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Kash Gabriele Torsello - photoreporter

Gabriele Torsello, also known as Kash (from Kashmir), is a photojournalist and documentary film-maker.
Aged twenty, camera in tow, he moved away from his family home and began to document stories of people struggling for freedom – a subject that still remains at the core of his professional career.
It was in India that Torsello first became interested in the human condition, particularly in respect of the forgotten war, that for years has been devastating the region of Kashmir.
Torsello’s work there resulted in a comprehensive photographic book, revealing The Heart ofKashmir, (published in 2003 and supported by Amnesty International). This earned him the prestigious British Book Design prize.
In 2001 Torsello became first acquainted with the Afghan culture, which began to have a great influence on his lifestyle and faith. Whilst in Afghanistan, he contributed to three different projects, one of which, with the co-operation with the United Nations, focused on preventing childbirth mortality. The other projects were aimed at promoting sports for landmine victims and supporting better childcare facilities. He took a personal interest in the case of a child named Shabana who had a rare disease. Torsello ensured that she was flown to Italy for urgent medical treatment.
Torsello’s work also brought to the surface the human condition resulting from largely forgotten conflicts: Albania, Libya, Nepal, Pakistan. In Nepal, he spent some time with the Maoist guerrillas who fight against the Kathmandu regime.
On 12th October 2006, Gabriele Torsello was kidnapped whilst he was in Afghanistan en route from Lashkargah to Kabul.
A few days later the kidnappers, through the mediation of Rahmatullah Hanefi, demanded the release of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan subject (a political refugee in Italy) who had converted to Christianity and condemned to death for apostasy.
It was through Torsello’s meritorious photojournalistic work that the plight of the Afghan people had been exposed. As a result, he received the support of the Islamic Authorities, the public worldwide and even the Taliban, who appealed to Torsello’s captors for his release.
His release took place on the 3rd of November 2006 near Kandahar (after 23 days in captivity), amid considerable political controversy, in that a ransom had been paid.
Gabriele Torsello lives between London, Rome, Bari, Kabul and ... anywhere between Jammu & Kashmir.

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Accademia Apulia has asked Gabriele Torsello the following questions:

When did you first realise that you wanted to be a Photojournalist?
I was 14 years old when my fascination for photography first began - I decided than that I would report events through images. Over time I came to realise that photography is a language in its own right, a visual language. Photojournalism uses photography as an immediate visual/emotive language, which journalism then complements with cultural study through written language.

What prompted you to become a war correspondent? And what drives you to report on such reality?
It was photography that pushed me into journalism. I wanted to use photography as a traditional language, one of images, symbols, which can appeal to readers’ emotions for interpretation. Everyone sees something different, depending on his or her background and level of sensitivity. This understanding of photography has led me to use this media to convey reality, the way I see it.

I have been drawn to war-torn countries because I wanted to get close to the people, their shattered lives, without being interested in local politics. Often people get to know a place because of a conflict taking place there, but very little is ever known of what is going on inside the lives affected by a daily conflict, or how a family unit functions in a war zone.

My interest in the realities of war started during a three-month visit to India, when I began to hear about Kashmir for the first time through local newspaper articles. All the articles ever said was that there was a conflict going on between India and Pakistan born out of the 1947 partition when both countries fought over the states of Jammu & Kashmir. That didn’t interest me. I so much wanted to understand what was happening to these people, so in 1994 I decided to make a photographic record of Kashmiris’ everyday life.

You are known worldwide as ‘Kash’, an abbreviation of Kashmir; how does it feel for your person to be tied to your profession?
I always tried to deepen my understanding of the situation of Kashmir by plunging into this region whilst trying to capture at the same time moments of this experience. To make a good documentary one needs to get close the subject that is being photographed, not only physically, but also culturally and spiritually. After working in Kashmir for over seven years, the association of my name to this territory is not a strange coincidence because, after all, my life was and still is tied to this country.

Is your photography a freeze-frame or a search for truth?
It’s both. It’s a set of still images, and a search for something. To grasp a freeze-frame one should look for it. This often means having to live in a place, study it and getting to know it.

Is there a reporter or photographer, past or present, who has inspired you?
Ansel Adams inspired me in photography. It was after reading his books: "The Print" and "The Negative" that I realised how vast the photographic world is, and how personal photography is.

If you could represent with a single picture what your eyes have seen during your time as a war correspondent, what would would it be?
The first picture that comes to mind is that of a Kashmiri child screaming because he has just discovered that his father has been killed under torture.

If on the other hand you could represent the period of your kidnapping in Afghanistan with a photo what would it be?
A dark room.

Your book, Afghanistan Camera Oscura (Dark Room) deals with your experience as a prisoner, from 12 October 2006 to 3 November 2006. Can you elaborate on the title of this book please?
It’s a book I am working on which I hope will go to press soon. It's called Camera Oscura (Dark Room) because both in photography and during my abduction there is a latent image. It’s the image of those who participated in my abduction, that just like the negative of a film strip, are there but are not visible, at least not until one enters the darkroom to process the film and the image begins to take shape. At this point a stop-bath is important to reveal the right film exposure which can now be taken outside the darkroom for everyone to see. In a way this is almost a metaphor of the events surrounding my abduction.
Ever since my kidnapping I keep asking myself this question, the answer of which is not a matter of opinion; it needs a thorough search of everything that happened. It’s a quest that has kept me busy and I hope that this book may provide the insight of the latent image.

Your work has led you to integrate your Apulian culture with that of Afghanistan. Among your most recent exhibitions is 'STARAMASCE', representing Afghanistan’s daily life - Badakhshan in the north, Kandahar in the south. The aim of the exhibition is to remove the socio-political and cultural barriers that exist between the West and the East. What are in you opinion the main cultural differences, what do you think cause conflict and what are the feasible solutions?
People going about their mundane tasks are very similar no matter where they are geographically. Human needs and feelings are the same. History, in a sense, makes us very similar and should therefore make us think, offering us solutions. I believe that History must be taken on board as common experience helping us not to repeat the same mistakes. Reality, however, is such that this experience translates into a cultural phenomenon that gets confined to bookshelves. One talks about it, may study it, but does not act on it in his day to day endeavors. A thorough study of history could provide the solution to many human conflicts.

In 2005 in Kabul market you met a woman with a baby in her arms. The baby, Shabana, suffered from a serious facial neurofibroma. You were crucial in the care of this child; do you believe that our life is more dependent on chance or is is it more dependent of the influence that our actions have on our own future and that of others?
Often we talk about change. It seems to me that people either wait for such a change to take place or transfer such responsibility for change to external factors, like the government, an institution, or even a nation. The problem with this is that by doing so we underestimate ourselves and our own ability to act proactively in situations. We should re-assess our cabilities and act upon them in order to deal with matters, gradually, bit by bit. A drop in the ocean may not make much of a difference, but the ocean is made up of droplets.

What can you tell us about the photographic project ProPugliaPhoto?
ProPugliaPhoto is a photographic project born in Puglia in February 2010 with the aim of becoming a photo agency specialised in images of Puglia. The project can provide high quality photographic services as well as promoting Puglia and the talent of young photographers.

Do you think that photography can help children to focus on their milieu through a different perspective?
I think that photography can teach people to be better observers. The moment one stops talking, he or she is forced to look at the subject, without taking everything for granted. Exploring a scenario from a different angle may in fact reveal a new solution.
Take for example Kashmir. Dozens of UN resolutions, countless papers and documents have been written with a view to finding a solution to the problems of this area, and after 62 years nothing has come out of it for the people living there.
Photography has the power to show a picture of reality that can prompt a cultural study of the same. When one says that ".. One picture is better than 1000 words" it means that an emotion captured by a photo can have an immediate impact on the sensitivity of the observer, causing an instinctive reaction.
The 'thousand words' used to describe the same picture may have a similar impact, but not as immediate and as that caused by an image.
In essence, the emotion captured by a photo aims straight for the observer’s heart and mind. Emotions evoked by words, by contrast, have a reverse path, are first filtered and rationaliased by the mind before reaching the heart. It is the emotion experienced in our hearts that unites all human beings irrespective of cultural and linguistic differences. I believe that in this world we need to communicate more with your heart, freely, to convey words from our heart to our mind, to process then into written codes.

What is your message to aspiring photojournalists?
Firmly believe in your own projects and life objectives - they will come true