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Independent Study, Preparation

Worship

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The process of worship is one recognized as a “feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity”. The term is usually associated with religion as people who are religious, worship a God or a Goddess. However, considering this sense of modern day worship by analyzing how, what, where and why we reverence the things we do. Recently, I have researched and discovered for myself the power and strength that the church withheld in history, however, as studies have shown, religion is in decline, particularly with the younger generations.

The slow abandonment of religion has left a void for people to fill their time and occupy their minds with. For me, I want to explore what the modern Western society has opted to worship nowadays and why people have chosen this activity to pass time, The questions I long to ask myself whilst working on this specific project are:

 

  • Do people worship subconsciously?
  • What do people worship?
  • Why do people worship the activity/pass time that they do?
  • How do they worship?
  • Where do they worship?
  • Is it fulfilling?

Independent Study, Personal Investigation, Personal Study, Preparation, Recording, Research and analysis

A Discovery into my Mum & Dad’s Relationship

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A couple of days ago, I went to collect a ‘box of memories’ from my dad’s flat to help me with my research into my mum and dads relationship as well as their divorce. He has previously told me about this shoebox he has filled with memories he has form his time with my mum. This includes postcards my mum sent from France when she 18 and my dad was 20. This was in the very early stages of their relationship when they had only been going for about a year, yet the postcards were filled with very cute and sincere messages telling my dad that she missed him and she can’t wait to see him. These are resources I intend to use for my project where I will photograph them against a blank background to achieve a studio effect where all you are focusing on is the object. These postcards were from my dads memory box as I said and he keeps it in his garage shoved underneath all his other junk and is often forgotten about until discovered when rummaging through the mess every year or so but I an glad I have got my hands on this to use the appropriate resources suitable for the story I want to tell. The postcards sent by my mum to dad will help to show the relationship the once had by using physical information – a love letter essentially. However, this, I intend to photograph very soon. Meanwhile, I have come across a new object which has sparked my interest to talk about.

Retrieving the special box of my dad sparked a thought that my mum might also have one of these, even though she has never talked or mentioned it or something similar before, as well, I had never seen something like it before, I believe this to be because my mum now has a very strong relationship with a new man which is a prominent figure in my life also who has been present in my life for now thirteen years, however, I asked my mum if she had something similar and she told me “yes”. This was great news and I was eager to get my hands on it to see what was inside and if there was anything that went hand-in-hand with that f what I found in in my dad’s collection of good memories from their time together. As well, everything I found was also new to me as I was very young when they split so remember nothing apart from myself speaking to dad about it. All the objects were new and it was great for me to see them and learn the stories behind them. However, when we went looking in the loft for the box my mum thought she had  kept in this particular place, we could not find it and we emptied the whole oft and looked through each and every box, yet the collection of nostalgic objects was not there. My mum, as well as myself, was mortified as it many I could not retrieve nay physical information and evidence form mum’s behalf of the great times my mum and dad had together apart from hundreds of photos of us as a family from me as a baby to me at 4 years of age. SAs well, it meant tat mum had lost this box she treasured and cherished because it was filled with memories from her youth – in the most happiest times of her life – when she met her first love, she married him and had a child with him – this was all gone. However, mum did have some images and cards from their wedding hidden somewhere else and this was where I made my amazing discovery which is perfect to begin the project/book.

Mum began to take all of these images of her and dad at their wedding out this small bag and within that bag, she picked out two cards – one form her to dad the day before their wedding and one from my dad to mum also on the before the wedding, and, by chance, the happen to be the exact same cards they both have to each other! I was shocked but also overjoyed at this because I knew it would be a great way to begin my project, epically after reading inside at what they had both written.

I believe this gesture from both of them and coincidence of this one in a million chance of them both giving the same card to each other, just with a different heart-felt message to one another shows the true meaning of love – that the two of them were in sync with one another and it shows tat perhaps they both knew what they other half would like – they both saw the card in shop and picked it up knowing that it represented them two as a couple and this coincidence shows the concept of love displaying the essence of unity.

I was desperate to photograph the two cards together and make some sort of image out of them! I wanted to create a diptych or one image of the two of them side by side and, although not yet finalised, I’ve got an image I quickly took of them together but the lighting is poor and the image above will not be my final due to the ‘slapdash’ finish of it. I also managed to get an image of the message inside each card. As well, for my final edit of this, I wish to have images of developed exposures from their wedding day alongside the one image of the cards to show the ‘starting chapter’ as such.

Inside the cards, both my mum and dad wrote a very loving and quite emotional message that came from the heart. In the card, they expressed their love for one another and their excitement to begin a new chapter in their life together – this idea of a ‘chapter’ is expressed not only from their words about their life, but it will make-up a ‘chapter’ in the book also.

My dad has never been one for being emotional with his words and is not the best at articulating himself, which I have grown to realise as I have grown up with him and his card was not as in-depth as my mums, which made me chuckle a little because this has not changed. However, although his straight-to-the-pint words are limited in comparison to my mum’s I had an idea to transcribe one statement/comment/sentence form each of their cards and insert this into the book along with the images.  My inspiration for this idea came from Yoshikatsu Fujii’s book of his own parents divorce where he includes transcribed statements from his mum and dad to tell a story more visually.

Below is my mum’s card to my dad:“TO MY DARLING ALEX,

REMEMBER IT’S JUST YOU + ME – THAT’S ALL WE NEED TO KNOW. WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR 8 YEARS AND TOMORROW WE ARE STARTING A WHOLE NEW CHAPTER IN OUR LIVES – THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT THIS IS WHAT I WANT – YOU + ME TOGETHER ALWAYS, I KNEW THAT SINCE I WAS 16.

YOUR MY NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD MY LITTLE ONE. 

SEE YOU TOMORROW, DON’T BE LATE!

ALL MY LOVE + KISSES

KATHERINE 

XXX”

The statement I believe I will use due to its significance is the point at which my mum says “you + me together always, I knew that since I was 16.” I think I would choose this statement because, for me, it is actually very relatable as I actually fell in love when I was 16 – my girlfriend now is my first love and this was the same for my mum dad – they were both each others first love so there is an uncanny similarity here.

Below is my dad’s card to my mum:

“TO MY DARLING KATHERINE

I LOVE YOU

HERE’S TO FRIDAY

THE BIG DAY

GOOD LUCK

HERE’S TO THE REST OF OUR LIVES TOGETHER

ALL MY LOVE, ALEX

XXXXXX”

From my dad’s card, I think I will choose to transcribe the statement, “here’s to the rest of our lives” because this was their plan and any other lover’s plan when they are about to marry each other and especially commit their lives to one another but it is a shame that at some point, the love does break down – not in all relationships, but many relationships end in a love which distances and becomes very difficult to express so this statement is very significant. However, I may not choose to transcribe any of dad’s statements from his card as the one from my mum speaks a lot.

The print on the card reads:

IN A WORLD OF RUSH AND CRUSH AND CROWDS,

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS — A TENDER WORD, A GENTLE TOUCH, A SMILE, A LOOK, A KISS…

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO FAITH AND TRUST,

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO WHETHER WE’RE GOING IT ALONE OR KNOW WE’RE IN THIS THING TOGETHER,

IN A WORLD OF HYPE AND HURRY,

IN A WORLD OF PUSH AND SHOVE, 

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO YOU AND ME,

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO LOVE

The print on the card alone is very sentimental and is very heart-felt and it sums up love – that no matter what, you will always have on another – act as thought it is just you two in the world and nothing can stop you because love conquers all. I believe in this concept very much and hoe to show it clearly in my project.

 

Analysis, Experimentation, Independent Study, Practical Task

Saint Nicholas Cathedral

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During the October half-term, me and my grandmother visited Newcastle upon Tyne just to explore the North of England and go for a spot of shopping. Historically, Newcastle was a very Catholic city along with neighboring regions in northern England, however, despite a rise in irreligion throughout the United Kingdom, Saint Nicholas Cathedral still stands tall. 

When in the building, the infrastructure established the cathedral as a powerful and prestigious building that had been inhabited for Catholic worship for over nine-hundred years. The strength gives us an insight into to the past as the cathedral was a dominant place in society.

Fulfilling my concept of subversion against religion, I organised for my grandmother to take a few images of me sat in the cathedral showing my middle finger to demonstrate my anger with the church for their ironic greediness and selfishness. As I am seated in the seats situated next to the main stage in which the cathedral is based around, where the service would take place,  I feel as if I’m directly and openly demonstrating my frustration. Living up to my teenage stereotypes, I am dressed in mostly black, with my hood up in slightly “chavvy” clothing, coinciding with this concept of juxtaposition between youth culture and religion. A secret symbol in the image is the very faint antichrist drawn upon my face to demonstrate my religious anarchy. By editing the image to black and white, I strip the image of its colour and therefore the limited symbols of life that do exist within the church.

Contextual Study

Representation of photographs

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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.

Image result for raghubir singh photographer

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.

 

Independent Study, Personal Investigation, Personal Study, Preparation

Further Planning (Format of Project and Visual Diagram)

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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.

 

Analysis, Artists References, Research and analysis

ARTIST REFERENCE // GIDEON MENDEL

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Biography

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 about hunger

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.

 

Artists References

Artist References

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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.

Documentary and the Truth // Contextual study

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/napalm-girl

NBC NEWS

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.

Personal Investigation, Research and analysis

Non Government Organisations

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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.

 

 

 

Personal Investigation, Research and analysis

Do overseas organisations actually help third world countries?

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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.

“I think his understanding of how the world worked at the micro level made him extremely suspicious of these get-rich-quick schemes that some people peddled at the development level,” – Daron Acemoglu

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.

“My critique of aid has been more to do with countries where they get an enormous amount of aid relative to everything else that goes on in that country,” Deaton said in an interview with Wonkblog. “For instance, most governments depend on their people for taxes in order to run themselves and provide services to their people. Governments that get all their money from aid don’t have that at all, and I think of that as very corrosive.”

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.

 

Contextual Study, Personal Investigation, Research and analysis

Burkina Faso

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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.