Natalie Behring

Words: Diana Clement | Pictures: Natalie Behring

Photojournalism is often seen as being the best of both worlds, mixing the art of photography with capturing the life and people in the news. Natalie Behring tells Diana Clement how a hobby turned into a career

Natalie Behring got the sort of lucky break that amateur photographers dream of. Lent a 35mm camera to take on a trip to rural China, the amateur portfolio she put together landed her an instant job offer with Reuters.

Today she’s one of the world’s best-known press photographers, using her fluent Mandarin language skills to track down some of the best photo documentaries to come out of China in recent years.

Behring was interested in photography from childhood but didn’t learn to express that interest with the point and shoot cameras she was given for birthdays and Christmas.
“I had always been more creative than analytical. My mother always thought I would be an artist and I always put a pretty high premium on creativity. It’s something I appreciate in other people. “

Behring’s first serious photos taken in 1996 on a loaned 35mm camera were of cormorant fishers in Guangxi.

“They were very iconic but stereotypical pictures of China. If I took them today I would think, ‘whatever’. They didn’t take a lot of skill or talent.”

The pictures were taken on a backpacking trip through China that was intended to improve her spoken Mandarin. Instead, she found herself spending much of her time just taking photographs and returned to Beijing with dozens of rolls of film, falling hopelessly in love with the art of photography.

Behring’s then boyfriend, who worked for CNN in Beijing, suggested she sell some of her photos to news agencies such as AP, AFP or Reuters, which were paying around US$50 a photo at the time. “It was a really low rate, but I was a student and I thought it would be great to get a couple of hundred dollars.”

The AP and AFP photographers weren’t around when Behring called. But Reuters’ chief photographer in Beijing at the time, Australian Will Burgess, was, and he invited Behring to the office, offering her a freelance contract on the spot. “He could see in my photos that I had an ability to learn how to be a better photographer.” It wasn’t just her photos that motivated Burgess to give her the job. “More so because I could speak Chinese.”

The pay, at US$500 a month with no benefits because she was a freelance, wasn’t going to make Behring wealthy. But Burgess’s generosity of spirit leap-frogged Behring into her career.

“I was a permanent stringer and went to the office every day.” So passionate with her new-found career was Behring that she would hit the streets at 5am on her bicycle and take pictures of everything she could see. “I was obsessed and I really wanted the early morning light.” Once it got too hot, Behring would head back to the office and develop film.
That would be disturbed by assignments to photograph dignitaries and other day-to-day press photography. “I was in my early 20s and I could have worked 12 hours a day; it wouldn’t have bothered me,” she says now.

Even today Behring just loves the variety of her work. “I wake up every day and am happy that I am going to work. Every day is different. I am always interested in everything I shoot, even the boring stuff.”
Behring’s really lucky break wasn’t just getting the job at Reuters, it was being mentored by someone of Burgess’s experience. “He would give me an assignment and if I didn’t do a very good job he would be very patient with me. If I didn’t get my head around something we would go out together and do it again, showing me how to correct the mistakes I made.”

War zones

The stringing position with Reuters turned into a staff job in 2000. Then Behring found herself transferred from Beijing to Israel and pretty soon was out on the streets in the thick of the Second Intifada. Fear was ever present in Israel and was something that had to be controlled to take good press photographs.

Although Behring liked reporting and working hard, war photography wasn’t for her. “I prefer more aesthetic, pleasing photographs and documenting social issues.”

But while in Israel she married a South African and when he was posted to Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001, Behring resigned and followed him.

There some of her best photography work was done, reporting on social issues for UNHCR and Getty Images. It was an exciting time with both money and aid agencies flooding into the country. Social programmes flourished. “The world was pouring so much money in at the time. There was a kind of renaissance going on and there were all kinds of interesting people there.”

Women’s health

Behring found her niche reporting on women and health. “I did a photo essay for The New York Times about maternity. It was both amazing and terrifying.”
Coming from a society where birth is kept behind closed doors, seeing and experiencing it at the end of a lens was a “mortifying” thing to see, says Behring.

Behring has picked up more than a few gongs for her photography work – despite never being formally trained.

In Israel working for a wire agency she “just recorded the news”. The difference in Afghanistan was that Behring was doing her own documentary photography. “In Kabul I was documenting the conditions of maternity wards of the women’s hospital, just how treacherous it is to give birth in Afghanistan.”

As a freelance in Afghanistan and these days in China, Behring works six or seven days a week, sometimes three to four hours a day and other days 10 hours.

After Afghanistan she followed her then husband to Bangkok, a great place for a holiday, says Behring, but not offering the sort of challenges she needed. What’s more, war had started in Iraq and the outlets for freelance photography had their budgets aimed firmly in that direction. “They didn’t have money to spend on photos from Thailand.”

Language

Behring knew her language skills were wasted in Thailand and in 2003 moved back to China. “Since I speak Chinese it is quite easy for me to just go off and find projects that I care about for photo essays and documentary projects.”

Behring has picked up more than a few gongs for her photography work — despite never being formally trained. She believes that acquiring photography skills is a cumulative process and every single picture shot builds on your skills, especially when it comes to controlling light.

Afghan girls attend their first class on the first day of the official school year at the Amir Dost Mohammad Khan Secondary School in Kabul (March 2002). The school squeezes 1400 students into its cramped, shrapnel-scarred rooms.

By the time Behring returned to China she had sufficient contacts in photo agencies to ensure a regular income. Even so, she signed on with Bangkok-based agent On Asia and UK-based Panos. She gets 50 per cent from photographs sold: “I think I’m pretty lucky. Every time I put my bank card in the ATM, money still comes out and I save money. I am pretty comfortable.”

Freelance photographers don’t earn a set amount. Some struggle, and others earn 10 times what Behring does. “There is not a standard income for freelance photographers.”

Going digital

Behring transitioned to digital in about 1999 when handed a Canon 520 by her boss in Israel. “They just gave me the camera and said, ‘Use this now’.

“Even in those early days there were some great things about digital. It was instant and, working for Reuters, that was wonderful. You don’t have to develop the photos, fix the scratches and so on. But the image quality was terrible. The file size was five megabytes.”

E-trash arrives by the lorry load.

These days Behring uses quite a number of digital cameras, the main ones being a full-frame 12.8 megapixel Canon EOS 5D 3 and a Mamiya 645 because of its medium format quality — although she says the camera is quite boxy and uncomfortable to use. “I still do shoot occasionally with a Canon EOS1 film camera when clients request film. There is something nice about shooting black and white film.”

The files are becoming more and more flexible and if you make a mistake you can cover it up. Even if they are under exposed there seems
to be a lot you can do.

Even after more than eight years using the digital medium, Behring continues learning. Early on she developed a preference for shooting in RAW, enjoying the flexibility of the files.

“The files are becoming more and more flexible and if you make a mistake you can cover it up. Even if they are under exposed there seems to be a lot you can do. The image quality just gets better and better.”

One frustration for Behring is that most digital cameras are not full frame. “For example, if I am shooting with a 24mm, it will actually be, give or take, a 32mm.” She points out that 35mm film cameras are always full frame.

Environmental projects

Behring still strives to become a better photographer and each new project helps. Of late her heart has led her to environmental projects, working at times for Greenpeace.
Recently Behring has worked on projects to demonstrate to the world the effect its mountains of electronic waste are having on China and its people.

“The old computers the Western world throws away are shipped to China and poor people take them apart at great risk to their health and the environment.” The project made the highly influential US-based Fortune magazine.

More recently she has visited what is arguably the world’s most polluted city: Linfen. According to the Blacksmith Institute, which records the world’s top 10 polluted places, Linfen, which is at the heart of the coal-producing Shanxi Province, has hundreds of unregulated coal mines, steel factories and refineries that pollute indiscriminately.

Residents claim that they literally choke on coal dust in the evenings.  Pollutants from the local industry include Fly-ash, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, PM-2.5, PM-10, sulphur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, arsenic and lead.

She also travelled to Borneo in October 2007 to shoot a photo essay about palm oil plantations and the destruction of the rainforests to make way for them.

Another issue that has got Behring fired up behind her camera is the aging population in China.

Behring’s top tips:

• Always shoot in RAW format.
• Under expose by a quarter stop in RAW because it can be manipulated later.
• Buy a 24mm 1.4 lens if you can afford it. “It is the sharpest lens and perfect focal length, even better than the human eye.”
• Shoot every day and as much as you can because as long as you are shooting you’re learning.
• Work really hard if you want to get into professional digital photography.
• Get a mentor who can work with you to improve.
• When it comes to photo agencies, try to get yourself on the books of the more discerning ones.
• Get a website but don’t put big images up.
• Save all of your work, always.
• Put a portfolio on Flickr.com but never give images away for free.

“China has one of the oldest populations in the world. But with the changing economy traditional social structures are breaking down. China is not a nice place to be old in any more and a lot of old people are neglected.

“Their children put them in decrepit hospitals to finish their lives off.”

The project gained her second place for issue reporting in the prestigious Pictures of the Year International Competition.

Behring’s favourite picture of all time is of Tibetans playing pool on a mountainside. “It wasn’t my most skilful photo but it was the most unique and weird.” When it comes to her most skilful photo, Behring says she is still to shoot it.

On the web: www.nataliebehring.com

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...