustrate the article.

But visualising a topic isn't always so easy. Harvey remembers a time in Madrid, Spain, when he was holed up in his hotel room watching CNN for days because he didn't know what kind of photos to take.

"You have to go out and do something. One thing leads to another," says Harvey who eventually started practising his Spanish with the shoeshine boy before finding the images he wanted.

Nachtwey believes in research. Instead of taking photos of Thailand's picturesque aspects, he chose to document the HIV/Aids epidemic through black-and-white images, following a Catholic priest on his rounds of Wat Phrabaat Namphu, an Aids hospice in Lop Buri province. Six hours a day for the past four years, Father Mike has brought physical as well as spiritual comfort to the residents, bathing and massaging them.

"At this point, with no medical cure for Aids, the only thing that helps is awareness," Nacthwey says, adding that Father Mike's routine is "a view of Aids through commitment and compassion".

After a few days of attending the workshop, freelance photojournalist Vinai Dithajohn, whose assignment title is "Risky Bangkok", has learned that a story is about much more than just good photographs. "It's like a film that combines a series of stills," he says.

Unlike a news photo that tells a story in one shot, Vinai explains, each frame must link to the next and tell the whole story. He's been taught how to visualise the concept and theme of the story before even taking the first shot.

Visualising and researching the material is always important. One participant wanted to photograph the Royal Family, which wasn't feasible. Harvey and Nachtwey, who are well versed in Thai ways, recommended that she instead take conceptual images of the people's devotion to the King, such as the wearing of yellow T-shirts on Mondays.

Although there are no rights or wrongs in conceptual photography, both Harvey and Nachtwey say the material must be adequate to cover the scope of the topic. And they are more than happy to carry on coaching the younger generation. "We usually like kicking the ball," says Harvey. "Now we are the coaches."

Photographs by the two veterans, which have been on show at Dream Hotel, Sukhumvit Soi 15 since last Saturday, will be replaced from tomorrow by those of the workshop participants. A slide show of their interpretations of the city, sponsored by Canon, takes place tomorrow at 8pm. 

 Sirinya Wattanasukchai

 The Nation