“The idea was to see and investigate whether we could regain our independence as authors,” says Kadir van Lohuizen, a Noor photographer, who, for the past year, has been travelling the Americas for the production of the Via PanAm iPad application. “It might still be a little bit early to say, but in the end, I think I’m going to make it financially.”

Via PanAm is a diary of van Lohuizen’s journey from Chile to Alaska as he investigates the issues of migration across the two continents. Each week, and sometimes even every single day, the photographer shares his photographic reports – the stories of people that he has encountered on his travels.

The app launched in May 2011, but the idea came to van Lohuizen even before Apple released its first iPad in March 2010. “We all kind of knew it was coming,” he told BJP earlier this year. And, like everyone else, he knew that the development of an interactive app would require a large injection of cash. And that’s when Paradox came in.

Paradox is a not-for-profit organisation based in Edam, outside of Amsterdam, that develops projects around contemporary issues with documentary photographers, filmmakers, visual artists, writers and researchers. “We have experience working with photographers on ambitious projects, and Kadir’s idea just matched,” says Laura Verduijn, Via PanAm’s project manager at Paradox. Using the firm’s past experience, van Lohuizen and Paradox started a fundraising drive.

“Initially we were looking for money from the funds that finance the arts as well as journalistic projects,” says Verduijn. “We have very good relationships and experience with these funds, as they have financed some of our previous projects. It started off quite well when we received a big chunk of the whole budget from Fonds Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten.”

Via PanAm. Image courtesy of Paradox and Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor.

Paradox also approached some smaller funds. “And that’s when it started to become more difficult, mainly because of governmental cuts in light of the economic crisis,” but also because of political reasons. “Funds for international co-operation focus mainly on specific areas and countries, and Latin America is not often among those, let alone North America. That made it difficult to find the necessary funds.”

And to create Via PanAm, they needed a lot. Just for the design and the development of the app, as well as the creation of the website and the iPhone-optimised blog, Paradox has spent €35,000. To that figure, “you have to add money for the overall project management – translating Kadir’s work, writing the blog entries, for example. We realised, rather quickly, that we needed to be more creative in finding the money. We couldn’t rely on the roads that we’ve walked before. We also approached some some corporate sponsors, which was new for us.”

In the end, Paradox didn’t secure any funding from these corporate entities. “But we will be working more on this in the future.” Instead, it received financial support from the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, which ended up being the main financial sponsor of the overall project, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as help from Nikon, which has a long-standing working relationship with Noor. And then there was Emphas.is. Van Lohuizen turned to the crowdfunding platform to help finance expenses that remained uncovered, “such as for food and lodging during my trip,” wrote the photographer. He was able to raise $16,298 from 133 backers, which, says Verduijn, in terms of what it really brings in, is a very small portion of the whole budget.

This goes at the heart of what Via PanAm actually is. While van Lohuizen’s name is cited as the main force behind the app, the project runs thanks to the help of local fixers, a project manager, a team of app designers and developers, and a writer, who are based in The Netherlands.

“We are managing the design and production of the app, constantly thinking about how we can integrate the content that Kadir is producing,” says Verduijn. “When Kadir sends us his images, audio files and video, he makes a broad edit and together we edit them down into a story that we think will work well in the app.” This requires a different set of skills to what photographers are usually accustomed to when dealing with traditional media partners, she adds. “We have to discuss what kind of images we need, to be able to tell the right story in the app. Sometimes we ask him for images that have a different point of view or are more detailed.”

Via PanAm. Image courtesy of Paradox and Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor.

Using van Lohuizen’s notes, Paradox, which employs a Dutch writer, a Latin America correspondent “who knows the region well,” writes the photographer’s entries and uploads everything onto the content-management system created specifically for the app. “We are also in the background, trying to make the app better each time,” adds Verduijn. “We work with the programmers and designers of Rotterdam-based Antenna-Men to make changes and fix bugs or make the app compatible with iOS 5.”

App Sales

Since its May 2011 launch, the app has been bought by close to 2000 iPad owners. “We’re a bit below that mark at the moment, but we’re seeing a steady stream of purchases – averaging 300 a month, which didn’t change when we changed the app’s price.” While Via PanAm first retailed at £2.79, six weeks ago Paradox decided to raise the price to £3.99. “We decided to raise the price as part of the whole experiment,” says Verduijn. “We’d started with a low price because we wanted to reach as many people, but also because we wanted to reward early adopters who were spending money on an app that had, at the time, not a lot of content available.”

This content has now dramatically grown, as van Lohuizen is making his way across Latin America and is approaching Mexico and the United States, which justified the price increase. “But sales didn’t go down,” claims Verduijn. “We’re still averaging 300 downloads a month,” and Paradox doesn’t rule out raising that price further once the project is completed in February 2011. But, van Lohuizen admits, these app sales “are not generating enough to cover all of the project's costs.”

And, in an ironic twist of faith, the project is only able to continue thanks to traditional revenue sources. “When I first pitched the idea for this project, newspapers and magazines were not really interested,” says van Lohuizen. “The topic – migration – and the location – South America – are not very sexy. The media don’t really think about these subjects.” But now, after he has proved himself, he’s starting to see some of his reports published. “The Sunday Times Magazine now runs a spread once a month, and Newsweek has done a piece,” as well as a large array of local and Dutch newspapers. “Whether I like it or not, my biggest income on this trip now comes from the traditional media – the print media. Obviously, I’m doing this because I want people to see the story, but when it gets published on paper, it misses essential components: the video and the audio.”

Van Lohuizen has tried selling his multimedia work to traditional media outlets, but it’s a tough sell, he admits. “It often means that I have to talk to their multimedia departments, if they even exist in the first place,” he tells BJP.” And often, you end up with a traditional website, which is not always equipped to show such multimedia pieces. What is possible is for me to put it together for them. I can create a Quicktime file that they can run on their websites, but that’s obviously not the idea about it and often the problem is that, while they are okay with it, they don’t want to pay for it. It’s problematic.”

Via PanAm. Image courtesy of Paradox and Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor.

The photographer is still hoping he’ll find a way to make it work. “For example, I’m talking with France 24, which is much more advanced on this topic.” The French television network has published various web documentaries since its launch five years ago, and now sponsors the Web Documentary Award at Visa pour l’Image. “But still,” he says, “these companies have their own formats, so that means that you have to work together with them to put your material in their format. It’s happening, but it’s an uphill battle.”

Van Lohuizen won’t deny that, if he had not received funding from the Dutch organisation and government, he wouldn’t have been able to produce Via PanAm. He feels this money has helped finance not just his photography, but an exploration of the new ways photographers can work and publish images, video and audio.

However, if he were to do it again, he would do it differently, he says. “I would make it into a two-year project, instead of one. It would have been financially more feasible,” van Lohuizen tells BJP. “Mainly because I would have been able to do other assignments and commissions on the site. Instead, I’m working 24/7 and the only extra money I’m getting are from the sales of my archives.”

The future

As the Via PanAm experiment is coming to an end – van Lohuizen is expected to file his last reports from Alaska in February 2012 – Paradox is looking forward to the future.

“Our goal was not to create a platform just for one photographer and one project,” says Verduijn. “We want to share our experience with other photographers and visual artists.” Van Lohuizen adds, “We’re looking into how we will distribute the platform. It shouldn’t be a one-man show in that sense and others should be allowed to benefit from it – whether they are my colleagues at Noor or any other photographer or journalist. It’s not something I want to keep to myself.” And while future projects will need to have a fair amount of uniqueness to them, “the underlining platform should definitely be made available to others.” And, says van Lohuizen, as the number of iPads increases and “if you’re able to sell 20,000 apps or even more, then projects such as this one can become feasible.

“The idea is to investigate whether we can regain our independence as authors. I think that, financially, it could be feasible. People were waiting to see if I could pull it off, which is symptomatic of our industry – there’s an attitude that people want to wait and see before committing to a new model. And if I pull it off, I guess it will be easier for other photographers to pitch their own projects.”

For more information, visit www.viapanam.org. To download the Via PanAm app, visit the iTunes store.

Via PanAm. Image courtesy of Paradox and Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor.

Via PanAm. Image courtesy of Paradox and Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor.