Digital Storytelling
Emphas.is: Photojournalism’s Hope
Women take part in the crying ceremony during the seven day ceremony, part of Azerbaijan's elaborate funeral rituals that include gender segregated commemorations of the deceased three days, seven days and 40 days after their death in Zayam, Shamkir Region, Azerbaijan on January 3, 2012. Compensation funds paid totaled under $1,000 during the pipeline construction went to keeping the deceased healthy and caring for her daughter who suffers from tuberculosis; Zayam is approximately four kilometers from the BTC pipeline © Amanda Rivkin
A woman stands on a balcony of a building constructed by Soviet architects in 1985 in Vientiane, Laos on March 27, 2011 © Tomas van Houtryve/VII
© Rocco Rorandelli / TerraProject
© Klaus Thyman
© Matt Eich
The election banners of Vladimir Putin outside of the infamous Knankala military base, which is now the main facility for the Russian forces © Olga Kravets
South Korea © Tomas van Houtryve/VII
© William Daniels
Passengers on a nine-hour journey between Cairo and the coastal city of Marasah Matrouh in Egypt stand amid the desert expanse during a rest stop © Laura El-Tantawy
“I’m now 22 years old. I fell in love with S-- at the restaurant where we used to work. We understand each other, but my parents are not very willing for us to get married because he has no steady job. Because my parents divorced and my brother is busy with his businesses, I have to live with my mother now in Keriya, so I quit my job at that restaurant in Hotan. Sometimes I am tired of just staying at home without doing anything. But if I were to work [outside], [my mother] would say, ‘You are a girl and it is not good for a girl to go out and work. People will gossip about you!’ By saying this, she can always keep me with her. This makes me upset sometimes. I think if my parents had not divorced, I wouldn’t have to go through these problems. My fiance’s house is in the countryside. My family says I wont be able to get accustomed to [village] life, and because of that they want to open a shop for me [in the city]. But his family does not agree with that idea. Now the elders cannot come to an agreement on this point, so the wedding is postponed. I remember my dream from the day before yesterday. I was dressed really beautifully on a boat on the ocean, and I was playing. I told my mom about it when I woke up, and she said its a really good dream - the prophet Mohammed said if someone dreams about a boat on the ocean, its really good and your wish will come true.” © Carolyn Drake
© Gmb Akash
© Aaron Huey
Roberto Alejandro Osuna Trujillo, a boat captain with Grupo Tortuguero, releases a black sea turtle caught in a poachers net. San Carlos, BCS, Mexico © Neil Ever Osborne (www.neileverosborne.com)
A man in a white shirt smoking a cigarette walks past a large photograph of Fish and Chps with mushy peas in a motorway service station car park on the M6 © Peter Dench
© Patrick Brown
Ahlu-Kheyr Public Mental Hospital, Mogadishu, Somalia. Many Somalis will take their mentally ill relative to traditional or Khoranic healers for treatment. Photo Robin Hammond/Panos. May, June 2011, Somalia © 2011 Robin Hammond
A cargo train traveling from Arriaga to Vera Cruz. On the roof hundreds of migrants from mainly Central America on their way to the USA © Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR
Josias "Jonas" Gonçalves a former guerilla fighter in the early 1970's, photographed in Serra das Andorinhas where he fought against the Brazilian army, Araguaia region © Joao Pina
Detail of the former military headquarters in Marabá, where pro-guerilla fighters and farmers where arrested and tortured © Joao Pina
© Nicolas Mingasson
Women take part in the crying ceremony during the seven day ceremony, part of Azerbaijan's elaborate funeral rituals that include gender segregated commemorations of the deceased three days, seven days and 40 days after their death in Zayam, Shamkir Region, Azerbaijan on January 3, 2012. Compensation funds paid totaled under $1,000 during the pipeline construction went to keeping the deceased healthy and caring for her daughter who suffers from tuberculosis; Zayam is approximately four kilometers from the BTC pipeline © Amanda Rivkin
To mark its first anniversary, on March 7, 2012, Emphas.is decided to begin producing documentary photography and journalism books. After pre-financing the production costs on the Emphas.is crowdfunding platform, Emphas.is Publishing allows photographers to publish their own reportages. Three books were quickly published: UK Uncensored by Peter Dench, which collected $17,830 in two weeks; Faded Tulips by William Daniels ($10,370 in three weeks); and Trading to Extinction by Patrick Brown ($25,820 in four weeks).
For readers unfamiliar with the site, Emphas.is is an online “crowdfunding” platform that allows users to raise money for their projects. Donors are given no royalties or rights over the product. The structure focuses on visual journalism projects proposed by information professionals. With the help of the journalism community and several major festivals, the Emphas.is launch was a resounding success. A few months after its creation, the platform had raised nearly $100,000 and financed seven photography projects, including 21st Century Communism - Laos by Tomas van Houtryve of the VII Photo agency.
Today, six people oversee the site: Karim Ben Khelifa, Tina Ahrens, Fanuel Dewever, Walter Tjantelé, Ine Dehandschutter and Gunter Boutsen. The structure provides supports to the creators of the project and keeps 15% of the amount collected. The idea came to Tina Ahrens and Karim Ben Khelifa on the night of November 1, 2009. At the time newspapers were reeling from the changing editorial landscape as sales plummeted. News agencies were also hit by the recession. The internet was continuing its extraordinary expansion and many readers were neglecting the press for more general news sites and blogs...
Read the full text of Wilfrid Estève’s article on the French version of La Lettre.
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Wilfrid Estève