Text and photos by Parallax Photo Journal
In one of our recent newsletters we broke down why we think photographers from Southeast Asia should enter the World Press Photo contest. Essentially we argued that photographers from “The Majority World” are still underrepresented, and that there are many talented photographers in Southeast Asia working on issues that they care deeply about and which they have a personal connection to. We need these stories to be seen and discussed, and here is an opportunity to take that to a global platform.
Another photojournalism and documentary contest, Pictures of the Year Asia is currently open for entries and our approach to this contest is the same: Don’t enter for the prizes or the accolades, enter because you have something the world needs to see.
Modelled after the prestigious Pictures of the Year International (POYi), POY Asia was created in 2020 by and for photographers from Asia. Parallax Editor-in-Chief Tom White recently sat down for a kopi with POY Asia’s Co-Director & Founding Advisor Tay Kay Chin to discuss how he came to be involved in Pictures of the Year International, why Asia should have its own contest, his own trajectory through the industry and some thoughts on the current state of photojournalism in Asia.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Parallax Photo Journal: Just in case anybody doesn’t know, who are you? Who is Kay Chin? What is Pictures of the Year International, what’s your involvement with that, and how did Pictures of the Year Asia come out of that?
Tay Kay Chin: I always introduce myself as somebody born in the same year as Singapore, 1965. So because of that, I had become obsessed with my identity as a Singaporean and then when I became a photographer, my identity as a Singaporean photographer. I started out in newspapers in the late 80s. And I realised quite soon I wasn’t equipped for the job. I only had A-Levels and most of the people were writers with degrees. So I made up my mind that I wanted to further my study and get a degree in photojournalism, and the only school I ever applied to was the University of Missouri. That has to do with my other obsession, which is books. In the mid-80s, I bought a book in Kinokuniya called the Best of Photojournalism, which was published by the University of Missouri. So that became my big obsession. I wanted to study and there was no other choice. I didn’t apply to any other school in my life.
So as a student there, every year, January and February were the most exciting months, because that was when the entries to Pictures of The Year were sent in and we as students were paid maybe $5 an hour for cataloguing, checking, organising the physical slides, assisting the judging, doing the projecting and sometimes being sent to the airport to pick up judges or award winners. So that had a great impact on my career, and I am forever indebted to the University of Missouri.
When I graduated, I came back to Singapore and worked in newspapers for seven years, and it was extremely lonely for most of the time because what I’ve experienced in Missouri doesn’t really exist here. Nobody was talking about the same things, nobody is interested in more than the single image. Nobody’s interested in ethics or business practices.
So from the start I was always trying to do something. Some failed, some did a bit better, and two things I think I am most proud of in my life are POY Asia and starting Platform. Platform was founded when I was still teaching at NTU and it started as an extension of what I did as a teacher. In the classes I taught, the time was quite limited, and there was so much to talk about in photojournalism and documentary. We used to invite guest speakers every semester, and as there was quite a bit of interest, I decided to organise a night event with almost ten speakers, that was also open to people who were not in my class. They spoke until the automatic lights went out and the aircon was turned off, but people were still excited so we continued outside the lecture theatre, and people didn’t want to go home. After that, some students were very excited and asked me if we could do it regularly.
Back then, a few students had gone to Kathmandu and were familiar with the photo scene there and they kept telling me, if this can happen in Nepal, why can’t this happen in Singapore? So that was how Platform started in 2010 as a monthly thing. We didn’t want to do it in NTU because it was inaccessible, so it was hosted at Sinema Old School for a few years, and every month was a joy. Darren Soh and I were doing most of the programming, and it grew bigger and bigger. It’s the proudest thing I have done, apart from POY Asia.
Then in 2012, I proposed, on behalf of Platform, to the National Museum, an exhibition of 20 Singaporean photographers, with 15 photos each for Singapore’s 50th anniversary in 2015. Midway through our discussions, there was a change in the leadership at the museum and I figured we would need to find alternative ways to realise the project. That was how we started the TwentyFifteen book project. Three friends donated $4000, just enough to pay for the printing of the first book, which was by Darren [Soh]. We came up with the scheme to bankroll this, to pay forward, by selling the books, and three prints from each photographer. Of course, along the way we learned things, and it wasn’t easy, not every book was a success, but overall we had more successes than misses and actually, we made so much money, we didn’t know what to do. We had around $30,000 left over. We spoke to all the stakeholders and decided we didn’t want to take money; it was too troublesome to try to distribute it, so we used it to fund the +50 project, and showcased another 50 photographers. That project became exhibitions, first in Singapore, and then we were invited to show at Istanbul’s Pera Museum. After that, everyone just wanted to take a break. So we took a break for about two years, then two younger photographers Bernice [Wong] and Julianne [Tan] took it up, and that ran for a couple of years, programming it a little bit differently, inviting designers and other creatives.
But most of the things I do, including Pictures of the Year Asia, came from two things — first, I am easily bored and lonely. And I always need that sense of a community. I’m like a college kid who can’t grow up. Second is that I’m very loyal to Missouri, and I’m very loyal to photojournalism and documentary, so everything I do, I feel, is for this institution, which I still believe in and am proud to be part of. I wish I was still actively making photos, but I’m not, but then I have also recognised Shakespeare’s seven ages of man. I’ve reached that age where I can do something else, be more useful doing something else, so I do lah!
As I get older, I’m proud to be learning so many things as I do. I have to teach myself a few things each year. So I set myself these goals and then I use Pictures of the Year Asia as a playground for my experiments. So when people say “You work so hard”, well, no, not really, I’m learning and I enjoy it. This is how I want to work, and no amount of money can change that.
Parallax Photo Journal: So how did Pictures of the Year Asia come about? When you were a student at Missouri, there was no POY Asia.
Tay Kay Chin: It was just Pictures of the Year then. About 20 years ago, they added “International.” My classmate Lynden Steele is now POYi Director. He was one of the picture editors in the White House during the George W. Bush years, and then after that he went to the St Louis Post-Dispatch where the team he directed won a Pulitzer. A few years after Lynden assumed the leadership role, he got in touch with me and invited me to judge the POYi competition in 2020, the year COVID-19 happened. When I was there, he asked me if I would be interested in starting Pictures of the Year Asia, and me being always excited, said “sure!”. I didn’t even think about what needed to be done! I can’t say this enough but the idea to start POY Asia really came from Lynden.
So then a barrage of emails happened and there were some people we wanted to work with, like Prashant Panjiar from India, and Tanya Habjouqa from US/Jordan. Yumi Goto from Japan was also brainstorming with us but she got really busy, so we invited Maye-E Wong, a Singaporean working in the USA. By the middle of that year we had a website up and running, and I still have no idea what I got myself into! We had to build everything from scratch, but POYi gave us the know-how. We were lucky that two of the former lead coordinators at POYi – Daniel Mung from India and Hillary Tan from Singapore — had returned to Asia and had experience working on the back end. Without Daniel and Hillary, starting POY Asia would have been a lot more difficult. When I worked on the back end decades ago, it was different; we were dealing with physical slides, now it is all digital, so they were very important.
With more than eight decades of history, POYi is a big competition with many categories. When we started POY Asia, we knew there was no way we could be anywhere near our parent competition. First, we had to define Asia, and Asia has many different definitions, and I wanted one that was very big, so in the end we picked one that included places like Georgia, Russia, Cyprus, Israel. At one point, Lynden actually asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to do Pictures of the Year Southeast Asia, that’s easier! Or Southeast plus East Asia?” But I said “No, no. It’s ok.” In the end, the definition we settled for has about 56 countries and territories.
We had to make tough decisions on which categories are suitable for POY Asia. We also had to rephrase certain sentences to make them more relevant to Asians. I also had to rewrite certain rules to make it more Asia-centric.
There are certain things that are very natural to the Western photojournalist’s world, for example things like captioning, but they are not always practiced here. Removing the caption was never an option, so we had to go to great lengths to explain the importance of captions, how to write proper ones, illustrating them with good examples etc. Here in Asia, most photographers are just taking pictures but not writing proper captions, other than the ones who work for the wires. I worked at The Straits Times for many years and back then, asking photographers to write captions was like asking them for their kidney.
We have to make changes in ways that people understand, without diluting and without sounding apologetic, because ultimately we are trying to elevate the profession. Although we have the historical support of a very old contest, we were facing different challenges here. I keep telling people that the North American and European concept of photojournalism and documentary photography is already quite mature and speaks almost the same language. When we are talking about “setting up,” or “doctoring,” people naturally understand. I had to explain to POYi that here few of us are members of NPPA, so how can you expect us to follow the NPPA ethics? That first year, there was a lot of explaining about what constitutes unethical practice etc. We could not just take whatever existed in POYi and try to apply it to Asia.
Parallax Photo Journal: You mean the visual language, the cultural approaches?
Tay Kay Chin: Everything, even when you are dealing with photographers and the judges, when you assemble ten different people from ten different backgrounds. The first year, I remember we didn’t have the green and red devices to indicate ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ votes in the judging, so people were doing the ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ until our advisor from India told us, “you know the thumbs up and thumbs down is really very rude. In this part of the world, it’s culturally unacceptable.” We were so focused on image being the unifier, we forgot cultural practices that we also had to consider. Dealing with Japanese judges is very different to dealing with Indian judges, and Singapore judges can be quite different from other Southeast Asian judges. There are people from parts of the world who don’t give a hoot about the World Press Photo style or the Pictures of the Year style. They believe that we need to invent our own language and style.
Pictures of the Year International also charges $50 so that automatically tells people that it is a serious photojournalism and documentary contest. It removes a layer of people who are not really interested or in some ways don’t really fit into that contest. Here, because it is free, we had in the first year maybe one third amateur or salon photographers sending us literally pictures of birds and bees, with no caption. How do we deal with that? But when we started I already set this goal that we are out to educate, share, and if people don’t know, don’t write them off, explain to them. That’s when we became active on social media, and through email.
Last year there was a Japanese photographer who had entered a series of pictures from a village, with some people drinking and looking at the camera. In Asia, to me, I know it is quite natural for subjects to look at the camera, and it can be very hard to say to people “Don’t look at me”. One of the coordinators asked the photographer “was this set up?” which made him really mad. So I spoke to the coordinators about what happened and responded to the photographer along the lines of “please allow me to explain, we are not accusing you, but because of the nature of the competition, for photojournalism and documentary there are certain strict rules of which people may not be aware of. So our coordinators were not picking on you, in fact they wrote to everyone whose pictures may appear a certain way.”
Parallax Photo Journal: I guess that’s another thing with Asia is that with the US and Europe there is a certain homogenous political outlook – even with the fragmentation and the polarisation of politics in Europe and America – whereas across the breadth of Asia, it is more complex to deal with.
Tay Kay Chin: I joke about it, but I often tell people some days I feel like I’m working for the United Nations settling political disputes. One year we had invited an Israeli and a Lebanese to judge, and after we announced it, the Lebanese judge withdrew. We were caught off guard, panicked a little, but eventually understood the situation after speaking to one of our advisors.
Parallax Photo Journal: So even with the idea that looking at the world through the lens of documentary and journalism – that is supposed to be above politics – politics still comes into play sometimes.
Tay Kay Chin: We can screen all the judges, but politics and culture become very personal. When we pick the judges we will provide training, and ample personal attention. At any time they can reach out to me or Lynden. Some young judges are humble and say they are not ready, so then I say we would like to work with them in future and please participate, if you are not judging!
Parallax Photo Journal: So with Pictures of the Year Asia, do you feel there is a need for it because there’s not enough representation in — for lack of a better phrase — the Western-run competitions.
Tay Kay Chin: One of the purposes of POY Asia is also to promote POYi. We want people to know that there is a bigger contest. If you win in Asia, it’s good, but it’s a smaller field, and there’s a bigger field you can play in. Anyone who has been given an award by POY Asia is given a fee waiver to participate in POYi the following year. This past year we had a total of 55 winners and they all got a code to enter POYi for free, so there has been a significant increase in Asian representation. Names popping up in POY Asia are also popping up in POYi now.
Parallax Photo Journal: And you also have the World Press shifting to that regional model.
Tay Kay Chin: It’s coincidental. I think POY Asia started about the same time.
Parallax Photo Journal: Is this part of a larger shift in the industry, with say, Europeans and Americans realising that more practitioners are coming from these places? And also do you feel that there is maybe a growing sense of confidence for people who are from countries in or around Southeast Asia who previously thought “I can’t compete in that arena. I’m not good enough. I’m not James Nachtwey, or one of these big names in the industry” who have in the past been primarily European and American?
Tay Kay Chin: If the judges deciding who wins or not are not as global, then naturally there is a disadvantage for people coming from smaller news making countries.
Parallax Photo Journal: So do you mean that for example Washington politics is a global news story, whereas say Filipino politics is not necessarily a global news story unless maybe you get Duterte and the drug wars?
Tay Kay Chin: The images can be great, but when it comes to the judges understanding the significance of this event, that’s when having an Asia-based panel of judges can have an edge. We want to do this experiment for a long time — send the same body of work to Asian and American judges and see how the results would differ. No matter what, news value plays a part, because we are a photojournalism and documentary contest. Many documentary photographers and photojournalists understand this, but some still do not, and that comes down in part to the importance of words.
This thing about a picture says a thousand words is to me, baloney.
If you watch our contest judging, caption reading often decides if the picture goes through or not. A beautiful picture can get you past the first round, but when it comes to “what is this about?”, then people realise that this is a serious journalism contest.
Parallax Photo Journal: Why do you think that is the case that the non-image-making aspect of photojournalism is not so well practised?
Tay Kay Chin: Education is one part. The upper management in the newsrooms are still mostly word people. I was also told there is an union aspect in some places, so if a photographer is allowed to write, he may be seen as trying to take someone’s job. Some of these are real, some of these are excuses.
I’ve been saying all these years that we have great photographers in Asia, but we do not have proper outlets for these pictures to be shown in the right context. I feel that we don’t have serious newspapers that publish serious photo essays. Even the idea of a picture editor is quite twisted here. If you talk about picture editing people assume it is about adjusting an image in Photoshop.
POYi also has categories for “best use of pictures” and they are very important.
Picture editing is a craft. It is someone sitting down and understanding the picture and the word, and then being that ambassador in the newsroom representing the visual aspect. Some days I think the people who really need to watch Pictures of the Year Asia judging sessions are the word editors.
Parallax Photo Journal: It’s not like people in Asia are visually illiterate, but maybe there isn’t that role for them as picture editor in the newsroom.
Tay Kay Chin: Some places have, but some do not understand the true meaning of what a picture editor does. I’m glad you brought this up because it’s actually one of the reasons why I’ve been doing this, because when I came back after studying in Missouri, I felt I was basically talking to a wall.
I knew the photographing part and the editing part are interconnected, and it doesn’t mean that the best photographer becomes the best picture editor,
I had long arguments with people in the writing world when I tried to change the structure of the picture desk at The Straits Times. When I joined there was one picture editor, one chief photographer and then photographers. There were no deputy or assistant picture editors. Everybody thought of the picture editor as basically the manager of the photography department, in charge of equipment, personnel, but not editing.
So I spent many years fighting that. When I became Deputy Picture Editor, it was a job title I created and fought very hard for. There was never a deputy picture editor, in fact I was told it was impossible to create that position. I redid the whole hierarchy chart, added the assistant picture editors, and made the distinction between picture editor and chief photographer.
Some writer colleagues were upset with me and thought that I was just trying to create a job and lofty title for myself. By and large, colleagues outside of the photography department didn’t really care if we sank or swam. Why would they when they were encouraged to see photographers as just service staff whose job was just to illustrate their stories?
Compared to other sections in newsrooms, structures in photography departments in Asia are often less thoughtful. It is totally normal for a local desk or foreign desk to have different beat editors, assistant editors or deputy editors, looking after different aspects within a desk. But when it comes to the photography department, eyebrows are usually raised when you try to implement a more ‘complicated’ structure. Most places I know still think chief photographer and picture editor play the same roles.
Have things changed? Are things better? I really don’t know. My guess is two steps forward, three steps back.
When it comes to this, I only have one regret. I really believe I should have stayed in the newsroom longer to continue fighting for things that truly matter to me.
And since I don’t work in a newsroom now, all I can do is to run Pictures of the Year Asia professionally and to try to spread the “positive germs.”
Parallax Photo Journal: So does that also affect photographers, in that they don’t have that ecosystem in which to learn how to edit and craft a story?
Tay Kay Chin: Some of them unfortunately — I think — don’t want to do it, because sometimes it means extra work, to edit, to write captions. To me, it’s non-negotiable. It’s part of my training.
Parallax Photo Journal: If you work for the New York Times, it is non-negotiable. You cannot submit a photograph without a caption.
Tay Kay Chin: Right. So I changed that by starting to write and a lot of people got angry. Photographers got angry with me because I was “spoiling market.”
“How come you have to write? Now it means we have to write and you’re making us look bad” and then you have section editors who are upset; “you are a photographer, how can you write?”
In my early years I was very antagonistic and I was so angry. “Why are you all not helping yourself and why are you retarding the growth of the visual section of your own organisation?” My years in the Straits Times were spent writing a lot of position papers and drawing organisational charts and persuading big bosses.
I always told people, “I don’t want to just be a picture editor, I want to be an editor, or an associate editor in a newsroom so that I am in a position where I can influence visuals in a more permanent way.”
I became the picture editor of the Straits Times when I was around 35, one of the youngest ever, and was the first to have ascended from the pool of photographers. It was a big deal. Previous picture editors were usually older and all parachuted from other sections. Generally, being made picture editor was seen as a punishment for text journalists who had committed some serious errors, as if pictures cannot do any harm.
Parallax Photo Journal: So that leads me to another question about working in the media and the idea of a free press. Across the whole of Asia and in Southeast Asia, the role of the press has varying degrees of freedom, and recourse to challenge the powers that be, and to hold people to account. For journalists and for photojournalists in some places, there is a very real risk of danger if you’re trying to do journalism.
Tay Kay Chin: Freedom of information, I mean, freedom of expression is not a god-given right in this part of the world, and even in the U.S. you face censorship in different ways, via advertiser pressure for example.
Parallax Photo Journal: It exists everywhere, in different degrees.
Tay Kay Chin: Of course. Whether financially related censorship, or editors who don’t like certain things, so there’s no such thing as absolute freedom.
Parallax Photo Journal: But that’s not the same as your life being at risk if you report on certain issues.
Tay Kay Chin: In the Philippines I understand; in Indonesia, probably China, I understand the risk is very real, with people getting into trouble doing stories that are actually dangerous and worthy.
During COVID, I wrote a personal blog, arguing that mainstream media should have more access to document the hospitals, because I said this is a very critical period in our life, and you want the best photographers to be in the wards. Basically I was urging the government to at least give access to The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, so that these pictures will exist.
Parallax Photo Journal: As part of the historical record.
Tay Kay Chin: Right. So I thought I was taking a risk and doing them a favour. I didn’t get into trouble with the government. Instead, someone from The Straits Times wrote to me to say she was disappointed with me, accused me of all kinds of things, of not understanding the difference between say SARS and COVID, and that I didn’t understand the risks they’d be taking. Actually, I was fighting for them to have access. I said to her, “Read what I said. I didn’t say you guys are lousy. I said you guys are good, and trusted, and therefore the government must trust you and let you into places.”
Parallax Photo Journal: And you can find a way to do this safely
Tay Kay Chin: Yes. I said all over the world people are wearing PPE to go in. There are certain precautions we can take. I said I would volunteer myself, wear the PPE and go. So to me that summarises a certain kind of attitude.
Parallax Photo Journal: There is this aspect of photojournalism where you might be putting yourself into situations with various levels of risk, whether that’s going and photographing sick patients with a highly contagious disease like COVID, or going into a conflict zone, or doing a story which tries to expose some form of corruption or so forth. Do you think that there’s enough awareness in the media, in newsrooms, in the journalism courses that exist, to prepare people for that? For example hostile environment training. I recently spoke to a photographer who’s an Italian now based in Bangkok. She wanted to do hostile environment training and it just does not exist in Asia. She had to go to the UK to do it.
Tay Kay Chin: Well, wire services send their people, but local newspapers? I have never encountered anybody who had gone.
Parallax Photo Journal: Or even if you have to cover a natural disaster or a riot or, you know, going through a situation as in the Philippines where you had the kind of the killings around Duterte’s drug war. How do you go and photograph and document these things if you don’t have a support network that teaches you how to be safe in these situations?
Tay Kay Chin: To give you another example, one of the editors I worked with told me one Friday before he left the office, “Make sure our photographers don’t cross the border to Malaysia to cover the riots, because, if they go and get caught, then there would be a diplomatic row that the government would have to get involved in. And then the newspaper editor would be called up and asked ‘why did you let your photographers go there?’.” But this was news, this was happening, and we should have gone there.
I think for this profession to grow in this part of the world, photographers and editors need to realise that the amount of risk other people are taking in other places is a lot more than what they are doing. Not to say that you must go to risky places, but the job entails a certain level of risk.
Parallax Photo Journal: And if that becomes something that is part of what you are required to do, or if it’s important enough that people need to go, you can’t be sending people unprepared. I mean, you have this problem in the West as well, freelancers going to places unprepared, without training. No idea even of how to apply basic first aid if they or others get hurt, you know, this kind of stuff. That should be more ingrained within the industry in general.
Tay Kay Chin: So back to ‘what has this got to do with Pictures of the Year Asia?’ A lot. First, we are trying to show people what is best. Whether it is a quiet moment, or if it is a very difficult moment, we are celebrating excellence. And excellence doesn’t mean there must be personal risk. It doesn’t mean a picture of a war will win. Sometimes it’s the aftermath of a war, or how a war might affect people in say Singapore, if you can photograph that in an interesting way, supported by your own personal reporting. Excellence is excellence. The judges don’t have this preconception that it has to be conflict.
Parallax Photo Journal: Is that still an impression within the industry, that a lot of the times big award winners are images of dramatic news events which are often conflict?
Tay Kay Chin: It may be, it may also be that some young people think that is the quickest way to succeed; to be a big name. So people go to war, get crazy ideas.
The Ukraine war, I watched a lot, and there are a lot of Hong Kong photographers photographing there. Young. Very young. Students! A Los Angeles Times photographer who had covered many conflicts told me that some of the photographers just picked up the phone and said, “I’m here, can you help me?” and he had to ask them, “Do you even have personal protection gear?”. He told me, “You know, people are going to die for stupid reasons.”
So I think it would be wrong to say that you need to go to these explosive regions to stand a chance of winning awards. You don’t become a photographer to win contests.
I always say the war zone is complicated enough without you. If you go and something happens to you, then your government probably has to intervene, so don’t think it’s fun, don’t think it’s a baptism.
Parallax Photo Journal: Why do you want to be in that place?
Tay Kay Chin: Yeah. If you can’t answer that question, then don’t go. Stay home. Watch TV.
Parallax Photo Journal: Do you think that it’s also the idea that the granddaddies of photojournalism were these kind of globe-trotting individuals? Is that still the romantic idea in people’s heads that “I want to be like that, I want to travel the world.”
Tay Kay Chin: Some probably get the impression that it’s the best way to get a woman!
Parallax Photo Journal: Probably the best way to break up your relationship perhaps!
Tay Kay Chin: Some people I know are working in war zones. They’re addicted to that action. They have a death wish, or “I survived one war, I will survive this.” And of course if they make brilliant pictures, we, the news consumers, benefit. But it should not be “I go there to be famous.” War is political, ideological, you have to have certain ideas. I have a good friend from Taiwan, and for him the Ukraine war is personal. In Taiwan, some see Ukraine as a prelude to the war that might happen in Taiwan. For him, he is going there to record this atrocity, to alert people that if Russia can invade Ukraine, then China might invade Taiwan, so to him, it is personal. Same with some of the Hong Kongers.
Parallax Photo Journal: They see parallels.
Tay Kay Chin: Right, they see parallels and they want to do something. So that, yes, ok. But when someone says “oh, must be so cool!” then I think “hey, dude, that’s not normal.” So Pictures of the Year Asia cannot be stereotypical, or rewarding things that are just trendy. We have the opportunity to set trends. You know, the idea that by making this picture, and hopefully I win, the world can see, and I get personal recognition, but what I photograph then becomes a talking point.
Parallax Photo Journal: So do you see the role of something like Pictures of the Year Asia or any of these contests can also be to set the tone and the agenda?
Tay Kay Chin: Well I can’t tell others what to do but I say for us, minimum, it is “what should we be talking about?” Not who used which camera to shoot which picture, but why this topic, why these entries. So someone photographing COVID is reminding us that COVID is not over. A Western photographer may have photographed the drug war in the Philippines, but those shot by Filipinos will tell us something different. They live with it. They are still living with it.
Pictures are powerful. Especially when accompanied by good, important and accurate reporting. And they together represent journalism and that sets the agenda. “What do we talk about?” not “what should we photograph next?”
So if we can get past that then I say “Ok”. Then I can say that Pictures of the Year Asia has succeeded. Because this genre of photography doesn’t really exist for other reasons. The only reason is “News”. It’s an issue that we are trying to say “I’m turning my lens to shoot this, to tell you that this is an issue that is important to me, and you should care about it too.”
Parallax Photo Journal: And in the contest you have live judging?
Tay Kay Chin: Completely live. No censorship, no backroom trading, no “can you pause so we can discuss.” That’s why I am so proud of this Pictures of the Year tradition, and I feel I need to bring this to Asia. Our recordings are still online, and many photographers have told us this is the closest they have come to going to a photography lecture. And that really makes me happy, that people from anywhere, who have never been to a photo school but through the judging are learning. To hear how pictures are discussed professionally is also an important part of a photographer’s growth.
We did a program in 2021 called Pictures of the Year Presents where we invited winners as well as other people. Filipino photographers did a presentation on the State of Photojournalism in the Philippines. Mind Blowing. The day rates are atrocious! Yet so many of our winners come from the Philippines and it’s not just about riots or people being killed. Good seeing is good seeing, along with responsible reporting together.
Ultimately I want POY Asia to be more than a contest. It needs to be a platform. Everything I do is trying to build some kind of community. In the U.S., people leverage other people’s experience and help. A lot of the photographers I admire are also very giving because they love this industry and they want it to do well. And they recognise that for it to do well, first it has to survive. Americans are very good at that, at building those support groups. They embrace this idea that “ok, this doesn’t exist, let’s go make it.” In Asia, we tend to complain too much.
I like to think I’m slightly different. I’m like “stop complaining, I’m very tired of that. You want something to be done? Ok. You want me to do something? Ok, Can I do? Ok? I need your help, you want to help? Ok, Then let’s do it. And so what if you fail, then never mind. Little bit embarrassing, never mind. Go into hiding, start again!”
To be honest, I miss Platform. I miss the monthly gatherings where people came to exchange. I spoke to a publisher and a former director of a museum recently and they said they’d given jobs to so many people they met through Platform.
I ask myself, if this is so good, so meaningful, why does nobody want to pick up the ball and run with it?
Parallax Photo Journal: So we should come and encourage people to apply to be Pictures of The Year Asia Director?
Tay Kay Chin: Yes, come, please steal my job! I am just a custodian looking after POY Asia for the University of Missouri, to put it bluntly. I talk to Lynden a lot and one of the things I say is eventually POY Asia has to go back to the University. I tell him I will run this for now and then I can hand it over and maybe the school will say “Hey, this offspring, this grandson who lives in Asia is actually ok” and they’ll continue to program it.
I don’t get paid a single cent for working on POY Asia but I’m not complaining. Maybe I’m bragging!
Parallax Photo Journal: But these are logistics, right? These things cost money to run. It takes money and time. And it doesn’t necessarily mean just because something exists then somebody has got wheelbarrows full of cash that they’re using to fund it.
Tay Kay Chin: A lot of people don’t understand. Some of the judges, who have judged bigger contests ask “are we getting paid? Because others pay.” It is a fair question. So it’s become a good reason that I use when the money question comes up. When I tell a judge, “you know I’m not getting paid, my team is not getting paid,” the response I get is usually surprise and then silence. I think a lot of people like us and support us because we are underdogs.
Parallax Photo Journal: Which should not be the case.
Tay Kay Chin: It shouldn’t be the case, and it wasn’t part of my agenda for the first three years, but now I’m starting to switch gears, things are stabilising so I will try to find money but I have zero concept when it comes to money! This is my weakness.
It would be impossible and bad lah, to assume that someone would be willing to take this over. I’m poisoned by my four years in Missouri. I think my education was really a turning point. So maybe someone at a later point in their life will feel like me, maybe they already made their money and feel like “this is my last hurrah.”
By the way, this isn’t my last hurrah!
You know what makes me really proud, is despite us offering no prize money, the calibre of people participating is still high. I haven’t done a formal tally, but I have a mental one of the Pulitzer Prize winners, World Press winners, former World Press judges, people who write to me offering to be judges, to participate in POY Asia.
I do wish different contest organisers could get together and figure out how we can help each other.
I don’t see other competitions, such as World Press Photo, as a competitor. We are such a small outfit compared to others, and we need each other. At most POY Asia is a good irritant. In many ways the more established contests are helping us a lot. At the end of the day, we are all trying to do the same thing — to bring attention to photojournalism, to elevate the profession.
You know, I want to tell people all of this is possible, that you can do it. One person can do a lot.
I think I just convinced myself, and announced to everyone, that I have a lot more to do and I can forget about retiring at 65.
Pictures of the Year Asia Call For Entries
Submissions to POY Asia are free and must be done via Picter from Jan 15 to Feb 19, 2024.
The ‘live’ online judging will be held April 5 – 7, 2024 and live-streamed on Facebook. You can find out more about the judging at competitions/poyasia2024/keydates/
Here are some quick links:
Here are key points from the FAQ:
- POY Asia is open to holders of passports from the following countries/territories: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cyprus, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.
- We also welcome submissions from photographers who aren’t holding any of the above-mentioned passports but can prove that they have been working out of Asia for the past three years.
- Anyone can participate, however most participants are professional photographers.
- Unless otherwise stated, all photographs must be documentary in nature and adhere to journalistic principles.
- All images must be taken in Asia.
- The photos do not need to be published.
- All photographs entered must have been taken or published for the first time between 1 January and 31 December, 2023.
- POY Asia will not accept AI-generated images or text in any category.
- Alteration of photographic content, double exposures, masks, frames, backgrounds, text, handwritten notes, diptychs or triptychs, or other artistic effects are prohibited, except in the Portrait, Portrait Series and Cultural Practices categories.
- Photographs must include caption information. You will be able to verify that the information is correct after uploading your images.
- The deadline for uploading your work is 19 February 2024.
- Submission to POY Asia is via Picter.com.
- Submission to POY Asia is free.
- Submissions will be eligible for inclusion in exhibits, related programs and become part of the POYi archives, a growing comprehensive library of images that spans more than 80 years.
So that’s it, what are you waiting for? Prepare your entries and submit! Bookmark the dates for the live judging and look out for more upcoming initiatives from PoY Asia.
Do also check out the section of interviews and profiles on the practice of the profession. POY Asia is an official member of POYi, a program of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri. The POY family also includes College Photographer of the Year and POY Latin America.
