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Gopal Chitrakar is a veteran photo journalist. He has been a Reuters Photo Correspondent since 1979. He served in senior photography positions at the Gorkhapatra Corporation between 1974 and 1998. He served as General Manger of Gorkhapatra, the country’s largest publisher of the time. He was appointed to that post in 1998 for his professional merit rather than for political and ideological influences, which he sunned throughout his career.

He worked as photo editor for the Kantipur Publications, one of the largest private sector publishers, between 2002 and 2008. At Kantipur he helped convert the prevailing analog system of visual publishing there into a fully digitized system, thereby enabling the publishers to save not just time, money and manpower but also increase work productivity, quality and volume.

The work at Reuters has always been noting but professional for Mr. Chitrakar, with opportunities to learn more and it has always kept him on his toes. For years, he has shot many photos for the news agency and produced many photo features.

Mr. Chitrakar’s approach to photojournalism is framed by his own perceptions of its social impact. He has found that photographic communication is powerful, especially in a country like Nepal where literacy level is low. Addressing this need, he believes, the quality and volume of visual journalism has gone up in the country in the past decades, and the enormous competition between the publishing houses has also helped in the process. New technologies have helped advance photojournalism; however, he observes, they now also demand a strong work ethic since these new technologies can also easily help distort pictures by way of photo elicitation techniques.

Mr. Chitrakar has also taught photo journalism at the Department of Journalism at the Ratna Rajya Campus under the Tribhuvan University between 1979 and 1999. He enjoyed teaching, which he did for more than two decades as a practicing professional.

He has published People Power, a photo-book on the popular democratic movement of 1990. It is a professional journalist’s record of a historic event. Hoping to contribute to the Nepali society and its national memory, he put all his savings into publishing that work. He also has edited a book on the Royal Palace Massacre of June 1, 2001. He is planning to write a memoir which he hopes will benefit both students of communication and ordinary readers.

Mr. Chitrakar was awarded with Bhusan Patrakarita Puraskar (for journalism) in 1997 instituted by the Kamana Publishing House.

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