Sharing though media
To paint a complete picture, we use a combination of media, which, either combined or in isolation, can be published through a variety of channels, such as periodicals, books, television and internet.
Writing
What is travel writing? To some a journal-like enumeration of events that string together to form the account of a trip. Granted, you will have to do a bit of that. If only for yourself, to keep track of what has happened.
But more so, it is about painting a picture, about bringing people along on your journey, and telling a good story.
So what are those stories about? Of course, you are inspired to write about your experiences. Especially when most of them are full of adventure, in a continent where beautiful scenery and wildlife are so abundant. But though tempting, it's all too easy to just describe the wonderful and the great. Moreover, in doing so, you're failing your audience, because traveling isn't just about a great hike, a beautiful safari or a famous building. Of course, that's an important part of it, but it's also about the little observations on how a country and its people are different from every other country you know – and how in other things, it is exactly the same. It's about the thoughts that run through your mind when traveling and what being there has taught you.
So, if in your stories you want to take people along with you, you have to write about all of these things – the great and the trivial, the good and the bad, the exciting and the dull. So sometimes instead of writing another story about a national park, you choose to write about a three-hour talk you had with someone in the market, because it made you understand the county a little bit better. Or when you do write about that hike, you also write about the thoughts that run through your mind, because sometime those reflections will make someone better grasp the real atmosphere of the place. It's a mixture of all the aspects of traveling that make the story come alive.
We believe that to take people along on our journey, we have to write two distinct types of stories about the counties we visit: descriptive and reflective. The more descriptive stories tell about our journey. They describe the places, the people and the idiosyncrasies of traveling. On the other hand, there are the more reflective pieces that narrow in on a specific subject. They describe the thoughts a country evokes, explain a culture and how it relates to our own, or provide an unusual view on the country. While neither of these types of stories in itself paints a complete picture, the combination of the two brings the experience to life.
Examples
Nepal- Beyond the First Impression The plane teetered back and forth with the turbulent air, as the pilot dipped the plane's wings below the clouds just long enough for us to catch a glimpse of the half-sunlit, snow-streaked mountain peak below. “Is that really Mount Everest?” The sight of the mountain sent electric shocks through my veins. Like many others, I had come to this place to see for myself what magic the Himalayas held, but I didn't expect the sight of the mountain alone to make such a strong impression on me. Although this sight never left my thoughts, my Nepali experience let me discover more than the jagged, white mountain terrain and crystal-clear, blue skies, and find out for myself, why the country beams with so much character and hope. …After the trek, my mission was to deliver books, sent by sponsors of Room to Read, to a Nepali school, located thirty minutes from the town of Besisahar in eastern Nepal. After spending the morning counting and recording the new shipment of almost 200 children's books with the regional school commissioner, the local elementary school's principle and teacher, we headed up towards the school in Banjhakhet. On the way to the three- room school house, the teacher tried to convince kids that were playing along the trail to come to the school ceremony, even if it was only for a few hours. Most kids, with minimal convincing (candy always helps!), decided to come along and join the ceremony. As the school came into sight, I could already feel the electricity and excitement of the teachers and kids. The fifty or so kids could barely sit still, all lined up on the school benches brought into the courtyard for this ceremony. Within minutes of arriving, I was offered lay after lay of the local, sweet-smelling flowers, as the kids—some shy, some bold—shouted “Namaste! Namaste!” (Hello! Hello!). The festivities started with speeches from the school officials and teachers as well as my presentation of books for their new library, and then the real party started. Groups of kids, aged 5-10, each in turn, came to center stage to perform their practiced dances and singing chants. It was hard for me to sit still, and before I knew it, I was up dancing and clapping, trying to mimic their chants, and flow with their dance moves. An amazing experience, to say the least, and after a tour through the school, and many clicks of the camera, I was on a local bus back to Kathmandu, thinking about this wonderful day. During the seven hour bus ride back to my initial departure point, with loud Indian movies playing in the background, women and kids crowded onto our seats, and men sitting on tiny stools in the aisles, I couldn't help to think that my first impressions — the beauty of the mountains, the crisp, mountain air, the serenity of the nature — didn't sufficiently describe the magnificence or mystery that the Himalaya mountain region held. The true story of Nepal would only be complete by adding the heart-warming nature of the people, the beaming love and warmth of the teachers, and the eagerness of the children, all so thankful, so willing, to be part of the future of the Nepali magic. Excerpt from a story on Nepal. |
A place like any other? “Please, sir?” The crippled man, sitting on a small, rickety cart with wooden wheels, sticks out a three-fingered hand. “Landmine.” His other hand points at his legs that are cut off just above the knee. His face is friendly, almost content, as if his misfortune doesn't bother him at all. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe, compared to the one and a half million people that were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge, he is one of the lucky ones that came out alive. So this is it – the killing fields. The entrance is marked by a Stupa with high glass windows on all sides – inside the skulls of some 10.000 people piled up to the roof. The same amount is still buried in the mass graves that haven't been dug up yet. Those skulls are still buried because no one could stomach the task of digging up those graves anymore. This Stupa is the only thing that really tells the story of what went on here. For the rest, it looks very much like any other place. Still, I can somehow feel the weight of this place push me down. It's not what you see or hear, or what you do not hear, so it must be all in my head. Well, maybe not completely. There are large holes in the ground. Not really pits - they're just as grassy as the rest of the fields. They're just holes, but they're not natural; you can see they shouldn't be there. So maybe these fields do look a tiny bit different. But not that different that it should make so much of an impression. No, it's my mind that tells me they are mass graves. It's the story of kids being grabbed by their feet – an overweight baseball bat – to smash their skulls against the trees (bullets were too expensive to waste on something as fragile as a child's life), that makes me feel sick about this place. It's the knowledge of what has been going on here that weighs me down. I walk around, and know the rags I see lying in the mud – just like you see rags lying around in mud in any other place – are not just old rags. Not just an old shirt that was torn, and had no use anymore. The old torn shirts here had no use anymore for a very different reason. They had no use anymore, because they were on the bodies of dead people – bodies so cold that no shirt can warm them anymore. And again I think – no, those holes shouldn't be there. They really aren't natural. It's thoughts like these that involuntary make me look down, and as I'm staring at the ground, I realize that this place really isn't like any other place. Not just because history made this a different place, but what looked the same from a distance, isn't close up. Half of what I thought were just sticks lying around, are really bones. Pebbles really teeth. The place is littered with them. No, none of this is natural; none of this should be here… Except from a story about the Killing Fields in Cambodia |
A picture says more than a thousand words. Sometime this is true, but not every picture says more than a thousand words. Most pictures are the postcard-type ones of a mountain (taken from such an angle that you don't see the ugly hotel at the foot of the mountain), an elephant or tiger, or a hill tribe woman who makes a living out of posing for tourists. And trust me, we have thousands of those, and will take thousands more. But that doesn't mean that with those, we have millions of words. A good picture tells a story. A story nothing else can tell. It's the look in someone's eyes, the strange situation, the color of the light. It's the unexpected. It shows vulnerability, strength, happiness or surprise. It tells a story of what has been going on, or sometimes of what will happen. It tells of people or animals that are not in the picture. It explains history, culture, or relations between people. It provokes thought or points out the different.
What a good picture does not have to be is ‘esthetically beautiful' or ‘soothing'. A good picture may be ugly or unnerving. It does not have to confirm our views. A good picture doesn't even have to be true. After all, different angles tell different stories. But a good picture does have to be honest. Decisions about composition, light, or angle should not be made for esthetic, but for artistic reasons. It can be a shot of daily life, or that one special moment. Sometimes you have to wait days and days before you find what you're looking for. Sometimes you just stumble upon it – it's just there, in the perfect light. All you need is a good eye. A good eye for the picture, but maybe even more, a good eye for the story it tells.
We believe that this is exactly what pictures should do. Of course, a good picture needs to be a technically good shot. Composition and light should represent skill. But without a story, it is “just” a good picture. It is the story the picture tells that complements writing and other media, and explains something only that picture can explain. And it is in that capacity that we use pictures to bring people along on our journeys.
Examples
Sometimes you just stumble upon it... This picture was taken in the South of France. We pulled off the main road onto a mud road to have a picnic lunch before heading further south. After half an hour, we had to break up our lunch quickly because of the incoming rain. As we were about to pull back onto the main road, this is what we ran into.
The picture tells several stories. The first one is obviously that you should be very careful entering this road. This is a story of the present – it talks of the situation at the moment the picture was taken. The second one is equally obvious, but tells a story of the future. The dark sky, and the greenish light tell us that a huge thunderstorm is about to hit us. The third one is less obvious. This is the story of what went on here before. Who ordered those twenty signs to be placed on this insignificant crossing? And why? Was there a surplus of stop signs? Did the cousin of the person in charge of road-works in this region own a stop sign factory? Was the order to place these stop signs accidentally given five times instead of once? All to different contractors, who all did their jobs without questioning the reason? I may never know the real reason behind it, but whenever I look at this picture, I can’t help but think about it.
Different angles tell different stories... I am at a cemetery. To some people that may be a bit strange, but I have a thing for graveyards. I like to study the way people treat their dead. It tells you a lot about how people look at life and how they value their existence. They don’t bury people over here, which is probably just for practical reasons. It’s just too much effort to dig a hole in the hard rock. Instead, they put them in crypts in small memorial buildings, that are usually family graves. Their little tympanum-like roofs make them look like little houses. A resemblance that is emphasized by the narrow cobblestone streets that run between them.
That’s when I got it. All I need to do is find the right spot and the right angle. I walk a bit up the mountain and there it is. Through my lens, the cemetery looks just like a little mountain village. It’s completely deserted though, which makes it look a bit like a ghost town. And that is of course exactly what it is. Click!
When appropriate, we will use other media to complement writing and photography. After all, as powerful as these media may be, photography and writing both are highly dependent on visual imagery.
Sound
How do you describe the sound of the jungle at night, a street vendor calling out, muffled in the busy city noise, or the over-the-top laughter of little kids playing a game? Though most of our memories are visual, almost nothing can tickle the imagination in such a direct and different way as sound. A five second sound clip can immediately bring us back to a location that had slipped so far back into our memory, that we are surprised when we suddenly remember it. Because of this highly associative impact, and the fact that a sound recorder is a fairly unobtrusive medium, we believe that sound clips will bring an extra dimension to explaining unknown countries and cultures.
Video
The handheld video camera is becoming an almost unbearable intrusion on our lives. At every event and in just about any holiday location, it pops up to record whatever comes in its line of sight. And though the versatility of the medium offers almost unlimited possibilities, most of the time, it is used as a lazy way of taking snapshots. You don't really have to think about composition, or wait for the right photo opportunity to arrive. You just keep the camera running, and eventually something good is bound to show up.
When used in the right way, however, it can be used to capture those moments that only come to full bloom in moving images. Short – image only – scenes can give an insightful peek into day-to-day life. We therefore believe that they can be especially useful in explaining how all over the world, some things are exactly the same and others completely different.
Television
With the combination of sound and movement, television reports and stories are, even in their most basic form, a powerful medium to bring people along on our journeys. If you add to this the possibilities that editing the material provides, the medium becomes even more powerful.
Narrative and interview quotes explain a scene in a powerful way, while simultaneously, the scene makes the narrative relevant. Music or sound bytes enhance the atmosphere of scenery, and by sequencing short shots, you can tell a complete story in relatively short time. Combining these different elements allows you to create a very compelling story. Compelling, on one hand because of its high entertainment value, but more so because the simultaneous use of these elements strings separate stories together into a coherent set, and allows you to compress time, without losing the essence.
It is because of this capacity to tell people a story in a condensed manner, and the incredible reach of television, that we look for alliances with TV production companies, as yet another way to bring people along on our journeys.