Life behind the lens, Chris Stowers reflects on photojournalism across continents
Chris Stowers is a British photographer who has spent over three decades documenting his experiences across more than 70 countries. Represented by Panos Pictures in London, Stowers began his professional journey in 1987 when he left England on a one-way ticket to Karachi. His work often focuses on cultural shifts, humanitarian crises, and architectural heritage, merging photojournalism with anthropological observations. Based in Asia for most of his career, Stowers has lived in locations such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, while frequently traveling to regions affected by political upheaval or social transformation.
His published works include photo books like Hair India, a visual exploration of beards and moustaches in South Asia, and Jodhpur: Within the Walls, which documents the historic architecture of the Rajasthani city. Stowers has also contributed to documentaries that explore cultural and historical narratives. His latest book, Shoot, Ask … and Run! Photographing Asia—and Beyond—in a Time of Upheaval, published by Earnshaw Books, recounts his early years as a photographer.
What was the most surprising lesson you learned about yourself during your travels?
My ‘travels’ really began the first day I arrived in Karachi on a one-way ticket from London – it was the first time I’d ever even been on a plane – aged 20, totally alone, and never having ventured further from home before than Germany.
I hadn’t planned ahead, of course (even today I tend to leave most things up to luck – which, I have subsequently come to realise, is why I get on so well in Asia, the home of abundant fatalism!). I didn’t even know Pakistan was an Islamic country and had never met a Muslim in my life (coming from England in 1987, there wasn’t the mass migration we have today).
Back to Karachi, and I felt I’d made a very bad decision and immediately wanted to turn around and go home…I was saved by not having enough money to afford a return flight, so I chose the next best option and followed my gut instinct to jump on a train, 36 hours to Rawalpindi, in the north. I felt comforted by forward motion, and being in transit between one place and another; like, nothing bad can happen when you are on the move, since every fellow passenger is also a traveller, and just as vulnerable as the other. Prejudice only begins once you arrive at a destination. This is something I’d vaguely sensed in my teenage years; a kind of joy in not being trapped in any one place, but the feeling was elevated and heightened finding myself so completely removed from any support structure or familiar environment.
Through a combination of youthful luck, ignorance and self-assurance I soon fell in with some other similarly impoverished backpackers, started to learn the ropes, and forgot about going back home at all. And that is the stage where my book opens. So, to answer your question – I think the most surprising thing was how, from the very start (minus those first few wobbly days), it felt so natural to be travelling. I’ve never gone back to live in the West since leaving it in that January of 1987. Of course, at the time I thought I’d only be away for 6 months …
How did the experience of crossing such varied cultural and political landscapes shape your worldview?
I knew nothing much about geopolitics before I left home. That was the inevitable result of a state education at a comprehensive school in England in the ‘80s!
Any ‘worldview’ I had back then, if I can use such a lofty title, was formed as a teenager, studying the atlas and dreaming of what those 2-dimensional Asian jungles and mountain ranges would look like in reality (there was no Google Earth back then, of course). And from reading the ‘Biggles’ books, and Wilbur Smith. In effect, when I started out my mind was a blank slate. Fortunately, and completely by chance, this is the best way to approach travel – with no preconceptions.
Once I set off, then it was the opinions of the random and diverse set of characters I met, and of all the many and various experiences, and friends and relationships I’ve had along the way – particularly those from the early days of my travels, when I really soaked up advice like a sponge – that coloured and shaped who I have since become. That many of these early influencers were footloose, unmarried, freelance adventurer-photographers has a lot to answer for!
In terms of where I’ve been based in Asia, I’ve always unconsciously gravitated towards fundamentally ethnic Chinese, conservative, traditional, capitalist societies: namely Hong Kong and Taiwan. These environments just seem to click with my core values. They are, generally, predictable, fundamentally stableand safe spaces in which people leave you alone to do your work, and government intrusion is minimal, especially to the outsider, which, of course, a westerner in Asia will always be seen as. I’m reconciled, these days, with being a ‘forever foreigner’ in societies I’ve lived most of my life in; it is a small price to pay for the high degree of personal freedom those places offer.
That said, I spent the vast majority of the last 38 years on the road, far away from these safe havens of sanity and prosperity, returning only occasionally to HK/Taipei to pay the rent. Much of that time I was photographing in Muslim, or communist and recently ex-communist countries. In those environments, being an obvious foreigner can be more dangerous, and attract unwanted attention. I discovered early on, though, that people in war zones – or those surviving humanitarian crises – soon accept the presence of photographers. We are, in some way, welcomed as a sign that their plight hasn’t been forgotten, and that the rest of the world is trying to learn, through our pictures, what is going on. Photographers are sometimes latched on to as a sign of returning normality, our mere presence an indication that the worst of the conflict is over. In my book, for instance, I detail this experience when spending time in Moldova, in the aftermath of the civil war there, in 1992.
I now start to view my infrequent visits back to the UK from the perspective of them being just another foreign photography assignment, rather than as a native returning to his homeland. I’ve left return too long, and feel I’m not relevant in my home country any longer. Luckily, being an indifferent observer is a position I have become – and perhaps always have been – comfortable with.
Were there moments where cultural misunderstandings led to meaningful or humorous outcomes?
This is a question I feel I ought to have a stock answer prepared and ready for, but always struggle to narrow down when put on the spot! For there have simply been too many embarrassing moments to recall, though most of them were small matters of nuanced etiquette, where I missed the signals. Not understanding when a friends’ mother was fishing for praise of her cooking, for example, and agreeing with her when she worried that what she’d cooked was too salty by replying with my honest opinion that, ‘yes, perhaps it was a little overly salty’, instead of showering her culinary efforts with effusive praise, as expected.
In the book I highlight several examples of the way the western and eastern mind operate on different assumptions, one of the more exciting ones taking place in Indonesia, when the enraged ex-husband of my girlfriend advanced on me with a machete, as dictated by the fiery nature of his culture and understanding of the situation (to run amok is a Malay expression implying someone is helpless to control their emotional temper, after all): obviously he intended to scare me, but instead I just felt instantly homesick for my English culture of calmness, where no misunderstanding is too serious it can’t be solved civilly over a cup of tea…
What role do you think photography plays in preserving the essence of a culture that is rapidly changing?
As (French philosopher) Roland Barthes noted, “…a photograph is neither Art nor Communication, it is Reference.” Not that I read Barthes until very late in my photography career (but, for an intellectual, he seems to get close to the truth!). In some way I have always felt that what I was shooting was fleeting, that I may never get the chance to return to a place or specific cultural setting again; that change will inevitably occur, as it has always done, and that, anyway, what you return to can never be the same. Life moves on, people change, with or without us. So, in essence, all photography is about capturing a defining moment – some element of raw truth – before it disappears.
I look at the coffee table photo books I’ve produced over the years and realise the topics I chose to highlight, and in some cases dedicate years of my life to pursuing, were all about capturing specific trends or environments before they died-out or were destroyed. Two in particular being ‘Hair India’, all about the weird and wonderful beards and moustaches of Hindustan, and ‘Jodhpur: Within the Walls’, a book about the historical architecture of Jodhpur, in Rajasthan. In fact, these days I view my work almost as being that of visual historian or anthropologist.
In terms of photography and its ability to ‘preserve’ the essence of a culture, then ‘no’, I don’t think the medium is that strong or persuasive. A photographer can – and should – be only a casual observer and recorder of what is real at a certain moment in time. That exclusivity is an images’ inherent value, and also its’ fundamental sadness and nostalgia.
Did any political figure or system you encountered defy your preconceptions entirely?
You can only photograph a person, not a ‘system’. And it is through observing and compiling images of multiple people that we build up a picture of what damage any system, like communism, does on a human level. The longer I have been in this game, the more cynical, unfortunately, I have become about the personal motives and actions of mainstream politicians. Actually, getting to meet them, and being on the receiving end of their policies, has only increased my distrust of their motives!
Starting from that low point, though, and if I had to mention a few individuals I’ve met and photographed, who broke the mold, then Hong Kong’s last governor, Chris Patten, was certainly one. And Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui. Both of these men were statesmen of the old order.
In a different vein, and controversially, perhaps, I’ve found countries run by dictators have been some of the safest to travel in (though not necessarily to report from). Suharto’s Indonesia was, for all its many faults, incredibly stable; the sectarian violence of the late 1990’s only really becoming unleashed after his fall from power. The same for Assad’s Syria, Pakistan under Zia al-Huq, and the old Soviet Union. I realise, totally, how restrictive life was for people actually forced to live under these regimes, and why they would wish to escape from or overturn them, but it is fascinating to see how short people’s memories can be, too. The longing for ‘security’ and fondness, even, for the hardships of a mythologised youth is strong. So many people I have met across the former Soviet Union, or in Pakistan, for example, have expressed a wish to return to the ‘good old days’ when things were more certain and orderly: a time when good news about a country was the only news officially sanctioned by the state press.
Inevitably, humans are flawed, and systems come and go and then come back again with almost generational regularity. In my book, for instance, I detail covering the riots and protests in the Philippines in 1990. The people then were demanding – successfully, as it turned out – for US military bases to be closed in that country, after the fall and exile of the Marcos regime. Today, not only are US bases being welcomed back into the Philippines, but Marcos’s son is the current President!
Similarly, in Malaysia, I remember photographing Anwar Ibrahim when he was an up-coming star of the UMNO Party. Then followed decades where he was jailed and suffered political repression. But today that same (older-looking Anwar Ibrahim is now the Prime Minister of the country).
The most amazing people I have met, however, have always been unknown activists working in adverse environments, where their criticism of, and actions against, their own governments come with the very real possibility of being carted off to jail by the authorities, or worse.
I could never be so brave.
As a photojournalist I’ve had the opportunity to meet many incredible and strong individuals but have always been protected by the veneer of the international conventions around the media ensuring my liberty, and I could always fly out when the situation became too hot.
In my book – which only recounts the early years of my travels and work as a photographer (I’ve encountered many unsung heroes since that time, and they will be detailed in the next volume in the series) – I mention, for example, Yadran, my friend and fixer in Bosnia, who would rather pick up a gun to defend his homeland than run away, as he so easily could have done. We were about the same age, and I wondered, at the time, would I do the same were England similarly threatened? I think, like with so much in life, you can’t know how bravely, or shamefully, you will act in a high-pressure situation until you are forced to face it, and when the fight has suddenly become an existential one, and very personal.
How did witnessing civil wars and conflicts alter your perception of nationalism and identity?
That’s a big question. On the personal level, I’m very lucky to have been well-grounded by my upbringing, prior to travel; secure in myself and appreciative of my own culture and background. This, I believe, is the essential condition you need to inhabit, in order to ensure you are mentally strong enough to face photographing the worst side of human nature. So, in terms of perceptions of nationalism and identity, personally I have been lucky enough to have survived my exposure to violent and depraved incidents with my belief structure and mental state relatively intact.
On the societal level, though, sometimes you just end up wondering why the world is so mad at itself all the time? Who is benefitting from all the chaos? Are ‘countries’ just like rival sports teams, in some way, worthy of undivided, unthinking support? You arrive at a conflict zone knowing only what you read about it in the media beforehand. Discount all that, straight away! What really matters? People. Those who are wounded or being made homeless or forced to flee their villages. As a photographer or reporter, you need to find the heart of the story, and the human angle is the surest and quickest (and most effective) way in. Humans (unless they are the psychopaths who tend to become leaders) are programmed to empathise with the plight of each other. Is any war worth the damage it causes? Not to the civilian population, certainly. Is any photograph worth dying for? Not that I have found, so far.
Shooting on both sides of a conflict, as a journalist often can – but which was easier a few decades ago – all I see are similar looking people being whipped-up to suffer, by their own profiteering political elites. Left alone, we’d emerge from our trenches and kick a ball around together, like those German and English soldiers famously did during the First World War. Did I mention, I’m getting a little more cynical as I get older?!
As for ‘identity’, that’s a tricky one. I remember staying at a hotel in China that was labelled ‘Hotel for foreigners’, realising, belatedly, that that was how the locals viewed me, as a foreigner – but all the time I’d imagined myself being surrounded by them!
On a more serious level, I feel most for refugees; for people who are unwillingly forced from their homes and a familiar way of life. Photographing in a refugee camp is profoundly soul-destroying: some people have been living in them for so long, and yet they still cling to the hope of being resettled in a third country, or of being able to return home. There are refugees on the Thai-Burmese border who’ve been living in camps since 1988 and still have no hope of return, and yet they are not allowed any individual freedoms or rights in the country they escaped from, or in the country they sought refuge in. It is all such a colossal waste of human potential. These people have effectively been stripped of their official identities, though in themselves they retain an intense and nostalgic patriotism. It makes me feel guilty to have the freedom to move on after having taken my photos, and shared tea with them, and listened to their stories.
Were there any interactions with locals that still resonate with you emotionally?
Many. Obviously, I’ve been living in Asia for almost 40 years, so, most of my life now. I tend to view myself as being ‘local’ in those corners of the continent where I’ve lived the longest and been in romantic and professional relationships with many other ‘locals’. But in the context of the book – which details the early days, when I didn’t realise yet that the rest of my life would be so influenced (some may say ‘consumed’) by Asia – then my interactions ran the full range, from love to hate and all points between, for sure!
Overwhelmingly, over the years, I’ve been the lucky recipient of polite understanding, unconditional help, and generous degrees of patience from the local populations of all countries I’ve visited and worked in. In Asia especially (where the vast majority of the events detailed in my book take place) I have nearly always felt safe, been welcomed into people’s homes and introduced to their families, had my opinions respected and grown to deeply admire local cultures and traditions, which in many cases remind me, sentimentally, of the importance the West used to place on religion, tradition, social cohesion and family. Qualities, quite frankly, that my ‘home’ country is in the process of rapidly losing.
It’s impossible to isolate any single incident or interaction without then thinking of a dozen more, but one example from the book is where I mention my two jungle guides, Doryanto and Suderson, without the help and friendship of whom I’d still be lost in the rainforests of East Kalimantan!
Were there moments when you considered abandoning your journey?
Never! I have never viewed what I do as ‘travelling’, just the continuation of the adventure of life. All the experiences, good, bad or indifferent that befell me – a few of the earlier and most formative of which I detail in the book, which basically cover the years from 1989-1992 when I was just working out how to make a living from photography – were part and parcel of that. I think this attitude stems from having set off on my journey at a relatively young age (20 years-old), with no preconceptions, and with no responsibilities (job/mortgage/wife etc.) demanding that I return. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
How do you decide when to use your camera versus experiencing a moment unmediated?
The only true holiday a photographer can have is when he or she travels without a camera. I tried it once, when recovering from an operation that meant I couldn’t carry my camera bag for a week – in Cyprus – and I was bored stiff within two days! Couldn’t see the point of being there. So, in some way we photographers are programmed by experience to always be subconsciously looking for a shot, taking in the light and shadow, anticipating action, spotting naturally occurring patterns, and worrying about exposure settings and lens choices. Without the camera there is no need to really study the environment, since you don’t have to work to make anything out of it. To me, that seems just lazy, and unappreciative of the many qualities a place has on offer.
If pushed on the point, then I’d say sometimes I find myself meditating while I’m waiting to take a shot. Let’s say, when I’ve set the camera on a tripod and am waiting as the light changes in the evening to take a series of long-exposure night shots. For an hour or so I’ll be stuck there in one position, perhaps accompanied by a can of beer, observing, waiting, thinking, soaking up the sounds of the city, absorbing the scene. I appreciate those moments of enforced peace, and feel I come away from such shoots enriched. It’s as though the city or scene I’ve been concentrating so hard to depict has somehow permeated my soul.
Most of the rest of the time the job is a mad rush, and we never seem to get enough time to craft shots the way we intended, like in a crowded market or something. But it is in such chaos – once you’ve visualised the kind of shot you want, and decided on how to portray the emotion of the setting – that all other distractions fall away. You become a hunter, stalking a prey.
On a lighter note, I don’t carry my camera with me all the time these days, as I did in the past. I love cycling and will actively choose not to take a camera with me when riding, not even the phone. So, I have no distractions and can appreciate the experience fully. Basically, by exchanging briefly one passion for another, that’s how to get a moment of freedom away from the self-imposed task of recording the world through the unforgiving parameters of a small rectangle.
Did you ever feel a sense of guilt for being an observer in situations where others were enduring significant struggles?
Often. In the book, for example, I mention how I was able to access an abortion clinic in Romania. The challenge to gain access was what drew me in, but when I was in the actual room, with women coming in and the operation being performed in front of me, I felt like I was abusing their privacy, started to put myself in their position and feel ‘what the hell am I doing here?’, like I was some sort of voyeur. But then I remembered I was a photographer, with a job to do and a story to tell, and I used my cameras to hide behind. I felt sick, afterwards, but got some good shots that were later used widely, and hopefully shone a light on the situation as it was at the time.
At other times you look through the lens at someone, a great shot, maybe a crippled beggar in some slum, and that person – until then just the impersonal object of a potential future picture sale – will see you, look right through the lens and smile at you with such humanity that you just have to lower the camera and smile back. The spell that allows you to shoot indiscriminately is, for a moment, broken. I seem to suffer from that ‘weakness’ more often now I’m getting older, in fact.
There also exists a distinction between being a freelance photographer (which I have always managed to remain) – who has more freedom to act like a human – or being employed by some big media company, where you have an editor demanding results. That makes you, out of necessity and in order to keep your job, less sympathetic, and more detached from the scene in front of you.
In situations like a war zone, for example, you are there to coldly record and, in a way, advertise or expand awareness of it (and presumably help focus international attention into stopping it), and you rationalise away any doubts by saying ‘I’m here to do a job, I’m trying to get the message out’ etc. Those situations can become addictive, since you experience higher highs and witness lower lows then than in normal life.
The people you meet are more vulnerable but also more honest and helpful in times of war, and you can’t help but build sympathies for the people you are living amongst – who are suffering and losing their homes and livelihoods – and taking sides with them. It’s all very intense, but at the same time you have to remain somewhat distanced and impartial. I have been in refugee camps where people who have lost everything and have only a bleak future to look forward to have offered me what I know are their last luxuries, of tea and cakes, and the best chair in the room to sit on. What do you do in a situation like that? I have always reasoned you must accept their generous hospitality, since not to do so would imply an inequality between host and guest, on a base level. For a moment, they are back in their old world, able to offer something, rather than being a refugee forced to accept the charity of others. Your acceptance of this means they retain their dignity and a modicum of control over their lives.
If you could revisit one location from the book, where would it be, and what would you do differently?
I am wary of going back to visit places that, at an earlier time, were very special to me, or especially formative, knowing that to do so risks disappointment: that, perhaps, it is best to leave some dreams untouched. After all, when you get older the past is all you have left.
If pushed on the matter, though, I’d have to admit being curious to return to Pale, the former headquarters of the Bosnian-Serb government in the hills of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I spent a memorable time there in the early days of the Balkans war, which came back to life as I was transcribing the diary I kept at the time, as part of the research for the book. I found myself wondering about the fate of some of the people I met there, and also the scenery, which was incredibly beautiful. Even at the time I remember thinking I should return in a time of peace, for a holiday (but, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t do ‘holidays’, so I know I’d have my camera with me and it’d turn into a working trip!).
Are there any new storytelling mediums, such as podcasts or documentaries, that you’re exploring for future projects?
During the ‘pandemic’ I found myself stuck in Taiwan (in that respect, I was lucky, as Taiwan was one of the best and least restrictive places in the world to be marooned for 3 years) and so had to search for some alternative ways of making a living, as I couldn’t travel anywhere outside the country to shoot. Anyway, I was lucky enough to be able to work on 3 documentaries for a local production company – one of which recently won an award in a documentary competition in Greece, actually – sort of exploring the photographer’s way of looking at various parts of the country, its culture and historical development. I learnt a lot from being in the unusual and reverse role in front of, rather than behind, the camera. And, since they were not exactly high-budget productions, I was able to get more hands-on with the post production, too. For example, I had to do the voice-over narrations for all of the films, in a proper sound studio. I really enjoyed that whole experience. So, documentary film making, in some capacity, would certainly be a direction I’d consider going in.
And, yes, podcasts. I find myself listening to them a lot now, anyway. They have replaced the World Service and other such mainstream radio broadcasts as my main access to news and views on all sorts of cultural and news trends. And, since starting to write, and to put myself out there on various issues through my books, I find I’ve been invited as a guest on a few podcasts. They are a non-invasive yet quite persuasive medium, and a platform that I’d love to get more involved with. Though being technologically inept, I know it will always be as a guest, rather than working out how to actually broadcast one of my own!
Photos courtesy of Chris Stowers
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