BE PROFILE │ BRIAN SKERRY B RIAN SKERRY GREAT MEN HAVE GREAT PASSION
Is it difficult documenting some of these issues? It’s difficult, I realize that I can’t go in and change somebodies way of life, necessarily. However, a lot of the things that I do photograph are things that I believe could be changed.
I did a story on Harp seals in Canada and although most of the coverage was just pure natural history, I did also focus on the hunting that goes on with these animals - where they are clubbed with these ‘hakapiks‘ (big sticks) purely for their coats, not for any piece of their meat. These are not indigenous people, these are Canadians that look like me or anybody around here and it’s a very small percentage of their business in terms of fishing because most of this is done by fishermen.
Still, as a journalist I didn’t take a position on this. I made the pictures that I was allowed to make and we published them in the magazine and the writer told the story and people can draw their own conclusions.
I’d like to think that I do have an opinion - I can’t not have an opinion and I think that tradition is not necessarily an argument to sustain those kinds of things. I recognize that there are other more remote places in the world where people are fishing or doing things that would seem to be harmful to the environment, yet they’re just trying to live. I bare no malice towards them but I do look to large conservation organizations and governments that can somehow help these folks to maybe move into a different way of doing things that doesn’t harm the environment.
There aren’t always easy solutions to these problems but the first step is recognizing that there is a problem and part of that comes through journalism.
Seal hunter hauls pelts onto the boat after soaking them in the ocean overnight.
What are some of the challenges of your profession? The challenges are on a couple of different levels, there are some very realistic challenges just in the fact that budgets are being trimmed everywhere. Even though I work mostly for National Geographic, even they are feeling the pinch these days, of not having the resources to keep their photographers in the field for as long as they used too and to produce great images it takes time and money.
If you don’t have as much of those things, then you are not going to be able to do the work that you’d like to do, so that’s a very real challenge.
The other challenges are with a smaller window of time we have to contend with a logistical set of circumstances - weather being a problem, equipment malfunctioning, baggage not showing up ( I travel with 20-25 cases of equipment, sometimes it doesn’t always get there), the animals don’t show up when you think they are going to be there or the visibility underwater is very poor and you can’t make the pictures you’d like to make.
There is all these things that inevitably I have to contend with on any given assignment - fortunately it has always seemed to work out. You have to somehow figure things out and to be good at overcoming problems to get past those challenges. Nonetheless, they are always there.
What advise do you offer the aspiring photographer? The best advise I give to emerging photographers is to establish a strategy early-on for getting where it is you want to be. Look at where you are today and imagine where it is you want to be.
If you want to be a photo journalist for big magazines somewhere in the world then probably the best thing you can do is to work towards creating a great portfolio because that’s what is going to get you hired. The way to do that is to think and shoot journalistically and to be able to work with subjects where you have repeatability.
A mistake that a lot of emerging photographers will make is that they save up their money and then they want to travel to exotic places to do their work but they will only have a limited amount of time to spend there. Whereas if they work with subjects close to home where they live they can have much more time and become the best at that. No matter where in the world you live there are going to be things that you can be the best at above anybody else.
So, find subjects close to home, work on those for a period of time, build a portfolio and try to sell those smaller stories then when one is done move on to another one and so on. It may take several years but over time you will build up a great portfolio from many different coverages that you’ve done - that will get you jobs at the bigger magazines as opposed to running around the world and having a few pretty pictures from different places but they don’t necessarily mean anything.
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