Nepal, Aug. 19 -- Min Ratna Bajracharya is one of Nepal's leading news photographers, but was introduced to the craft by chance. Visiting Australia in 1985 at age 19, a friend gifted him a camera.

His first shot was of, what else, the Sydney Opera House. Thus began a life-long passion for photography that would take him to the frontlines of Nepal's recent history from the people's movements, the Maoist conflict to the royal massacre.

His very first published photograph in The Commoner was of those accused of shooting journalist Padam Thakurathi in 1987. Back then, photojournalism wasn't yet a profession, pictures had to be printed in darkrooms from negatives, then converted to expensive zinc blocks for grainy black-and-white reproducti...