‘I Also Cry During Clicking’
A Nepalese Photographer Captures the Earthquake’s Aftermath in His City
By Jen Kirby
Deependra Bajracharya and his family are living under a plastic tent in a football field at an army camp. It is one of the only open spaces near his old home in Dallu, a section of Kathmandu, Nepal. His house still stands, but Bajracharya spotted a sinister crack in its foundation. The Earth could shudder again, and if disaster hadn’t visited yet, it would.
Last weekend’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake claimed 6,100 lives and counting. The survivors, like Bajracharya, are waking up daily to a razed world. But none of this has stopped Bajracharya from working. An independent photojournalist, he has been photographing Nepal’s pain, even as he’s been a part of it. “I also cry during clicking,” he says.
Swoyambhu, in Kathmandu Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
at Hnuman Dhoka, Royal Durbar Square Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
It has not been an easy task. “Taking picture of people’s grief is always challenging to me,” Bajracharya wrote in an email. “I don’t want to take pictures of their pain but I [am] obliged to covering all situations to show world.” Bajracharya also doesn’t have electricity or steady access to the internet. His motorbike was damaged in the quake, so he can’t easily get around. More than anything, though, he, like so many others, is still afraid. “Everything can be solved,” he says. “But these fears, maybe can’t be.”
Bajracharya took all of his photographs in the aftermath of the quake in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, and his most recent shots are from Wednesday. A selection of those images are featured below.
Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Bashantapur,Kathmandu Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Bashantapur,Kathmandu Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
at Juddha Sadak,Newroad in Kathmandu Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Suni Kumari Shah, 4 years with her brother Rajesh at Golmadhi, in Bhaktapur Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Shankhu Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Temporary Shelter Camp inTudikhel,Kathmandu Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Arniko Rajmarg, way to Bhaktapur.Photo: Deependra Bajracharya
Visit Deependra Bajracharya’s Facebook page for more details about his work.
Published on April 30, 2015 4:15 p.m.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/nepalese-photographer-captures-quake-aftermath.html
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KIPA DABU :
What’s a “kipa dabu”?
Well, kipa means photo as well as in my mother tongue Nepal Bhasha, a local language of capital of Himalayan kingdom Nepal, KATHMANDU and word ‘dabu’ means platforms for public art in any kind of discipline, where peoples can gather and discuss and give a gracious comments each other.
© Pryag shrestha
I believe on strong determination and clear idea and myself, assists me all the time to strive for the goal. Photographs of some of the senior photojournalist of Nepal impressed me very much at the time when I was almost unknown about my career. I made a decision to be a professional photojournalist.
Being just press -oriented I patricide almost all the beats and genres of photography. And, I sacrificed five years of the journey mostly for the media houses. In this period I worked in affiliation with the major publications and others.
I participated in various national and international photo exhibitions.
I had been restricted within the boundary and done nothing for the community. I realized later. And now I am freelancer photojournalist mostly in the field of social issues like poverty, conflict, social discriminations and human right and basically the issues of oppressed class.
In Nepal photography has not been institutionalized yet, but it can be only the easiest medium to show what is really happening in Nepal. It’s only photo that can tell the truth. And through photography we can do something for social awareness, justice and development by bringing out the information to the front of the world.
I believe on the power of visual media to dig out the truth for social change. And now onward I have determined to focus the lance for social awareness.
KIPA DABU 
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