Humanitarian photographer brings his photo tour to the Philippines

There was a time when I was travelling around South East Asia (SEA) and I would meet a few Caucasian travellers while on the road. “We’re going around Southeast Asia” they would proudly say, then I ask “Hey are you planning to go to the Philippines?” then I get a few disapproving nods. I also see some websites doing some tours around Southeast Asia but sadly, the Philippines is not there. For some reason – whether because we’re a country detached from the other Southeast Asian countries or for fear of some insidious elements – the Philippines always seems to be the last country foreigners would visit in SEA. Then I met Karl Grobl, a humanitarian photojournalist who found this lack of interest of major tour companies and tour agencies to go to the Philippines as an opportunity to bring a group of enthusiast photographers from around the world to discover our country through photography.

It was more than a year ago when Karl Grobl found my photos and article in an in-flight magazine and decided to get in touch with me to help him out on their upcoming first Jim Cline Tour in the Philippines. A year later, here I am writing this article in a bus with a group of foreign photography enthusiasts from England, Israel and the US while on the road heading to Cervantes from a two-night stay in Sagada en route to Vigan during his first Photo Tour in the Philippines. I had a short interview with Karl about the photo tour, his type of photography and other travel-related stuff.

Ironwulf: Why the Philippines?

Karl: While working with some humanitarian organizations, I just found out that the Philippines is a place with many beautiful scenery and super-friendly people and that was my initial attraction. Then I did a search on the Internet trying to find competitors that are in the photo tour business that may be running tours in the Philippines and those tours did not exist. So here’s an opportunity to create a new market for a destination that most people don’t offer, thinking that even if it wasn’t that popular, we’ll be the only game in town, we’ll be the only people doing it. So I think it was the combination of the beauty of the Philippines, the historic landmarks and the fact it is an off-beat destination most people don’t go to. So for photography, it would be a good opportunity to bring people.

Ironwulf: What’s a humanitarian photographer and how is it different from travel and documentary photography?

Karl: It’s kind of a combination of the two. So humanitarian photography is documenting the work of an organization like in the Philippines, which is more on community development, micro-finance stuff from the Asian Foundation that has to do with conflict resolution and peace building in Mindanao and some other issues the NGOs are working for like Human Traffic. So I’m trying to show a possible donor in the United States and what the impact of that program is. For example, if I’m shooting micro-finance or a Freedom from Hunger, I’m documenting the program and trying to show in a positive light that the program is working and benefitting and that it’s a good idea to donate to these organizations.

Ironwulf: How did you come about your photography setup? I see that you only use two lenses attached to each bodies.

Karl: In the United States most photojournalist working on newspapers, where my career started working in photojournalism on a local newspaper in San Diego, California, what I pretty much found is that most photojournalist have the same setup, we have the 16-35mm or 17-35mm for wide shots and the 70-200mm for the telephoto shots. You know occasionally there would be a specialized lens for me to bring along but I settled along with what I would consider the standard photojournalism setup for most guys working for newspapers in the USA. Most also use two bodies so they don’t have to switch one lenses back and forth.

Ironwulf: What was the most challenging assignment for you?

Karl: I found that Afghanistan was really challenging, well because of a whole host of issues – security issues, difficulty photographing certain objects because of sensitivity especially photographing women of Islamic culture as part of an assignment I did. Nothing’s really tough about the work but it has to do about transportation issues around it, being uncomfortable because of the lack of infrastructure for good food or a comfortable place to sleep in.

Ironwulf: What are the things you usually bring when you travel? Things you can’t leave without aside from your camera.

Well I’ve reduced my load stuff to as minimum as I can do. With the work I do I spend about two months on the road, but whether I spend a week gone or two months it doesn’t really make a difference because you get just enough to get through a certain cycle. So I carry four pairs of pants, I carry six shirts because I tend to wear pants twice and shirts only once and all of them the quick dry kind of stuff. And I find a pair of light hiking boots and a pair of flip-flops is all what I need. And probably the most bulky things in my bag, apart from my camera gears and my computer and the chargers and the things that go along with that are the medicines.

Ironwulf: Any travel Pet Peeves?

Karl: I kinda have learned to roll the punches when things don’t happen at the same speed that they do in the United States efficiently. I guess one of my pet peeves is when other people become agitated because of the lack of English speaking people in a hotel. Well you’re in a country somewhere else, maybe you’re in a country that doesn’t speak English, how can we expect to find people to speak English well. Sometimes other travellers are my pet peeves because they are not as flexible, but I try to remain flexible and understand the local culture, but I guess on some point we kind of get fed up with it but I try not to let that get into me.

Check out Karl Grobl’s blog at www.karlgrobl.com/blog