By D J Clark

Chinese newspaper photojournalists are increasingly shooting multimedia assignments

Dali is one of China’s best loved destinations and it’s also home to one of the country’s most prestigious photography events. Now the International Photography Festival has launched a multimedia contest to celebrate the best work from China and abroad. The competition is designed for, but not exclusive to, photojournalists working in the news industry and is driven by 26 of the largest commercial newspapers in China, who have made the festival their annual meeting place to discuss developments in the newspaper photography business.

Last year the discussions were largely about developments in multimedia news stories domestically, but this year the organisers are seeking to expand the event beyond China’s borders by inviting a group of international speakers and setting up the country’s first international multimedia competition. In doing so they are hoping to contextualise the progress of what is happening within Chinese newsrooms with the rest of the world.

The competition is divided into three categories:

1: Spot News: A video of no more than five minutes covering a live news event shot expressly to be shown on a digital platform (website, mobile, tablet) by a single photojournalist

2: Feature: A video by one of more people no more than ten minutes on a newsworthy subject shot expressly to be shown on a digital platform (website, mobile, tablet)

3: Interactive: A project by one or more people that includes multiple videos, audio, graphics, slideshows or both. Flash, HTML5, interactive projects and Apps should be entered in this category. Videos included
in the interactive section can not be entered into other sections

There is a top prize of 10,000 RMB (around £1,000) in each category and a special grant of 20,000 RMB for the best emerging multimedia journalist to work on a project to be screened at next year’s festival.

Entry is free. You just need to send an email to: contest@dipephoto.com with

· Your name & phone number
· The category you want to enter and whether you are a Chinese or International entrant
· The link to your multimedia entry

All entries must be received before midnight (Beijing time – 5pm BST) August 31, 2011. More information about the festival and contest at http://en.dipephoto.com.

Chinese multimedia award nominees at the Yang Xiaoguang multimedia workshop in Beijing

Participants in the Hangzhou Yang Xiaoguang Canon workshop experiment with the Canon 5DmkII

Any international visitor to a Chinese photography festival should come prepared with the best the camera market has to offer, as anything less will leave you feeling markedly underdressed. At the meeting of newspaper photographers in Dali this year it was the turn of the Canon 5DmkII, a camera that has taken the Chinese news industry by storm as newspapers introduce multimedia onto their websites. One Canon rep told me they were selling around 2,000 units a month in China, and I have heard rumours of double this number in peak months.

The Southern Metropolitan News in Guangzhou, like many of the 2,200 national and provincial newspapers in China, has invested heavily in the 5DmkII. They now have 12 photographers shooting both stills and video as well as a dedicated multimedia team working on longer term projects (see http://umedia.nddaily.com/#20090912-12 and click around). Technically the stories are well produced but creating compelling narratives is proving much harder. However The Southern Metropolitan is making progress and has invited Mediastorm founder Brian Storm twice now to run workshops with their staff which has made a noticeable difference.

Canon too has not missed the opportunity, offering free workshops and supporting a new £5,000 multimedia award for young Chinese photojournalists. Most newspapers have a mix of Canon and Nikon equipment making it much easier for them to buy into whichever camera system offers them the best product. Canon China have put aside twenty-four 5DmkIIs along with lenses, sound equipment and computers exclusively for training news photographers around the country and the results are starting to come through.

The video below (without the Chinese subtitles) was shot this summer by Changsha photographer Liu Zhe, who attended the first 5D workshop in April.

This is the best video I have seen by a Chinese newspaper photographer to date and there is still plenty of room for improvement, however given the Chinese newspaper market is yet to see the kinds of revenue drops now being experienced in the West, there is no doubt in my mind that we will see far greater investment in this kind of reporting in China over the next few years.

D J Clark is director of Visual Journalism at the Asia Center for Journalism and course leader for the University of Bolton – MA Photography (international photojournalism, travel and documentary) that runs in Dalian China.