A Developing Story co-founder Benjamin Chesterton, aka duckrabbit, will be speaking at the following event, which looks very interesting.

NGO and photography conference
Location: Main lecture theatre, London College of Communication Date: 10 Mar, 2010

The Third Frame: visual imagery and the representation of the majority world

This one day conference at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, in collaboration with OPEN-i, POLIS at the LSE and One World Media, will address the problematic relationship of visual imagery and the majority world, focusing specifically on the interactions between practitioners, NGO’s and their audiences. The conference will include presentations from filmmakers, photographers, academics and NGO staff and will seek to critically engage with the stereotypes of development and the possible alternatives to them.

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Broken Heart, 2005

What if you had never seen a picture of yourself before? What if you had only seen pictures of yourself that someone you barely knew had taken? As someone who has photographed and been photographed all her life, it is difficult to imagine.

But, in that situation, what kind of power does a photograph (and therefore, a photographer) have?

Wik Elder Bruce, 2000

I recently visited the Australian Center for the Moving Image, in Melbourne, and saw their exhibit called “Screen Worlds.” It charts the history of the moving image in OZ, and has one section devoted to the photographic representation of Indigenous Australians. This section, called Dreaming in Colour, has been curated by indigenous practitioners working in the motion picture industry.

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This post was first published on simonsticker.com

Climate Change, maybe one of the most important topics in human history right now. One of the first real global stories which could only be solved with a global perspective and global action. Millions turned out to see Obama becoming a president, but only 50000 came to protest in Copenhagen. Why?

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When we vilify people, there are negative repercussions. Making terrorists look like “terrorists” does not help us understand their motives or perspective. It does not help us find peace. It fuels war.

We are fueling our own wars, not just with money or weapons or soldiers, but with images that do not promote understanding or compassion.

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Glenna Gordon is multi-talented American journalist based in Liberia.  She blogs under the name of Scarlet Lion.

This post was first published on her blog and was written in response to something I wrote on A Developing Story about the challenging relationship between photojounalism and human rights:

Part of the problem here is how NGOs think about photography.

Many of them think of it not as something that should happen regularly to document changes, continuity, or community, but something they want to spend a wad of cash on once or twice a year and use in big PR campaigns.

The latter model necessitates an international photographer to produce the kind of slick images – often on a very very tight time line where there’s no room for a learning curve – that the NGO wants. I think if NGOs used media more regularly, took photos, say, once a week, rather than once a year, they’d be able to give local photojournalists the kind of practice and experience they need to eventually take the slick photos. And they’d have surprising and wonderful results that are serendipitous in addition to the kind of images you need a skilled photographer to make.

Meanwhile, last week I trained a handful of local photographers with the support of UNICEF.

Going into this, I knew that there won’t be many opportunities for these guys to make a lot of money off of their photography anytime soon. A bit of training can help a lot, but without the fancy equipment or know how to get NGO contracts, most people won’t be knocking at their door. I hope that they can make better images for the newspapers they work for. There’s a local market that’s eager for images too – there aren’t a lot of postcards in Liberia, local magazines always need images, and businesses need product shots.

This is Bill E. Diggs. He did more with a point and shoot camera than I’ve seen lots of people do with a dSLR. He wants to do more – practice more, use different equipment, work more. But, he’s still going to college while already freelancing at a local paper. Like so many people in Liberia, he’s just gettin’ by.

teaching a photographer to fish, part two

This is a photo Bill took during the workshop. It’s pretty great, I think, and shows that Bill has a lot of potential. Later today, I’ll be teaching another workshop through UNICEF – this one for kids. Bill’s going to help me out and try out playing with UNICEF’s dSLR. I’m excited to see what kind of images he’ll make – and the kids too. Stay tuned.

Scarlett Lion

“Hundreds, nay thousands of photographs from killing fields around the world often have only a numbing effect on the public.” – Omer Bartov, Images of Genocide, How should we Respond. What Matters (2008)

Now Gentleman and Ladies of the good order, I would like your attention. I have recently been detained against my will to write this discourse by a very cruel and unforgiving emotion – anger.

At 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010 a catastrophic earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale hit Léogâne, approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. I can imagine the panic. The rush for phones, the thousands of staffers watching the news bulletins rain in on CNN, BBC, FOX, MSNBC. Me too, I quickly ran for the computer to see the earthquake flash up live on my Emergency and Disaster Alert Map. Twitter was awash with activity, photojournalists, journalists, newswires and aid organisations all ready for the chopper-drop into Haiti. Within a week and a half the world was plastered with pain through the medium of photography.

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