Home | California | United States | The World | My Travels | Favorites | About
Silk Road Project
A couple of the things I've always wanted to do in my life was to write a book and to make a documentary movie. I have had a few ideas about what to do over the last few years, and have recently narrowed it down to a couple of possibilities. Of these, the project I have been thinking about the most over the last few months has been that of the Silk Road, the history and the present reality.
So far my idea is to travel overland along the historic silk road(s), starting most likely in Italy or Istanbul and finishing somewhere in China (Xi'an or Guanghzhou). This would involve (at the very least) overland travel through Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the 4 other Central Asian ex-Soviet republics, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China. Eventually I could add in various places that were a part of the maritime silk road, cities such as Malacca, Aden, Zanzibar, etc. That would most likely be a separate project though.
The main goal of this project would be a book, well, more like a photo book. I envision a 1/4 of the book would be historical, this would include economic history, a bit of ethnography (did you know more Tajik people live in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan? Stalin is in part to be thanked for that), political and religious history (how big of an influence on the trade was Islam?). Another 1/4 of the book would be the current situation (economic, political, ethnography) of each of the countries that the ancient route passes through (do people in Samarkand still hand make the famous blue tiles exactly as they did centuries ago?). I would present this by interviewing locals living in the ancient cities that once were hubs for the first round of globalization.
That leaves another 1/2 of the book. Here, I envision using photos to tell the story, quite a lot of them in fact. I'm thinking something in the neighborhood of 150-200, or even more. Using Samarkand as an example, I would talk to the people there and photograph them. What do they look like? Samarkand is in Uzbekistan, but are they Uzbeks? (Quite possibly not). How do they live? Where and how do they work? How much do they make? What do they eat? Many of these questions would be answered with photos showing the people, their families, homes, places of work, etc.
My best guess at the moment is that this would take me somewhere between 3-4 months of travel and another couple of months to put everything together and edit it. I'm guessing it would cost at least $5000-$6000 (I travel quite cheaply, initial flights and Visa expenses would probably be around half of that amount). I have all of the camera/electronic equipment I need already.
The biggest problem is that even if I do complete this project, I'm looking at self publishing the book (which would be quite expensive as I envision this book to be 300-400 pages, with many color photographs) and would be lucky to sell around 20 copies (after making most of my friends buy one ;). Assuming I do eventually undertake this project, most likely I will lose money doing it, if I am extremely lucky I would break even (although that's unlikely).
Lastly, I would film (using Nikon DSLR cameras) many of the sites and interviews in 1080p video. I'm fairly sure I could edit together a 30 minute short documentary (or maybe even an a full 90 minute feature) about the project at the end of the trip, although I don't have much experience with video. I would most likely release it for free on sites such as Vimeo, Youtube or through BitTorrent and try to enter it in some amateur film festivals. I would also attach a DVD copy with each published book.
Once I decide to do this project, I'm thinking of trying to get some funding through the kickstarter photography site (here), probably by offering a print with a certain donation (say, $50) or a book with a bigger donation (maybe $100). My general thinking is that I would start this in March of 2012, try to pass the Karakum Desert desert before the summer and the Pamir/Hindu Kush mountains after spring.
The biggest question I have gotten so far is: "Why do you think you can do this?"
Well, I think I could do this well for several reason. First of which is that I love to travel, I have been travelling every year over the past 15 years, spending a total of over 3 years traveling in almost 100 countries. Many of these are along the route that I plan to take during this project. I'm not a professional photographer, but I believe I can achieve professional results. I have a passion for economics, history, culture and people. Lastly, I have degrees in History and Anthropology, and have spent time in India researching and writing a paper on economics/outsourcing for the U.S. Department of education.
I have traveled through many of these places already, so far I have been to Turkey, Syria, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, India and China. I have visited many of the historical cities through which the silk road passed through in antiquity. For this project I would go through them again, as well as Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan and Pakistan.
Here are some of my photos from my previous trip to central asia, showing some of the places and people that would be in the book:
Finally, Here are a couple of maps of the Silk Road from Wikipedia. In the map below, red is the overland route (which I would somewhat follow) and blue is the maritime route (maybe for another project?).
Another Wikipedia map, see the larger version (here).
I'm going to do this project no matter what. If I can get enough funds to do it all at once in a 3-4 month trip I will do it in the spring in 2012. Otherwise I will do it in parts, I already have a decent amount of information and am working on an outline right now. If you have any comments, critique or suggestions please let me know at calphillip @ gmail . com If you would like to donate something towards the project you can do so by paypal at the button below (Thank you!)