Reflections on Life as a Photo Journalist
By Sonia Salim

Spanish photographer Ima Garmendia [left] spent several years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan photographing everything from religious festivals to war protests, and camel fairs. She started her career six years ago as a photographer for La Epoca, a Chilean newspaper, and then moved to Peru before arriving in South Asia. An award-winning photo-journalist, Ima speaks of her experiences in South Asia and her latest project - following the gypsy trail from Rajasthan to Spain.

What drew you to photo journalism?

After finishing my major in journalism and having taken some photography courses, I went to live in Chile. I didn´t know anybody there, but soon I got a job as photographer in a local newspaper, La Epoca. Working there, photography and journalism became my passion, and I would say that most of my photography education was really done there.

And then you moved to South Asia.
Well, after living for 5 years in Chile and Peru, I wanted to live in a non Western country. India had been a dream for long time, so along with my boyfriend we decided to go to live in India. Days before our departure, the war in Afghanistan started, so we went directly from Spain to Pakistan, where we spent two months covering what was going on as freelancers.

	Selection of Photographs by Ima Garmendia
	Ima Garmendia's Website

Besides news, religion has been my favourite subject since I was in university. I´ve studied religion as a social science in different universities, and it has been the subject of my pictures in the United States, Latin America and India. Religion covers almost everything in society; it is not only spirituality, it is politics, traditions, ways of life, and ways of justifying poverty.

One of the strongest stories I´ve ever done is about the devadasis [women "married" to the temples who provide sexual services] in India. Even though it is believed to be an old tradition based in religious beliefs, nowadays it has become a way to justify prostitution. I´ve seen women who became devadasis because their parents didn´t have a son, so to assure income in their old age, they made their daughters prostitutes.

You've traveled in all parts of South Asia, which must have lent insight to the different communities across the region.

Being a foreign woman and covering the war demonstrations in the border area between Pakistan and Afganistan was one of the most difficult things I´ve done. This picture [left] was taken the day after the Taliban left the government, and there were many young soldiers like the one in the picture carrying flowers along their arms.

The region where I took the photograph was a very conservative area. You see few women on the street, and most of them wear burqas. So I was harrased constantly on the street by young men. But to generalize about people is very difficult. For instance, in India, someone from Kashmir has nothing to do with somebody from Kerala, and people from Delhi are very different from the people of Bombay.

Your most recent project was to follow the route the Gypsies took when they left India 1000 years ago and you and your boyfriend drove all the way from India to Spain.

While we were living in India we met some Rajasthani tribes that reminded us to the gypsies we know in Spain. Upon investigation, we learnt that those tribes were the origin of the more than twelve million roma or gypsies that are all over the world. We also saw that there is very little information about them, most of what we know about gypsies is based on stereotypes and has nothing to do with their reality.

In Iran, we met some roma who didn´t know they were gypsies until only 15 years ago, when they researched their language, Romani, and found out about their origins. Interestingsly, in Iran nobody sees them as gypsies, so they haven´t been discriminated and live, completely integrated, like the rest of Iranians.

But in most parts of Europe, their life is not easy. In some parts of Slovakia, the living conditions of roma belong to an underdevelop country, not to a European Union country. Things are improving but very slowly. For us, it was an amazing experience because most non roma don´t go to gypsies communities, so everytime we arrived to their homes, we were hosted and treated very well.

One often hears that an image is a more powerful medium of expression than the written word.

I think that images and words need each other to have the strongest impact. If you don´t have words, it is difficult to go deeper into the subject.

What are some of the key differences between being a photojournalist and a commercial/fashion photographer?

Well, I´m not a commercial photographer so I can not tell much about it. But I imagine that the biggest difference is the message you give, in photojournalism the priority is the message , what is happening. Even though we also try to tell this message in the most aesthetic way, aestethics themselves are the priority in commercial photography. And of course, commercial photographers get paid very well, not like us.

Images courtesy Ima Garmendia
top: A holy man gets a bath in the river of Ayodhya, where the god Ram was born.
middle: Young Afghani soldier carrying flowers the day after the Taliban left the government.
bottom: Woman from the one of the original gypsy tribes of Rajasthan.