We are in the middle of a very stimulating workshop with 14 Bangladeshi, Nepali and Norwegian students and award winning photographer Philip Blenkinsop. The workshop is the beginning of an extended exchange program where participating students will produce an in-depth photo reportage project.

Philip Blenkinsop has been described as “one of the most essential photographers of his generation” (Christian Caujolle). He is adamant that the photographer should never censor scenes through the camera. “Photographers are both witnesses and messengers. Our responsibility must always lie with the people we focus on, and with the accurate depiction of their plight, regardless of how unpalatable this might be for magazine readers.” His work, published in international arenas, has been the catalyst for much discussion and amongst other accolades was awarded Amnesty International’s Photojournalism prize for excellence in human rights journalism.

The 14 students participating in this workshop are; Arfun Ahmed Shawon, Benjamin Ward, Gyanendra Bhattarai, Ina Inglingstad, Labib Mohammad Sharfuddin, Md. Samsul Alam, Prakash KC, Prasiit Sthapit, Rajan Shrestha, Rajneesh Bhandari, Salma Abedin Prithi, Sapana Shah, Sindre Thoresen Lønnes and Tapash Paul.

It gives us great pleasure to invite you to join us for this special screening of the students’ and Philip’s works:

 SATURDAY, 11th February @ Summit Hotel, Kupondol Heights

4:30 PM: My Asian Heart
My Asian Heart follows award winning photojournalist Philip Blenkinsop on assignment to China, setting up his next exhibition. Capturing Nepal during the pro democracy uprisings. And reflecting on the plight of the Hmong “survivors” who continue to haunt him. In Philip’s world there’s constant tension between his artistic commitments and the drive to report on world conflicts. The film is directed by David Bradbury.
[The Summit Hotel TV Room]

6:00 PM: Student Showcase
[The Summit Hotel Inner Courtyard]

7:00 PM: Philip Blenkinsop Showcase
[The Summit Hotel Inner Courtyard]

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday!

Great turnout for the screening of "My Asian Heart"- a film that follows Philip Blenkinsops' work across Asia.

Philip knows how to enjoy a good fire!

Great turnout for the student showcase that concluded a 5- day workshop with Philip Blenkinsop. The workshop was part of a longer term exchange between Oslo University College in Norway, PATHSHALA South Asian Media Academy in Bangladesh and photo.circle in Nepal.

Philip presenting the student showcase that concluded his 5- day workshop. The workshop was part of a longer term exchange between Oslo University College in Norway, PATHSHALA South Asian Media Academy in Bangladesh and photo.circle in Nepal.

photo.circle, in collaboration with Oslo University College and Pathshala South Asian Media Academy, is pleased to announce this exciting International Reporting workshop for advanced photojournalism students and/or working photojournalists.

INTRODUCTION
This workshop on international reporting will focus on how to work internationally as a photojournalist. The workshop will consist of four sections; a theoretical pre-course, an intensive workshop, fieldwork and an editing course. Participants will be expected to commit full-time and should expect to produce an in-depth photo reportage at the completion of the workshop. Participants will be working alongside others from Norway and Bangladesh.

SCHEDULE (Detailed Schedule TBA)
Jan 18 – Jan 22 Pre Course 4 hour sessions every day
Feb 6 – Feb 10 Workshop Full-time
Feb 13 – Mar 9 Fieldwork Full-time
Mar 11 – Mar 15 Editing Full-time

WORKSHOP LOCATIONS
- Kathmandu, Nepal – Phillip Blenkinsop
- Sylhet, Bangladesh – Frank Fournier

NOTE
- Participants selected for the Bangladesh workshop will be provided with two-way Ktm- Dhaka-Ktm airfare
- Participants selected for both Bangladesh and Nepal workshops will be provided a basic daily allowance to cover meals and local transport for the fieldwork period
- Participants will be required to have their own DSLR cameras, laptops and all other necessary equipment
- Participants will be required to bear their own subsidiary expenses eg; translators, accommodation during fieldwork period, etc

LEARNING GOALS
- Develop general storytelling and reportage skills for newspaper, magazine, internet and other media.
- Learn how to work as a photojournalist in a foreign country.
- Learn about a new culture, religion, history, globalization, development theory and methods of fieldwork.
- Learn how to reflect, analyze and edit one’s own and others’ journalistic work.

WORKSHOP STRUCTURE AND WORKING METHODS
Workshop will include lectures, individual assignments, group work, group reviews, independent study, fieldwork and editing.
SECTION 1 – The theoretical pre course, will include lectures and discussions about developing story ideas and working methodologies, an introduction to working in a foreign country and a cultural orientation of the foreign country, culture, etc. Participants will begin researching their story ideas and establishing contacts. At the completion of the pre course, participants will be required to submit their story ideas and work plan in English. This section will take place in Kathmandu for all participants.
SECTION 2 – The workshop, will be an intensive five-day exercise where participants will get a thorough introduction to storytelling, discuss different styles and shoot a variety of assignments. This section will take place in Bangladesh for the Bangladesh workshop and Nepal for the Nepal workshop.
SECTION 3 – The fieldwork, is when the participants will shoot and produce their stories independently. This section will take place in Bangladesh for the Bangladesh workshop and Nepal for the Nepal workshop.
SECTION 4 – The editing course, will consist of group and individual sessions where participants will edit their final story. This section will take place in Bangladesh for the Bangladesh workshop and Nepal for the Nepal workshop.
At the completion of the four sections, there will be a final deadline when participants will have to submit their completed stories, along with a written report and evaluation.

ASSESSMENT
All the work requirements for all four sections must be completed and approved before students can take the final exam. The candidate will deliver a complete presentation of his/her fieldwork assignment. Internal and external examiners review all submitted work. A graded scale from A to E for pass and F for fail is used. Students enrolled as fulltime university students may transfer credits (to be ascertained as per home university’s equivalency).

PARTICIPANTS
KATHMANDU WORKSHOP
1. Gyanendra Bhattarai
2. Prasiit Sthapit
3. Prakash KC
4. Sapana Shah
5. Rajneesh Bhandari
6. Rajan Shrestha

BANGLADESH WORKSHOP
1. Sajana Shrestha
2. Phurpu Tsering Gurung
3. Shikhar Bhattarai
4. Uma Bista
5. Sanjaya Hada
6. Sandhya Shrestha

PARTICIPATING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Kishor K. Sharma, Shikhar Bhattarai, Phurpu Tsering Gurung, Narendra Shrestha, Prasiit Sthapit, Niranjan Shrestha, NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, Prem Tsering Sherpa, Sailendra Kharel, Uma Bista, Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka and Nirman Shrestha

READ THE REVIEWS
The constant change by Gary Hampton (Republica The Week | 4 November 2011)
Change is constant by Kunda Dixit (Nepali Times | 11 November 2011)
Pictures of change by Pranab Man Singh (The Kathmandu Post | 12 November 2011)

The book is available at all major bookshops in Kathmandu and online at www.muncha.com/change

THE OPENING: Special guest Anil Chitrakar. Photo: Uma Bista

The OPENING: Danish Ambassador to Nepal launches the book. Photo: Sailendra Kharel

The OPENING. Photo: Uma Bista

The OPENING: The British Ambassador viewing works. Photo: Kishor K. Sharma

The OPENING: Laxmi Theeng visits her story. Photo: Uma Bista

Photo: Kishor K. Sharma

The OPENING: Nirman Shrestha' s parents. Photo: Uma Bista

in collaboration with	supported by

Its early collections include the following;

Retelling Histories is a collection of photographs from a cross section of Nepali family albums. The photographs are accompanied by texts that were written in most cases by the immediate family members of the people pictured in the photographs or the people who took them – sons and grand-daughters and great-grandnephews, telling stories from their own personal histories and reclaiming a long overshadowed collective past.

NEW ROAD, KATHMANDU, CIRCA 1970 AD | Photo and text contributed by Sweta Baniya - A picture preserves life and the moments that have passed. When I stumbled upon this photograph in my family album, I did not recognize the young man in it. "Who's this?" I asked Fupu, Dad's older sister. "Tero bau pani chindinas?” she replied. Don’t you recognize your own father? In the 1970s, Bollywood – and my Dad – influenced the fashion sense of his hometown of Thankot. He is twenty years old in this picture, taken at the Royal Photo Studio in New Road. When I asked him about the photo, he said, “Rishi Kapoor dressed just like this in the movie Bobby.” He was fond of bunking college to watch movies. My father was very particular about what he wore. He was always neat and clean, with ironed clothes, polished shoes, and long hair that covered his ears. In this photo, his shirt does not have a pocket: this is his own design. The bell-bottom pants covered rabbit skin shoes with two-inch heels. The Seiko wristwatch imported from Hong Kong cost around 850 rupees at the time, enough to buy a tola of gold. Now, my Dad is a giant with a big belly who does not care about how he dresses. I imagine his youth must have been his sweetest dream.

Godavari, Lalitpur, 1976 AD | Photo and text contributed by Snigdha Bhatta - My aunt Laxmi stares into the pond and my mother, Sandhya, stands guard behind her. They were very close, as can be guessed from this picture, taken in 1976 at Godavari Kunda. Godavari was a sanctuary for them – a place where the two sisters could be on their own and nobody would complain or nag them. They lived in Gabahal and it would take them an hour to get there but the distance never stopped them. My aunt always spent her weekends at Godavari. My mother tagged along and tried to soothe her. Their alcoholic father caused so much chaos in the family that they were having serious financial problems. My mother remembers how sad they were the day this picture was taken. "I don't want to talk about it," my aunt would always say. She would spend hours in silence, contemplating her reflection in the pond. She enjoyed watching the fish swim about freely, and envied them. The fish would dive and dart around and my aunt could do nothing but stare at them, sometimes crying uncontrollably. She felt chained. She must have felt like she was drowning in waves of self-pity. Her sombre expression hints at just how melancholic she was, just how desperately she sought freedom and independence.

Shillong, India, 11 November, 1939 AD | Photo contributed by Bhimi Gurung | Text contributed by Muna Gurung - Aama found this photograph of her parents and her siblings in the attic of my grandparents’ old home in Jaare Khola, Parbat, tucked away with old clothes and dried corn. Soon the photo appeared everywhere. It was enlarged and framed and hung under the big clock in the living room. Another copy of it also sat on the altar in the prayer room, right in between the statues of Avalokiteshvara and Padmasambhava. There was one in the flap of the coffee table photo album and two more copies, each stuffed in an envelope, ready to be sent out to Aama’s siblings. When relatives visited, Aama would point out how tall her mother had been for a village woman or laugh at the matching mini-adult striped suits her brothers wore, or comment on how royal her father looked. She would reveal something new about the photo each time. Last year, she told me how baajey’s land, house, and medals were all divided between his two sons and how my mamas had sold baajey’s belongings to curators that sifted through villages, all for 10,000 rupees. This summer, Krishna mama gave Aama a new version of the picture. He had Aama’s headshot clumsily photoshopped onto it, a spurious proof of connection. “Well, you’re in the photo now,” I’d said to her as a joke. Although we laughed at its tackiness, I know she will always make space on our walls, albums, shelves for new copies. Maybe it makes this photo feel less like it is the only one of her parents, or maybe each reproduction is an opportunity for a new story.

Guheswori Temple, Kathmandu, 1927 AD | Photo contributed by Narendra Lal Mankey | Text contributed by Kanchan Joshi - This photo was taken circa 1927 AD on the banks of the Bagmati river near Guheswori temple. It was taken during a puja of the Maskey clan from Ason tole. I have always seen this photo hanging in my grandfather Narendra Lal Maskey’s room. He was one and a half then (2nd row from bottom, 1st from right). The lady next to him was his mother. My grandfather’s sister and elder brother are also in the picture.

Gorkha, Nepal, 19 March 1986 AD | Photo & text contribute by Ashok Adhikari - Every time Father saw my long hair he’d say with disgust—“You look like an ape! Get a haircut!” Mother would tease me about my narrow trousers. She’d say, “Do you want me to wash your leggings too?” There is a photo of my parents in the old album. Father has long hair in it. One day, when he bugged me to cut my hair short, I showed him the photo in which he is wearing a pair of tight trousers just like mine. He laughed, and said, “You thug!” That felt good. This photo was taken in Bhimsen Shrestha’s studio in Bhachhek of Gorkha. Bhimsen was an immigrant from the far west of Nepal. His studio, an hour’s walk from my ancestral home in Lapsibot, Gorkha, was the only photo studio in four Village Development Committees around. Father had been studying in Kathmandu before the wedding. The photo was taken shortly after the wedding. Father has grown a mustache, and hair long enough to hide his ears. He looks fashionable—like his Bollywood idols from the 70s and 80s. Mother comes off as the exact opposite—she seems a homely village girl. Her attire is simple, and her face full of apprehension. “I was still a school girl. But I had to leave home to enter a new family. A very different world. I was scared of your father,” Mother says. “You look like an ape! Go, get a haircut!” Father has never said this since I showed him the photo. Perhaps he will never say it again.

The Mukunda Bahadur Shrestha Collection is a new collection currently being digitized and archived at the Nepal Picture Library. It is a collection of photographs taken by 86 year old photographer Mukunda Bahadur Shrestha. Shrestha worked for the Tourism Department as a photographer for over 30 years. His collection includes an extensive range of imagery from all over Nepal from the early 70s to the late 90s.

The Sugata Collection is a collection of photographs by Angarika Sugata. Sugata was born in 1911 in Germany. His long life was an odyssey through his own and the last century’s dark ages. He railed against his time and place, a protest that culminated in his war-time betrayal of Nazi Germany, when he risked his life and effectively ensured his rootlessness. His search for root as well as freedom took him to the East, first to India and then Nepal where he became a Buddhist monk.

For details write to archives@photocircle.com.np

Stories from old family photo albums
Curated by NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati

16 – 18 SEPTEMBER 2011
10 AM – 7 PM

MANGA HITI, PATAN DURBAR SQUARE
KATHMANDU LITERARY JATRA

History begins at home. Retelling Histories is a personal history project that explores this central idea by digging up, archiving, and contextualizing photographs from old family photo albums.

The photographs for this exhibition were collected from a cross section of Nepali family albums. The stories were written in most cases by the immediate family members of the people pictured in the photographs or the people who took them – sons and grand-daughters and great-grandnephews, telling stories from their own personal histories and reclaiming a long overshadowed collective past.

Some photographs do not have texts. We do not know the names of the people in them, where they were taken, the time or occasion. This lack of information leaves us to the devices of our imaginations, coloured by our memories and assumptions. It paves the path for a fictitious journey, challenging us to imagine what life must have been like then, and to reflect beyond our limited knowledge of history while confronting us with the complexities of everyday life.

The project is part of the Nepal Picture Library, a photo archive that has been recently set up by photo.circle. The Nepal Picture Library hopes to contribute to the study of Nepali photography, as well as generate knowledge and raise questions about how we can explore issues of memory, identity, and history through images.

The Nepal Picture Library would like to thank the Embassy of Denmark for its support, and Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya for its friendship in this initial set-up period.

See you at the exhibition!

Retelling Histories at Kathmandu Literary Jatra. Photo: Prasiit Sthapit

Photo: Kishor K. Sharma

Photo: Kishor K. Sharma

Krishna Man Joshi visits a family portrait of his grand and great grand fathers at Retelling Histories.