1. How did you come up with the idea for Emphas.is? What drove you all into this?

We were discussing the current state of the media one night at home with friends and we all agreed that the old media institutions are not going to recover any time soon if at all and that the solution of how to continue to produce in-depth photojournalism had to be found elsewhere. We wondered what the next logical step would be and Karim had the idea of turning directly to the public to ask what they want to see reported, and instead of paying for a magazine with a fixed content, the audience would pay a small contribution towards realizing the production of a feature they would be interested in. So in a sense we are just cutting out the middlemen, the gatekeepers of our profession when it comes t the production of content.

2. A lot of people in the business say we're in the middle of a huge crisis - no more venues for publishing photo essays, no money for online content etc. Do you agree? Is Emphas.is a positive response to these claims?

There is certainly a huge crisis in the media right now, there is no denying it. However, I think much of the media is stuck in its ways. It is important to analyze how most people are consuming the news these days. The reader no longer wants to be fed the highly formatted content where the communication process is a one way line. Most readers look for the information that interest them, they want to engage and exchange ideas on the content provided and most of all they trust their social networks to keep them informed. They increasingly rely more on the individual accounts than the objective reporting, they want to be recommended something from someone close to them, they want to decide how deeply they immerse themselves in a story, they want to discuss and shape it. With emphas.is we tried to take all these trends into account and make the reader/viewer a partner in the production process rather than a mere consumer.

3. Beyond the economic particularities, are there structural changes in crowdfunded models, in comparison with the more established ones (such as editorial hierarchy). Also, do you plan on getting the work published on paper? How is that relationship going to work?

As I mentioned above, we are certainly interested in creating the notion of a partnership with the public. We no longer want to tell people what is news worthy and of interested to them, but raise the question and provide choices. In addition we want to create dialogues and discussions between the photojournalists and the audience about certain issues that are being investigated through Emphas.is. But I would like to stress that we believe in a strong distinction between professional and amateur photojournalism.

4. I have the impression that photographers are usually a bit resistant to these new forms of producing, distributing and even funding content. Do you agree?

Many photographers are reluctant to experiment and are usually quite skeptical, I guess it comes with the profession. However, we had a very positive and enthusiastic response to Emphas.is from the professional photographers around us and it seems most of them are very ready to move on and explore the next step in storytelling.

The time is ripe to change the power structures and move out of this lethargy created by the media crisis.

5. Crowdfunding sounds like the perfect market solution - the public get what they paid for, the photographer gets not only money but satisfaction. Is this model feasible in larger scale? I mean, do you think it will be possible one day to live out of it?

People are willing to pay for something they value. We asked ourselves what is the value inherent in our work? We are not asking for donations, we are offering the reader something in return. We firmly believe that people are willing to pay for an experience, for a unique opportunity to join a creation process, to become insiders to the profession and follow the journeys photographers make to bring back their stories.

So I do think, we can breathe some life back into the production process of professional photojournalism and support it through Emphas.is on a large scale. Crowdfunding is one of many innovations needed to tackle the problems the media are facing today.