I am rediscovering photography – not only taking pictures, but also enjoying the excellent photography of others. With my new digital camera, loaded with unexplored functions, I am once again turning to a hobby that got lost for a number of reasons, including the cost factor of processing films. I can now store my images, delete, select, edit and work magic with such ease that would make all the deceased local photographers in my small village turn in their graves. My head is buzzing with ideas as to what I can do with these images - as you can see from my images section.
One would think that with the advent of digital photography that photographers from the South would be better placed to present their own realities through their optics. But this is not necessarily the case. I refer here to Shahidul Alam’s piece in The New Internationalist (August 2007) in which he noted that when he confronted the organisers of “Eight Ways to Change the World” exhibition as to why all the photographers were white and from the West, he was told that photographers from his part of the world (the majority world) “didn’t have the eye”. Even Charities (including Christian ones), bent on squeezing funds from the rich over here, work with the conception that local photographers cannot be trusted to understand and do this.
The irony, as Alam notes, is that before this event when photographers from the Majority World asked why they were not used by mainstream media and development agencies, the answer was that they did not exist. Now that they exist by making themselves visibly present, they have to prove that they have the eye for the task. This sort of argument has a familiar ring for those of us who challenge institutional racism in the UK, especially where the visible lack of minority ethnic people in the decision making level of organisations (including the churches) has been put down to their non-existence (not the excluding policies including the often subtle ones). And when they do become articulately visible, other means are engineered to ensure their continuing sidelining.
Change, however, may be just around the corner in terms of the photographic eye of the locals. Yet it remains costly for them. The multiplying of very dangerous situations (quite newsworthy) means that it is best to have the locals get the pictures and run the risk of getting killed. Certainly, Charities may need to rethink its practices and they may want to consider the implications of the motto of one NGO, which runs like this: We believe in life before death!
The question is: life for whom?
copyright jagessar
image credit: Michael N. Jagessar
