In each issue of Enter, we put a set of identical questions to people who have taken part in a World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass, named after the late magazine editor and honorary chairman of World Press Photo.
These five-day events, introduced in 1994 to encourage and train young photographers, are normally held every November so that a dozen young practitioners from all over the world can meet and learn from some of the world's top professionals and each other.
The subject for edition five is Teru Kuwayama, a 35-year-old from Brooklyn,
New York, who took part in the Masterclass of 2000.
Well-known now for the challenging locations he chooses, Teru says he now works primarily in Afghanistan, Kashmir and in the mountains surrounding the Hindu Kush.
His work is primarily published in Newsweek, Time , Outside and Fortune.
“Two years ago, I started working with my brother Shinji to create Lightstalkers,” says Teru,” which is a web-based network of travelers from the media, military and aid communities.”
Teru - how did you get started in photography and what was your biggest break?
It was an accident. When I was about 18, a photographer took a picture of me and we started talking. His name was Michael Ackerman and in the years that followed he taught me photography. When I was 27, I spent a year in South Asia, wandering and photographing. I was more of a traveler than a professional photographer but I began what would become a long term project on the Tibetan refugees in India. When I returned to New York, I showed those photographs to Life magazine and a few days later I was on a plane to Africa. It was my first real magazine assignment. Ten days working for Life paid for a year of backpacking in India, with enough left over to buy my first Leica. Then I was broke again. But I'd become a “professional photographer” and I continued working for Life over the next years, until they went out of business.
What qualities does a top photojournalist need?
I think strong work comes from sincerity and compassion.
What is your most memorable assignment?
Probably one I did for Outside magazine called “War at 21,000 feet”, where I spent two months on the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir. The Siachen's claim to fame is its status as the world's highest and coldest battlefront. It is a massive river of ice, surrounded by the most epic mountain ranges on Earth with Pakistani and Indian soldiers freezing in fiberglass igloos along the ridgelines. I was climbing to positions almost 7000 meters above sea level in temperatures 50 degrees below zero, carrying a backpack half my body weight and choking from altitude sickness half the time. It was an intense experience.
Are you – or will you ever be – fully digital?
The only digital camera I own is a point-and-shoot. I don't hate digital cameras the way some people do, but they're not that important to me either. In Japan, there was a period of about three hundred years during which warriors stopped using rifles and returned to the sword. It was one of the rare cases in human history where people decided that “progress” was not an improvement. That's where I am with digital cameras right now.
What essential equipment do you travel with?
I usually travel with three cameras: Leica, Widelux, and Holga. The places I'm attracted to tend to be physical and remote so I usually carry camping gear - like a headlamp - sleeping bag, survival blanket, water purifier, and a waterproof bag. I also try to carry a pair of aqua socks, which are a kind of rubberized water shoe. It seems like every time I don't pack them I end up having to cross some freezing river with sharp, slippery rocks.
What is your favorite camera and how do you use it most – do you prefer natural light, for instance, or a mix.
I like the simplicity of the Holga – it isn't fast and it doesn't lend itself to dramatic lighting or complicated compositions. But it works, and there's something very graceful about it. It has a built-in flash but I rarely use artificial light.
How, when under pressure, do you try and make sure the image is as good as possible?
Photography is an instinctive act for me. Even after 15 years of doing it, I still don't really understand how it works - where the photographs come from - but I've accepted the fact that they always seem to come. All I can do is trust my instincts, let them work.
If there is one piece of advice you would give to a photojournalist starting out on a career, what would it be?
I'd advise them not to take any career advice from me.
Which of the pictures you selected is your personal favorite and why?
I couldn't choose .
Next to whom would you like to sit in an airplane going where?
With the Dalai Lama, going back to Lhasa.
What ambitions do you have left?
The scorpion. It's an absolutely impossible yoga position that I attempt everyday.
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