Shoot Photographs and Live a Decent Life: Interview With Omar Havana, Photojournalist

Shoot Photographs and Live a Decent Life: Interview With Omar Havana, Photojournalist

1. How did your work journey as a photojournalist begin and evolve?

"I began working with photography in 2000 because I wanted to shoot photographs. I also started to get close to the stories. There was a demonstration in London which took my photography even further. I moved to Cuba soon after - my experience there was very intense and I saw many, many stories unfold. I had worked mostly as a travel photographer prior to that but I had no specific plans. The reason I chose this work is because of the political stories that were everywhere in Cuba. Every Cuban I met would tell me the same thing: “they can steal our home, they can steal our future but they can never steal hope.” My trip to Cuba helped cement that focus and attention not just to shoot photographs. The key principle is to make the right contact with the people in and behind the stories.

If you love something, you have to be willing to take risks. Photography, oftentimes, becomes a weapon because, more often than naught, a particular story is so much more powerful than any given political message. Photojournalists and photographers must, necessarily, be present at the scene of the story. I chose and still decide to be somewhere. I was recently caught in an incident with the police here while covering the Constituent Assembly protests. A key lesson I have found is that there is no limit to where Nepal can go and what Nepal can achieve if there is a stable government in place here.

At the inauguration of the WATERAID Exhibition, I remember saying that all political parties in Nepal must work together on key issues and, especially, on water. I worked extensively in Cambodia before I arrived in Nepal. They tend to follow the Western paradigm and models too much in Cambodia because education is a massive problem there. In Nepal, there are incredible groups of young people who want to and can bring about positive change and, most importantly, forge progress in the country."

2. What are some of the learnings and insights that you have garnered from your work experience?

"The first and foremost is to listen to people. Don’t shoot on the first day of the assignment. Drop your camera and try to understand what and who you are attempting to shoot. Speaking the truth is critical but not simply my truth but the truth of the people in front of the camera. It is crucial to connect with the people and put yourself in the scene and in the screen. You must learn about the story and become one of the people of the story. It is similar to landscape photography. One must remember to ask oneself: “how am I going to tell the story?”

The obsession with taking great photographs and with the perfect shot or photograph is wrong. We need to know the techniques and the rules but also to break them. When I was working in Cambodia, it took me a year to take the first shot. People in the story have to connect with you and understand that you care and that you are also one of them. In every photograph, there are three important parts: the people being photographed, the people who see the photograph and the photographer or you. I have become a better person and a stronger personality because I have connected and lived the stories too."

3. What are some of the projects you have worked on in Nepal?

"Firstly, I am still getting adapted and adjusted to life here. I have covered and shot the Gadhi Mai Festival as well as many political stories. Breaking news, for me, is a mistake in Nepal because there are a million stories here. We have to be able to change the mindset of the international media in this regard. My favourite story from Nepal is the one I did on the Bhutanese refugees before they were repatriated to the US. It was a beautiful experience and incredibly fun.

It is vital for us to understand the water issue and problem in Nepal, particularly in the remote regions. My advice is: if you work together, the chances of success are that much greater. I am keen to cover many more women’s stories and the health system here as well. They are important but nothing whatsoever to do with politics or the establishment. I hope to do a full reportage on the health problems and diseases here. Human resources, education, health and water are fundamental and we must go deeper into these issues and concerns even via documentary photography itself. For me being in Nepal is still a learning process – I have to learn a bit of the language, about the people and delve into the stories. Everything that happens in Nepal is interesting on some level. Important to note is that the political stories of Nepal must be told by the Nepali people themselves."

4. How did your work at WATERAID take shape and what are the key messages for the audience?

"My work for WATERAID Nepal began with and as reportage for International Water Day. I traveled to Biratnagar for the assignment. The main question is: how can a country such as Nepal, with all the natural resources, suffer from acute water shortage? Understanding the problems is imperative. I also traveled to Batase soon after and worked with the indigenous people there. A local organization, NEWAH, has been working in Batase for the last 20 years on the water issue with support from WATERAID.

Batase was a great experience for me because of the incredible people I met and worked with. Educating people on water use and water issues is essential for the whole sphere to be sustainable - as the saying goes: ‘don’t give me the fish, show me how to fish’. I was among the first foreigners in Batase and a young child said to me, “you are the same as us.” I was surprised to find that there were mainly women, children and the elderly in the area with most of the young men having migrated for work. So the migration issue is important here as well. I find the strength of the women in these areas very inspiring as well as the family life. This assignment has also opened the door for other projects. In Cambodia, most of the migrant workers are women.

It is important for us to create and raise awareness of the issues we cover and report on as photojournalists. Normal people can change the world – photographers are simple messengers of the stories and our duty is to create awareness. It was good to see that Nepali people want change in the country. The Media here is good and so are the photographers. My advice is to trust Nepali photographers and photojournalists who are more than ready for the work even abroad. Essentially, we are all photographers with the same job and the same goal. The first rule I learnt from my mentor is: “shoot photographs and live a decent life.” The best award we can receive in photography is to be able to make a decent life shooting photographs."

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