I’ve been scanning again. After spending the summer in a chaotic spree of being booted out of one house, then looking for another and settling in, I’ve gotten back to work. In April. Wow.
Not to say I haven’t been working the whole time. I had an interesting assignment at Parliament House in Canberra a few weeks ago, and some other work here and there, as well as the newsroom production tasks that help keep a roof over my head here in Sydney. What I mean is getting to scanning the archive of negatives I’ve got from previous trips and shooting on the street here at home, and combining these stills with the hours of audio that exist on my drives.
One of these bodies of work I have procrastinated on for far too long is from Nepal, from November/December 2008. I spent around a month wandering about on the streets of the capital, Kathmandu, and in the hills of the Annapurna Himal, in the centre of the country.
Nepal’s one of the poorest countries in Asia. One quarter of its people live below the poverty line, and the Gross Domestic Product is US$1200. Not much, really. The political situation has been fraught with uncertainty for years, after a long-lasting and violent Maoist rebellion across most of the country, and the until-recently ruling royal family ripped apart by internal conflict.
One of the country’s largest sources of income is tourism, money brought in by those who want to see one of the most stunning parts of the planet – the Himalaya.
‘Nepal: The Political Landscape”, is a series that is only in its beginning, but I’ll continue it when I return to Nepal this coming July. In it, I’m looking at the beauty of the country, both in its landscape and people, but seeking what lies beyond that surface. It’s a place that has been wracked by conflict, with massive natural resources (especially the vast amounts of frozen fresh water) that are being coveted by its larger neighbours, China and India. Hope you enjoy the beginnings of what will be a much larger body of work later this year.
Nepal: The Political Landscape
