Representation in photography is how a photograph can portray a place or person in a certain way by the way or how that photograph is taken. In photography presentation should always be questioned as to whether or not it is accurate. Photographs can be staged or photographers can capture moments that are accidents, uncommon occurrences cropped or edited in a way that creates a different situation within the frame making it different to how it was actually seen by the photographer.
This sort of idea and belief about photographers misrepresenting their photographs has arisen concerning the work of Steve McCurry; some critics have been dismissing his work as too beautiful, making the photographs look romanticised, he is particularly famous for his his portrait of an Afghan girl with vivid green eyes, printed on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985, is one of the iconic images of the 20th century. His images have been released displaying evidence that McCurry alters his photos quite considerable in the editing process. There is also criticism that he only documents the beautiful parts of India that satisfy the cultural stereotypes that the western has towards exotic countries such as India. This is to eventually sell his images to get money, not thinking about how the people from India would have felt to be portrayed in this way. McCurry’s work has also been criticised to be a form of cultural appropriation because he is essentially borrowing the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and exotic looking people and places to the western eye. I feel that there is nothing wrong with borrowing elements from different cultures is said culture is presented accurately and treated with respect. Steve McCurry does seem to treat foreign culture with respect but he is not representing them accurately and also produces these images to make money.
Photo by Steve McCurry
Teju Cole wrote about Steve McCurry in the New York Times Magazine describing Steve McCurry’s work in a somewhat condescending way, suggesting that McCurry’s photographs simply reinforce “old ideas of what photographs of Indians should look like” to the western world as previously stated. Cole also claims that one can identify a McCurry photograph almost immediately due to their predictable nature of his portraits In McCurry’s portraits, supposedly the typical McCurry formal is that “the subject looks directly at the camera, wide-eyed and usually marked by some peculiarity, like pale irises, face paint or a snake around the neck.” and for the most part I would have to agree with Cole. However, he goes onto to say that his images are “staged or shot to look as if they were. They are astonishingly boring.” I can justify the opinion that photographs appear to be somewhat manipulated by the end products are in no way boring. Although McCurry’s work does not show an accurate representation of life in India he does capture beautiful rarities that are genuinely found, and this should not go unsaid. Steve McCurry is an incredibly talented photographer who travels to foreign lands and selects a “highlight reel” or magnificent, rare and beautiful things that are simply not found elsewhere. What McCurry chooses to document may not be typical Indian life but then not everybody in England lives like the cast of “Made in Chelsea” or David Attenborough which are what the rest of the world are exposed to as what life in Britain in like.
This is completely different to his perspective of Raghubir Singh, who is seen to show India as it is and how the locals would perspective their home as it is a more real side of India that we do not see in Steve McCurry’s work. He also thinks it is a “relief” that we can move on from McCurry’s images to photographers such as Raghubir Singh who bring “not only beautiful experiences or painful scenes but also those in-between moments of drift that make up most of our days”. This is more true. Steve makes India look like an enlightening place to visit, shown through colour and laughter, this contrasts with Raghubir Singh’s photography as it can be quite distressing and upsetting, showing all sides of India, documenting not just the beautiful, eye-catching parts.
Photos by Raghubir Singh
However, another article I read, written by Allen Murabayashi defends McCurry’s work although does not deny that some of his images are staged or altered as there is clear evidence of this available to public. He does however state that amazing photos with perfect composition can be captured by luck, providing the example of the famous 9/11 photo of the world trade centre collapsing behind Saint Peter’s church by James Nachtwey. This is a fair argument as Steve McCurry spent many years of his life as a ” highly skilled photographer taking 250,000 images over the course of 3-6 months for an assignment” and also had access professional photo editor, Murabayashi asks whether or not “anyone be surprised that the photos are exceptional?”
I completely agree with Murabayashi’s view that Steve McCurry is an exceptional photographer and that there is nothing wrong with wanted to document the most beautiful elements of a certain country. However, Steve McCurry’s photos were often featured in prestigious, factual publications such as “National Geographic” and as many of his photos are staged , this leads to the question of whether McCurry is presenting countries such as India in a factual way to the western world. The iconic picturesque view of the Taj Mahal, with two turbaned gentleman casually draped over the front of a passing train is without a doubt a beautiful image but also completely staged. McCurry selected the two gentleman in the image because they satisfied the Indian stereotypes he wanted to fulfill and the train was sent back down the tracks by McCurry when he was not satisfied with the focus of the first image . This image is not an accurate representation of everyday life in India and as McCurry’s image are the only exposure to other cultures that some westerner’s experience if they are to be published in magazines such as the national geographic they should be genuine.
Over the past couple weeks, I have been producing a couple of handwritten documents/diagrams addressing the content I wish my project to outline and how I will go about this. Discussing and laying out directly the plan and format for my investigation helps not only myself, but the audience to understand my primary thought processes and the hopeful outcome of the project.
This diagram shows how I wish to set out my project and what I wish to show in the order stated; The project will be based and will revolve around myself as the centre point and then this will branch out into the starting point which consists of my mum and dad; relationship when they were together until I was 4 years old, I will then briefly explore this divorce but then move onto experimenting the experiences I have had with both of my parents and how this is different. This will begin form when I was young and then gradually progress to the stage I am at now with my life and how the experiences I’ve had as a child have shaped me now – which is what the latter of the book will consist of – me as a young adult and the relationships of built independently with other people, including my girlfriend, my sister and my friends.
I have previously mentioned all of the below but I decided to put it into a diagram to make it clear for myself but also the audience. I intend to include other aspects, as well as portraiture and environmental imagery, such as self-portraiture of me with my girlfriend, and I will look at the project by Alec Soth called ‘Looking For Love’, as well as transcribed conversations or statements from the subjects and participants of my book. Over the course of the project, I intend to make a mini ‘behind-the-scenes’ film which shows the processes I go through to make the project which will consist of myself talking to the subjects and the discussing with me their memories they may have chosen as special, in particular, my mum and dad. However, this is just an idea and will finalise this when necessary.
The document below is a handwritten, essential hypothesis by me which outline the format of my project.
Although showing a cohesive narrative filled with the underpinning topic of relationships, I wish to in some way, segment and divide my boo into different parts but I may not do this for the final outcome as I may come to realise that it doesn’t look good and instead, the different images accumulated from each relationship in my life may look better merged together but, right now, I feel like I will be able to tell a better story if I was to physically split each part; my mum and dads romance, their divorce, the relationships with both parents and how I have two different experiences, one being a close relationship, the other being unwelcomingly distant. This will then branch out to my relationship with my sister, Minnie and I will bring in the concept of friendship in this part by showing the contrast between my mature relationships with my mates and Minnie’s very delicate and potential false relationships with her friends as they are still unaware of true friends which are meant to be built up over the years in which you grow and this could be an interesting concept to show – the fun-filled lives of kids the same age as Minnie which are worlds apart from min but in many ways, similar. I will then conclude the project with my relationship with my girlfriend, Lucy and this will show my interpretation of love in comparison to that of my mum and dads and may conclude the project with the same question/concept as that at the beginning – ‘what is love?’ or ‘the tenderness of relationships.
In this part, I will include self-portraits of myself and take inspiration from Alec Soth as well as LaToya Ruby Frazier and hope to show the similarities as well as differences between my current relationship to that of my mum and dads, using archival imagery as sources of inspiration.
Gideon Mendel is a world wide known photographer, who is recognized for his contemporary photographs focusing and engaging his work on social issues which are of global concern. His is a committed photographer to taking an intimate style of photography, which shows his long term commitment to his love of photography and the projects that he emerges himself in. He has completed an enormous amount of social issues project around the world many which have earned him international recognition and many awards, including the Pollock prize for creativity.
The self motivated photographer was born in Johannesburg in 1959 and studied psychology and African history, so therefore not always showing the greatest interest in photograph from a young age. However he did began to take photographs around the 1980’s where his work as a ‘struggle photographer’ where first brought to the attention. After this he moved around and continued to photograph global social issues and one of his most notable being his project into HIV/AIDs, which had a very hard hitting impact of general public because it was showing true harshness of society in struggling countries. His photo taken began in Africa and expanded to many different locations around the world capturing stories of hardship and global social issues which have made his photographs so famous and popular today.
In 2007, he began his project ‘ the drowning world’ photographing flooding in an emotional and personal project responding the the current situation of climate change. He has been recognised for his unusual portraits and awarded for his creativity and different strategies he takes to produce his story telling images. Following his extensive career capturing global social issues he has worked with many organisations such as National geographic, fortune and the guardian etc.this emphasises the vast amount of work he has done on this topic and shows that he is a professional reliable photographer, which is truthful to the images he captures.
Four stories of hunger is an incredible short film produce by Mendel which shows video clips and images from some of his projects. this short film that he created adds depth and reality to his images and brings more of a story and excitement to the images which often captivates the audience more, and this is one of the aspects which made Mendel stand out as a photographer that inspired me and that i wanted to analyse and have influence in my project which i am conducting in Africa. I was inspired by his passion and long term commitment for photographing social issues and believe that the work that want to capture whilst i am in Burkina Faso shows strong links to the work of Mendel. I personally really like the contemporary style of photography that he uses to capture his images, from the way that he conducts his portraits getting an individual to stand infront of a plain wall can often be difficult and even more so if they speak a different language. Therefore i appreciate his images as they seem as though they are simplistic images however getting to the stage where that image can be taken with the right lighting and position of the camera takes skill and experience.
Image Analysis
Eunice Achieng, age 8 project: Disability reframed
The first thing which noticeable when analysing Gideon Mendel work is that he has a project title for all of his shoots which immediately tell you about what the images are of and also where they are taken, meaning in which part of the world and the specific social issue which is being targeted. Without even seeing the image above i already new that the project was focused on in africa and that the project title was ‘Disability Reframed’. From this i started to pick out what he was gong to be capturing in his images and you can assume that it was going to be focusing on how the third world deal and cope with disability. therefore when you click onto the project mendel gives you information about the project, often statistics and background information to the story the project is telling. I think that this is the feature which makes Mendels work stand out from other photojournalist as he is putting raw facts and information behind his images, emphasising that these images are truthful and are telling the stories of global social issues.
The image is of a young girl with some form of disability. She is standing in the middle of the shot therefore making her the focal point of the image. The photograph has no significant distracting background from the image so all focus is on this little girl and wht er story may be. The image breaks the rule of thirds following Mendels contemporary approach to photography and breaks the rule of thirds through the way that the young girl is placed perfectly in the center of the image with an even amount of gap above and below her head. this contemporary form of photographing portraits creates a sense of unusuality which may be a connotation for the fact that he is photographing children with disability which is seen as unique. The series of photos sees every child photographed together in the same way and this could emphasis a sense of community or belonging as they are all photographed in the same way the images are portraying equality which these children may not be used to experiencing because they do not get the same schooling opportunities as other children. Another element of the photograph that i noticed is the angle that the image is taking the photo at. The straight on camera shot that Mendal uses could also be used to portray equality as they are at the same level, the camera is level with the subjects eye.
The background of the image although being plain, is extremely important in the image as it makes the subject stand out more against the background. the neutral colours could also be signifying the simpleness of third world countries lives. And the the use of bold vibrant colored clothing gives a personality and a sense of life to the individual. each portrait in the project the individuals have different coloured clothing and i think that is what signify there individuality and uniqueness. Framing is also a key aspect to this image as the background frames the young girl making her the center point of the image, this is a technique which i am going to use when i am in Africa taking similar portrait images showing the stories of their community. I thin that if i use Mendel’s technique of photographing against a plain wall then the personality of the individual and their story will be the main focus of the image and this will show contrast to maybe other more environmental portraits which i will capture.
The image below is a good example however of how much variation Mendel includes throughout all of his different projects. This portrait although very similar in the stance of the subject and the use of the bright coloured clothing that emphasises their individuality has a very different element to it. Th background of the portrait below shows blurred out the woman’s house. This begins to tell a deeper story of who the individual is. For example in the image below i can pick out that this woman may be a house wife, who stays in the home most of the day looking after the children. Therefore this is a different approach to documentary portraiture which i would also like to explore more and have a go at in my own personal investigation.
By researching all the different projects which mendel has thrown himself into with his love of photography i feel extremely inspired to take some of his ideas and techniques of portraying stories of family and community through social issues and use it to influence my own style of photography and capture images similar. Main points that i want to take away from looking at mendel,is the idea of producing a short film to advertise, or show a deeper story to the images that i will be taking, after my research i am considering the types of video clips that i want to capture whilst im away as well as how i can link in interviews with the local community to show there story and what family means to them.
From previous projects i have found that a lot of my ideas, inspiration and final pieces have come from researching on Instagram, pinterest and looking at books for images that stand out to me. i began looking for inspiration on the styles of images that linked to environmental documentary photography and the idea of third world issues on the internet just googling photographers which have photographed social/cultural issues. I began to come across a variety of images which started to inspire me and widen my imagination and understanding of photojournalism ad capturing images in these harsh environments which have powerful connotations and stories behind them. Below are a few initial photographers i have come across:
Gideon Mendel
Steve McCurry
Guy Martin
Alec Soth
Guy Tillim
David Goldblatt
Panos Pictures
Sebastiao Salgado
Florent Mazzoleni
These photographers are a mixture of professional photojournalists, amateur photographers as well as local African photographers. I’m purposefully looking at a variety of photographers with different experience and styles to inspire me as much as possible so my head is full of ideas of the types of photographs i want to create. As i am also in africa on the aid trip for a significant amount of time i will have lots of time where i will be able to capture photograph with different shoots focusing on different aspects. However with looking at different leveled photographers i am noticing significant differences with the quality of the images and it is becoming apparent that some images are more manipulated and staged than others. Steve McCurry produces some of my all time favorite environmental portraits however he is becoming to be known as a photographer which puts propaganda use above the truth of his images. This is something i want to avoid in my images. Although i may end up planning and staging individuals in specific areas, this will be truthful and with the purpose to create good photographs. Documentary and the truth has become a huge topic of discussion when it comes to social issues including both wars and poverty. A question is left over many archival images of what is the truth anf the reasons why they have been adapted. is it to cover up something, exaggerate and use the image for propaganda reasons or just to make it a better photo.
The story behind the famous image may not always be as it seems. Many famous images of tragedy, loss and pain often have an even deeper and more sorry story underneath, but sometimes the story does not always portray the truth. One photograph which changed the view of millions of Americans during the Vietnam war was an imaged captured on the 8th of June by Nick Ut. His award winning photograph portrayed the terror which the war was bringing to innocent civilians. The image, showing young children fleeing from a napalm bomb which had just been dropped on a small village in Vietnam, shows the true horror of the events that were occurring during the war. in the center of the image Nick Ut captures with his camera a year old girl running from the explosion as her clothes have been burnt off by the gas and her skin is being burnt as she runs from her village, terrified. Ever since this image was released she has been known as the ‘Napalm girl’. The extraordinary photograph which i can only assume Ut captures by chance of being in the moment at the right time shows the destruction of the napalm bomb which was deployed from the US warplanes.
The image had the biggest impact of american citizens who were utterly shocked by what their country was doing to these innocent children and therefore changed the way Americans viewed the was which was occurring at the time. Nonetheless their thoughts has already been changing and in October 1967 ‘46% of responded to the survey said it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam’. Whereas in 1965, only 24% believed that it was a mistake to send US troops. With a 22% increasing in Americans believing that American troops should of not been sent to Vietnam. When Ut took the image in 1972, in 1971 61% believed it was a mistake to send US troops to Vietnam. The war ended in April 19745, three years after the Napalm girl had been captured and shown to the world. There is a myth associated with the photograph that it was in fact the image itself which hastened the Vietnamese war to an end, no the less this is thought to also not be the case as Americans were no longer involved in the war by 1973.
The truth behind the image and what really happened to the ‘Napalm Girl’, is that she suffered third degree burns which covered 30% of her body. Significantly Ut who captured the image was actually the one to take the young girl to the hospital where she was then transferred to a facility in america where she was to recieve life saving treatment.
The impact which the image captured showed that the war was inflicting more harm than good. The destruction which occurred due to the conflict between Vietnam and America undercuts the horror which had to be endured by many innocent civilians. The image found it difficulty in publishing as to the AP policy of showing nudity. As explicit content was unable to shown in many magazines in America. The AP of Saigon said to Nick Ut after developing the image “We don’t think we can use the picture in the paper, because she’s too naked.” Later the image was sent to New York who published this image on the front of the magazines as well as having it published over the television. This lead to an uproar of protesting in America, Japan London Paris,m the main protest happened outside the White house, Washington DC.
Questions began to emerge, one of which was from the American president Nixon who proceeded to question whether the image was fake. Nick Ut the photographer of the image replied with “the horror of the Vietnam war recorded by me did not have to be fixed”, emphasizing that the image was truthful to what it was showing and there had been no manipulation to the image the true horror of the events are shown through the truth of the image.
‘Napalm Girl’ 40 years after the image was taken
There are many images that have been documented over the years that have had their purposes questioned for if they were truthful. I chose to research and study this particular image as i felt that it had significance to my personal investigation, as it is all about showing the truth of tragedy around the world. therefore i was interested in studying this photograph because i had heard about it before but never really researched it enough to have an opinion on the topic. I didn’t know much about the american influence on the war going on in Vietnam and thought this would be a good opportunity to look deeper into the events which occurred. Whats so shocking about the events which occurred are that the Americans were the one to bring to horror to these innocent villagers. The bomb which was released had horrific consequences including many deaths of innocent young and old people living in the Vietnamese village which was brutally targeted. It is known that the impacts of chemical warfare are truly horrid to both the people and the environment. The reaction that Americans showed when it was released that this was what american troops were deploying shows how horrified they were as people were saying it was fake. This emphasizes the disgrace people had that this was happening as they didnt want to believe that it was true.
After reading this interview with Nick Ut, it is obvious and clear that the horrific images that he both saw and captured that day are the ultimate truth and maybe people didn’t want to believe it because it was so horrific. “The girl was running all naked, and when she passed me, I saw her left arm burned and her the skin peeling off her back. I immediately thought that she was going to die. She was very hot even after the bomb. She was screaming and screaming, and I thought, “Oh my God.” That’s when I stopped taking pictures of her.” The that Ut captures is only a snapshot of the story he has to tell that goes with it and during the interview where he talks about how he felt when he realised what was truly happening before him highlights the truth of the image and that this was an unavoidable true tragedy which did happen.
The photograph is a form of documentary photography as it was taken purely in the moment and nothing was staged about this image except maybe where the photographer placed himself. The image itself is a snapshot of the emotion and action of the events which occurred during the war. the image really portrays the fear which young children must have been going through. In relation to documentary and the truth in photography, this is a truthful image of what these children where really experiences and that there was no escape for them from this harsh reality. This was also a way for Nick Ut to show to America the devastation which is occurring in Vietnam. As well showcase the fear which many innocent civilians would of been experiencing. The fact that the young girl was able to receive life changing surgery so she can live , allows her to authenticate the image which was taken.
In my previous post i researched the differences that foreign aid can have and how when you split it up into government and non government organisations you can see the differences which emerge between how much they actually help. I came to the opinion that non government organisations although they don’t have the ability to make a differences on a big scale they are able to make a more positive contribution to the community and help on a better level improving the economy rather than weakening it. However as these non government organisations are usually smaller charity the question is brought about how they make there funding and get a team of people to usually go over and help in third world countries.
A lot of the time funding comes due to promoting the work and the help that they are giving to people who have it a lot worse then ourselves. Non government organisations aswell as government driven ones will often play on the fact that innocent people are dying, suffering and struggling to survive to make people feel guilty and then they will often contribute in forms of donations or actually volunteering their help. The part that is linking this area of foreign aid to my photographic personal investigation is the fact that photography and video are often used as promotional material to receive funds and volunteers. For government organisations they tend to have famous, world known professions photojournalists to capture images which are often propaganda material, i will return to this style of promotion in later posts where im interested in researching the truth behind documentary photography.
attached are a few examples of foreign aid websites which include a variety of promotional material. most through the use of potography:
Many of foreign aid organisations use forms of documentary photography to promote the areas which people who donate will be helping. The typical approaches used are to either show traumatic/ emotionally erousing images due to them portraying the true harshness of life or the aftermath of what the help is doing, for example happy smiling children because ‘you’ are helping them to have clean water and survive. Non Government organisations which don’t receive such great amounts of funding tend to use vernacular images to promote their organisation.
Vernacular photography are photographs which are usually taken by amateur photographers who when are attending these aid trips capture ordinary natural images of the communities everyday life. They focus on common things as subjects and is closely related to found photography. Non government organisations use this form of amateur photography to capture just whatever they are seeing at that present time and then when they return from the aid trip may look through images they gathered at the time and just put them into a website or leaflet to promote what they have been doing. Furthermore the point is that they have gone with no intention to take any photos and maybe this may mean that the photos are more realistic and therefore thruthful as they do not have the purpose of propaganda like professional phtoographers for government organisations may do.
When initially researching the background of the burkina faso freedom organisation i was looking through archival images of photographs which had been taken on previous trips and could notice that the only photographs that were being captured over there of the community and project where vernacular images, most often of the children smiling.
i started thinking about how is this the best way to promote this organisation. The images are plain ordinary images of children seeming happy and smiling. i dont think that they include the powerful message which they possible could. The images are showing the happy state that the community is in due to the project and the compassion project which we are linked to which offer huge amounts of help. However it seems as if they may not need anymore help. i think that they may recieve more funding from people wanting to help if the images where environmental portraits of the area focusing more on specific individuals with straights faces and m,aybe a background which creates a story which shows the individual struggles these family may be going through.
Vernacular images although provide truthful images of this happy community in the leaflet used to promote the Burkina trip, may not always be truthful and representative of the harshness of society over there. This leads me onto looking at the inside outside approach to photography. The approach is simple to understand as it basically means if you’re an inside photographer you are taking pictures of your local area and community and if you are an outside photographer you tend to be photographing in a different country and you are an outsider looking in to photograph these areas. It is known that inside and outside photographers will capture different images maybe portraying different messages. For example, the images taken above have been taken by previous team members, as they are from jersey and do not live in the local area they are capturing photographs of what they see and imagine life to be like out there again linking back to vernacular photography. whereas a photographer from/living in Burkina Faso may capture compleatly contradicting images because they experiences the community, culture and environment in a different way and there images often tell a different story.
Florent Mazzoleni
Florent Mazzoleni, is a local photographer in Burkina Faso, therefore taking the inside approach photographing an area he knows well. Although Mazzoleni focuses on a different type of photography i did find his story and photographs inspiring and they will have an impact on the style of portraits that i take when i go away to Africa. He focuses on documenting the cultural scene of reminiscent.
Florent Mazzoleni captured portrait images of young males and females in his home town, Bobo Dioulasso, one of the largest cities and cultural capital of Burkina Faso. The portrait images he captured where of ordinary people, sometimes family and friends and he used a 20 or 30 rolls of film to produce his staged portraiture. Although he has a different concept and focusing on capturing different cultural and social issues to what i am focusing on with my project about aid trips and the way they help. i still found it interesting to look at and analyse how an inside photographer of Burkina Faso captured images and the way he presented them. What i find most interesting about the portraits above is the amount of planning and sense of placement is involved in the images. the images have been structured and staged to look the way they do. This has the impact of focusing us on only what the subject looks like, what they are wearing and maybe the way they have positioned themselves. We try to create a story in our minds of who that individual is. Whereas so far images i have looked at include background making them environmental portraits as this tells the audience about who we are looking at.
Mazzoleni’s photography has inspired me to consider a different approach whilst i am over there, and i am now considering focusing a shoot around the individuals of the community capturing photographs of them against a plain background, holding a straight face as i feel this makes a successful portrait. i then have the idea to add text to the image. I want to speak to the members of the community i am photographing and find out o=about there life their aspirations, the struggles they may be experiencing in everyday life, as this will add a deep meaning and context to my images.
Furthermore from this research on a photographer from Burkina Faso, the area i am visiting on my aid trip i have started to be influenced on the types of images that i want to capture out there and the deeper meaning of getting pictures with text maybe linking to how they feel the work that we are doing in the community is either benefiting them or harming there community.
A huge conspiracy which has surrounded the thinking and research of many economic specialists is whether foreign aid is actually helping third world countries is mass poverty or whether is it just trying to modernise them to quickly and the fact that government organisations may actually be harming rather than helping. I feltlike this linked into my personal investigation because i am going on a small non government organised trip and i will be able to see the impact that the work that is being done through this charitable work is making slow progress to the community and reducing illiterate rates and decreasing poverty. However it has been argued by the newest winner of the nobel prize in economics that big foreign aid organisations may be having the reverse effects to what small selfless charities are doing. Angus Denton is an economist at Princeton university and has studied poverty in both Indian and south america. His ideas about foreign aid are particularly provocative as he argues that “by trying to help poor people in developing countries, the rich world may actually be corrupting those nations’ governments and slowing their growth.”
It is understandable that this view has caused mass debate and a lot of upst due to the amount people give to charity and yes it can be argued truthfully that aid organisations have a massively positive impact on the poverty and disease which is causing monstrous death rates in third world countries and have decreased the amount of poverty and death rates due to starvation has decreased aver the last couple of decades. This has been through organisations set up and run by the government installing fresh water, providing vaccinations and in some areas a place to live. However i am interested in Deatons argument as it is a revisionist view and has become increasingly studied. Although he wasnt the first to economist to challenge assumptions that foreign aid helped, over the past two decades his arguments began to receive great amounts of attention because he was finding secure evidence for his reasoning. Deaton’s skepticism about the benefits of foreign aid grew out of his research, which involved looking in detail at households in the developing world, where he could see the effects of foreign aid intervention.
Federal Nigerian troops walk along a road to the frontier with Biafray, Oct. 13, 1968. On the roadside two emaciated Nigerian boys suffer from starvation and malnutrition. (AP Photo/Dennis Lee Royle)
The first lot of evidence for his and others research was the fact that altho the level of foreign aid in africa soared in the 80’s and 90’s the african economies were actually doing worse which isnt what youd expect to see. Economic growth has not been being produced through these aid organisations. A correlation has been made between the increasing rate of foreign aid coming into a country with a lower economic growth. therefore this leads to the question of why this is occurring ad why aid organisation may lead to negative impacts to countries instead of what they are intended to do which is help. Researchers came to a conclusion of why this reverse effect may be occurring; so the idea is that in order to have the funding to run a country, this specific country needs to be collecting taxes from its population. As the people hold the ropes they in some sense have a certain amount of control over the government through the way that if the government dont provide people with the certain services they promise then the people can cut them off/ not give taxes. Deatons main arguement against foreign aid is that it weakens this relationship betweeen the people and government.
Therefore the genral idea is that if the people are getting the services they require, such as food, clear water, medication, health care and housing from foreign aid they arent going to be paying taxation to the government who weren’t able to provide them with these services. this weakens the relationship and furthermore the economy, leaving these third world countries in a worsened economic state than they originally were. Moreover other arguements have began to appear about the fact that big foreign aid organisations are also modernising third world countries to the point that when the aid leaves them the countries cannot keep up with the moderness as they dont have the resources or funding and are not accomodated to this new modern way of life. This can be seen as distrupting local communities way of life. For example, a foreign aid organisation may visit and poverty stricken area in Africa, provide the children with vaccinations and medication, but what happens when these run out, they don’t have the resources, knowledge or technology to remake medication. Therefore although it is seeming that in promotional adverts these organisations are helping they are giving them the final outcome rather than building communities up to be able to cater for themselves and be independent without further requiring on these charities.
This leads me onto the difference between government organisations and non government organisations. I believe that the area which i am going to, Bobo, has been transformed in a positive way which hasn’t worsened the economy. The money that is raised goes towards the compassion project which educates the communities children and provides them with cooking skills and basic health and hygiene lessons which allows them to reduce the chances of disease. The Burkina Faso freedom project which i am taking part in also aims at building up the community at a low level with basic classrooms, medical centers and toilet blocks which aim to improve their way of life in a slow manor which they can kept up with and will continue to grow at a rate which is right for them.
Burkina Faso is a country in the west of Africa which is landlocked by surround by 6 other countries including Mali and Niger. It covers an area of around 270,000 square kilometres with its captial being Ouagadougou. it has an estimated 18.9 million people living in it with the official language of the government and the majority of the people being french, this was due to the migration of french americans in the post colonial times. During the early 16th century the Songhai conducted many slave raids into what is today Burkina Faso. During the 18th century the Gwiriko Empire was established at Bobo Dioulasso and ethnic groups such as the Dyan, Lobi, and Birifor settled along the Black Volta.
In the late 1800’s military officers fron britain, france and germany made attempts to claim parts of burkina faso. After a complex series of events Burkina faso in 1896 became a French protectortate however french control remained uncertain between the end of the 1890’s.
The Franco-British Convention of 14 June 1898 created the country’s modern borders. In the French territory, a war of conquest against local communities and political powers continued for about five years. In 1904, the largely pacified territories of the Volta basin were integrated into the Upper Senegal and Niger colony of French West Africa as part of the reorganization of the French West African colonial empire. The colony had its capital in Bamako. The language of colonial administration and schooling became French. The public education system started from humble origins. Advanced education was provided for many years during the colonial period in Dakar.
Modern day
Political freedoms are extremely restricted in Burkina Faso and human rights organisations have criticized the compaore administration (a structure which decentralized power by devolving soem of its powers to regions and municipal authorities) for numerous acts of state spnsored violence against journalists and other members of society. I think that this is important to know before i land in this country, that in some areas taking images can be seen as an offence, and as it is on the border of Mali, a terrorist active country, high security is inforced in areas near the border where armed guards patrol the area and if you get a phone or camera out they are likely to consider it a terrorist threat and may arrest and contain you until they can prove otherwise.
There has recently been terorist attacks, one around a year ago and then again a couple of months back in the capital which means that military control is extremely tight and i do need to be careful about when i take images.
Another factor to be aware of is that around 60% of the countries population are muslims and due to their religion may not want to be photographed as they do not know what the purpose of the images are. Statistics on relig
ion in Burkina Faso are inexact because Islam and Christianity are often practiced in tandem with indigenous religious beliefs. The Government of Burkina Faso 2006 census reported that 60.5% of the population practice Islam, and that the majority of this group belong to the Sunni branch,]while a small minority adheres to Shia Islam.There are also large concentrations of the Ahmadiyya Muslims.
Burkina Faso’s 18 million people belong to two major West African ethnic cultural groups—the Voltaicand the Mande (whose common language is Dioula). The Voltaic Mossi make up about one-half of the population. The Mossi claim descent from warriors who migrated to present-day Burkina Faso from northern Ghana around 1100 AD. They established an empire that lasted more than 800 years. Predominantly farmers, the Mossi kingdom is led by the Mogho Naba, whose court is in Ouagadougou.
After completing my review and reflection of the projects i completed in September looking at both documentary photography and tableaux images, i have decided that i really enjoyed the documenting side of photography and would like to continue this type of photography in my personal investigation. I have been inspired by charity work and a project i will be taking part in africa on an aid trip. The images below are just a few of the images which i found inspired me too want to take similar images over there, however i am going to link it to a wider story and make it specific to the locals and community where i am going.
There are a variety of styles of images below and i would like to keep my options open in this project to capture a variety of images and look at how documentary photography can come in lots of different styles. One of my biggest inspirations is photojournalist Steve McCurry, as i love the intense vibrant coloured portraits that he captures. Although i think it’d be a challenge i definitely want to attempt to capture these story telling portraits.
My personal investigation is going to be based around environmental photography as well as photojournalism. On 27th-13th of November i am taking part in an Africa aid trip to Burkina Faso with a non government charitable organisation, linked with freedom church. The community over there is lively and energetic even though it is in the top five poorest countries in the world. In my photography i want to document the local communities lives focusing on third world countries issues, focusing on truthful portraits and environmental images of the communities daily life, jobs, family etc. Therefore the main focus of the story i am trying to tell through my photographs will be the community, linking into family and looking at similar family styled photographers and how community to them is much closer in their rural villages then it is in our big cities in the modern world where people tend to stick to the blood related families. I would also like to link into it the story of whether chariable organisation really help these communities or if they just disrupt their local way and try to modernise what shouldn’t be because it has a negative impact.
Burkina Faso Project Info
The Burkina Faso charity project started back in 1999 when Pasteur of Freedom church jersey, met Samuel the Pastor of Temple Elim, Burkina Faso at bible college. The friendship that grew between these individuals has been long lasting and in 2007 the project which linked jersey with Burkina Faso was started. A team has gone out to Africa every year since building toilet blocks, primary school classrooms, a pharmacy and a playground. The impact that this small based charity has made is incredible and nearly 500 of the local children attend primary school. This year the team return to Burkina Faso and i am extremely excited to be one of the twelve members which will be going out there this year to build a nursery. I’m extremely excited to help reduce poverty and illness in the area as well as experience their way of life but also document the community and share some of the locals stories of their past and what family and community really means to them.
Linking to previous work i have done envolving family and looking at family archives and how they tell a story of the past. i have spoken to previous team members who have gathered images of the project in Burkina over the past 8 years. These can now be seen as archival images and i think it is important to know the background of where am going and what to expect to be photographing. Therefore i have also done background research on the country to get a general knowledge of the location and areas history.
Initially Carolle Benitah work for ten years as a fashion designer she then moved on from this to photography and some would say she incorporated this in her photography. The French Moroccan photographer focused on themes around family, memories and the passage of time. Her work is very metaphorical and focus’ on manipulating old images using embroidery, beading and ink drawings. I like this idea of physically editing the photo to create a new meaning or give a photo meaning. This is something I would be interested in using in my project as I have done similar things in the past and would like to further explore it.
My favorite photo by Carolle Benitah is the one above. I like this photo as just like other photos she has manipulated this one in a particular way, that has a real haunting quality to it. This is most probably due to it being a photo of children with their mouths sown shut. The photos show violence as to sow a mouth shut is very violent. This what gives it this haunting, shocking quality. The only boy in the photo has his face covered by what seems to be pills, this could symbolize that he has been blinded by drugs, however this is just a guess. Yet again these pills are red. The use of red throughout of all her photos is very clever and makes her photos distinctive. There is a use of red throughout her work often shown with red thread in this case it has been used to sow the mouths shut. Benitah explains the significance of the red in the statement below.
“I use a red thread, which is my connecting thread. It leads me through the maze of my past. Red is the color of violent emotions, the color of blood, of bad blood, it is also a color of sexuality. The beads chosen for their shininess and their delicacy accentuate the decorative element and create a discontinuity. I reintroduce the gestures of handiwork in this series and renew my connection with my previous work as a clothing designer.”
Embroidery in these photos where used out of protest as it was commonly seen for women to do this sort of thing waiting for the man to come back from work. She wants to denounce this and show it did not turn her into the “perfect wife” she was expected to be. She is using it to protest these sexist ideologies. There is phrase she uses that I really like when taking about putting the needle through the paper; “To embroider my photograph, I make holes in the paper. With each stitch, I stick the needle through the paper. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It is like an exorcism. I stab the paper until I don’t hurt anymore.” This is a powerful statement and one I will remember throughout my project as I have discovered in the past this kind of work can be very therapeutic, setting free any built up emotion. It allows you to deal with things may not be able to deal with in the “real world”.
Another artist I taken inspiration from is also actually an ex Student. Matthew Knapman created a book all about his mothers life. His mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 that then spread to the rest of the body. This must have been a very difficult subject to do his project on. This has inspired me to cover a subject that is very difficult for me to cover. He also took inspiration from the artist above (Carolle Benitah). This is shown clearly throughout his book as he has changed these photos physically by burning, cutting and drawing over these photos. Again this is also something I’d like to continue from my exam project as I find this much more interesting and effective when conveying a meaning. When creating my book I want it to be full of emotion really showing the affect its had on my family and myself. I don’t want my work or photos to be shallow and have no meaning. If i come to the end of my project and I have no emotional connection with book and photos I have created, no matter what grade I achieved I have personally failed. I need this to have more meaning than achieving some grade and if I achieve a good grade that would be a plus yet that is not my primary goal.
To study the idea of representation in photography and how certain aspects within imagery are presented to an audience, I will be looking at the work of world-renowned photographer,Steve McCurry, who is a very iconic documentary photographer succeeding in his captivating images produced for National Geographic.
Steve McCurry (born April 23, 1950) is an American photographer. The photographer, is best summed as world-renowned success in the medium of documentary photography, especially in culturally deprived areas such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has worked in photojournalism and editorial. He is best known for his 1984 photograph “Afghan Girl”, which originally appeared in National Geographic magazine. McCurry is a member of Magnum Photos.
AN AFGHAN REFUGEE IN BALOCHISTAN, PAKISTAN, 1981
The image above is the world famous portrait of a young girl in Afghanistan and is titled ‘Afghan Girl’ for obvious reasons. Taken by Steve McCurry when traveling the world producing content of National Geographic, there is something very touching about the image above – something tat speak to the audience and I believe it to be because we know that this girl is likely to be very less well-of than we are if we use our schematic knowledge surrounding the topic of deprived areas such as Afghanistan this allows us to understand the likely difficult and traumatic life this girl may live – being surrounded by a war zone for most of her life and having to live with this as a environment that she has to grow up in. I, for one can feel a sense of sympathy and sorrow for this girl – she is young and lives a completely different life to us without the knowledge to understand the meaning behind possible explosions which occur on a day-to-day basis. We do not know of the help she may receiving if she does live a very poverty-run life and this portrait helps us to understand this. The use of her looking into the camera, directly at the audience is a very powerful tool and the facial expression gives off a feeling of trauma and vulnerability – her open and alert eyes let us know of her emotions, in that she is scared and overall it is a very well constructed image and is rightfully a world-famous image as it opens up a door to another life most of the world do not experience in their lives, and this is something we must be grateful for and McCurry has attempted to portray a unknown environment to us through his imagery. Us as humans love people watching and being a little nosey into others lives, which is why most of us enjoy and find pleasure out of watching vlogs, documentaries or capturing out own street photography or looking at other dociumeyatry photography but the scale on which McCurry does this at is on a much higher and more serious level. It triggers our satisfaction for being a fly-on-the-wall in others lies but this is for a much meaningful purpose. However, one thing I’d lie to pick up on is the fact that I, personally do not actually like the image – I don’t enjoy looking at it, not due to its context but due to the actual way it looks – it is not something that attracts me t the image and is more so the meaning behind the subject which draws me in. Hover, McCurry produced this image with the purpose to fit the style and method of National Geographic as a whole and this has been done to a tee as it shows us the harsh reality, although not direct, of what life in other parts of the world us like. The image appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985. There is a reason McCurry has been hand-picked by national Geographic and is member of Magnum Photos and this is because he does his job so well and many people gave fallen in love with not only him and his work bit the actual physicality of what he captures in every image – the colours, the subjects, the cultures, the lifestyles – our ability to connect with every subject in each portrait is what we love because not every photographer has the ability to create an image so well – something I will be talking about later.
American Photo magazine says the image has an “unusual combination of grittiness and glamour.” which I believe to be very true.
Expanding on the idea of representation, like I mentioned before, this is a very touching and harrowing representation of this young girl and we are able to get an insight into her life. The girl is represented as quite lonely and isolated and form her facial expression, quite scared and lonesome and we don’t know whether this as true or staged as us as the audience can only act as people who interpret the content to what we believe but the notion of true and false is hard to decipher when looking at the work of McCurry, yet t is something we believe to see as true and not staged as this would be providing us with false visuals bit in another sense, we also hope for it to be false because we do not wish to face the harsh reality that people across the world, in abundance, do actually live like this. On the other, we appreciate the imagery that McCurry produces us because we get so experience other cultures for ourselves fro what see in the frame.
It has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Mona Lisa and has been called “the First World’s Third World Mona Lisa“.
Now mentioned, looking at the similarities of the Mona Lisa and McCurry’s Afghan Girl, there are many resemblances of both in each other. It is perhaps that McCurry took inspiration of the elegance and pureness of the painting of Mona Lisa an then transferred this into his portrait of the young girl in Afghanistan. Both look directly into the camera with a blank facial expression. They both have long, dark, maroon coloured hair and wear a draped scarf or vale over their head. In both imagery, there is a sense of delicateness and urge to show the femininity if our world – to show the beauty of females whether that be through a painting or photograph and though we may be faced with something difficult to address, looking at McCurry’s work, the beauty is beneath. Maybe this is something else McCurry attempted to present and show us – the inner beauty of this young girl that is underpinned by the courageousness of her efforts to stay brave in the situation she found herself in at the time. It is aa though the women in both works are attempting to tell the audience something through the very intense gaze they possess. McCurry provides us with a modernised version of the Mona Lisa for us to embrace.
In early 2002, the subject of the photo was identified as Sharbat Gula, an Afghan woman who was living in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed. This effort to re-photograph the same girl several years after she has once matured and become a grown adult tells a story and a very powerful narrative which the world can acknowledge as the image at the time when she was a girl touched the whole world as a community and again when her face is shown again over 15 years later. It was revealed that she had never seen the Afghan Girl image before it was shown to her in January 2002.
McCurry made several unsuccessful attempts during the 1990s to locate her. In January 2002, a National Geographic team travelled to Afghanistan to locate the subject. McCurry, upon learning that the Nasir Bagh refugee camp was soon to close, inquired of its remaining residents, one of whom knew Gula’s brother and was able to send word to her hometown. However, a number of women came forward and identified themselves erroneously as the famous Afghan Girl.
Although being a very successful and iconic image worldwide, ‘Afghan Girl’ and many of Steve McCurry’s other images taken in India during his time there for National Geographic can be seen to be quite romanticised and purposefully made to look more glamorous than reality suggests native to India, writer for New York Times Magazine, Teju Cole, explores this in more detail and criticises McCurry’s work on this very factor that many of his images seem ‘too perfect’ and he compares other representations of India that come from natives, such as Raghubhir Singh to McCurry’s and finds an evident juxtaposition between an insider’s view and an outsider’s view. Making for an interesting story about presenting a fake reality to please a modern by audience looking for extravagantness and in reverse, we see a more real and raw look of a country told by the locals, not tom please audiences but to provide reality.
Taj Mahal and train in Agra, 1983, Steve McCurry
Teju Cole in his article addressing this topic he feels very passionately about goes as far as to say that McCurry’s images are “astonishingly bring” which may seem quite harsh and disrespectful as most would see McCurry as a hugely influential and dedicated photographer but I can see where Cole is coming from with this very brave statement as there isn’t much in his images that sparks interest from me in terms of look and visuals. Like I said, you would think that McCurry’s work should be admired and loved by everyone because of its popularity in National Geographic and his image of the Afghan Girl which will live in memory but his work is not for everyone, including Teju Cole and myself but Cole himself mentions the immense popularity of McCurry’s work which “adorns calendars and books, and commands vertiginous prices at auction.” – in other words ‘sells for ridiculously expensive prices’ and Teju Cole cannot see the demand for such images which are “boring” because he sees the images produced by McCurry as unrealistic of Indian culture – evident in the image above where photographed is a very glamourous scene where in frame is a train going by with natives on the front in their colourful and beautiful headdresses looking very polished and slick and in the background is the Indian landmark. the Taj Mahal and it almost seems “too perfect” much like the title of the article suggest. Cole says “The men are real, of course, but they have also been chosen for how well they work as types.” This is suggesting a fake presence around McCurry’s work that they have been specifically chosen as they look well together and it makes for a very glamorous image which is not a true representation.
Indian photographer, Raghubir Singh worked from the late ’60s until his untimely death in 1999, traveling all over India to create a series of powerful books about his homeland. His work shares formal content with McCurry’s: the subcontinental terrain, the eye-popping colour, the human presence. Within these shared parameters, however, Singh gives us photographs charged with life: not only beautiful experiences or painful scenes but also those in-between moments of drift that make up most of our days.” Here Cole talks about the difference between Singh and McCurry’s work as well as similarities but focuses on the negatively charged feelings which exude from McCurry’s work in particular and suggests that this is incorrect and not how he wishes for his homeland to be shown and therefore, with pride, backs the work of Singh to show what India is – in that it is a land full with life but is better shown through the snap-shots of everyday life – what is in between the hustle and bustle of a usual busy location.
An example of Singh’s work is show above and is quite the opposite of McCurry’s work although taken of the same content – just much more relaxed in its composition. Singh focuses on creating a ‘snap-shot’ of one second in time – no-one is looking directly into the camera, not is there exaggerated shadows and colours enhancing in after-affects and instead we are given a much more raw representation of India’s busyness told from the perspective of an insider. Although an outsider’s view, McCurry’s amateur representation of India is still loved because we are given something simple to feast our eyes on; not a narrative which needs to be unpicked yet still enjoyed in its visuals – much like what Singh’s work offers.
Looking at another view, above is the music video for Coldplay and Beyoncé collaboration song ‘Hymn For The Weekend’. Although very poplaur, it has spakred much controversy over its intentions.
Written by Billbaord, ‘Coldplay’s new “Hymn for the Weekend” video featuring Beyoncé that was released on Friday 29 January is catching some heat over its Indian inspiration, with some online calling the Mumbai-shot clip a work of appropriation while others defend it as an appreciation of the foreign culture.
People were seen to express their fury at both Beyoncé and Coldplay and people took to Twitter to outburst their range over what should be seen as an offense to the local culture instead is being ignored because it has been addressed by two popstars who are worth millions. Some said ‘Are we gonna discuss how Beyoncé dressing up as an Indian woman for the Coldplay video is cultural appropriation, or no?’ and another said ‘Just because it’s Beyoncé, doesn’t mean she’s right. She is being offensive and appropriating our culture.’ However, some actually like the fact that Beyoncé was seen in the video to dress up as an Indian woman as it empowers them and someone said ‘I adore Beyoncé for embracing my culture. In a country where I’m a “terrorist” I have never felt more accepted’. And it is argued that Beyoncé is likely not offensively appropriating due her black origins and this would not be in her remit.
However, In my own view, I had never looked that far into it until now and just saw it as a band who wants to embrace the culture of India and not intentionally offend anyone by different people have their own views on representation and it is often misinterpreted.
ion in Burkina Faso are inexact because Islam and Christianity are often practiced in tandem with indigenous religious beliefs. The Government of Burkina Faso 2006 census reported that 60.5% of the population practice Islam, and that the majority of this group belong to the Sunni branch,
