Change of idea made clear

I have just finished writing my dissertation, and it has really struck me and made me consider a lot of things. I really want to respond to this through my practical project. I hope that my dissertation and practical work will sit alongside each other and sort of answer one another.

In my dissertation I talked about and researched how African children are portrayed and stereotyped through the media in the Western world. To be honest, the whole thing really touched a nerve with me and just got me so wound up. I think this is a good thing though, because now I want to react to it, and I want to do something to change it. I think that because I have been to Africa twice now, I have really made a connection to the place and the children. Seeing the same people both times I went, I feel like they are my friends now and naturally when you hear or read something bad about your friend it gets your back up and you want to defend them.
Well.. this is how I feel and through my images I want to do them justice, I want to show the children in a way that is truthful, but also makes people not feel sorry for them, I don't want somebody to look at my images and say 'aww, poor children.' I want them to say 'wow those children are beautiful.' Am I making sense?

I just feel so passionate about this and I want to get it across visually.

The children are happy, they may not have the things that we have but their okay with that because they don't know any difference. Well they didn't until Westerners started visiting and showing them difference and making them feel like they are being felt sorry for. The children play with what they have available to play with, we might not find it safe.. but is that because our government has put in place so many health and safety regulations that we are scared to do anything at all.. they don't have health and safety officers breathing down their necks on everything. They're food might not be 5* but they don't need it to be, they are happy just having some food to eat.. whatever it might be. Whilst out there, I never heard a single child moan about the food that they were given to eat, or about what they were wearing because they just were so thankful and grateful to have what they do have. Again, they don't know any different. They all live in close-knit villages where everything is shared and they pretty much are one family. It is not like their friend has something and they can get jealous, no, they all share everything. And they all live in the same conditions so no house is bigger or better than another, they are just the same. To be honest, pretty much identical - because they are literally just shells - 4 walls, a floor and a roof. That's it - oh and a blanket on the floor to lay on when it's bed time.

It's a totally different way of life, but that doesn't make it wrong. The standards of living are just, different!

I want to show this in my work... the only difference visually between my images of Gambian children, compared with a project of British school children.. is that the children in my photographs are Gambian and live in Africa.

Back to it

I have to confess that this work has taken rather a backseat over the past couple weeks because all of my attention has been on getting my dissertation finished and handed in.

Now that that has been handed in, I am ready to get back into this project and get my final piece made. This I think is the most exciting part, it's the fun part. Its the part when you can physically see it all coming together and it is really really exciting.

Gathering information about the children

I am still in contact with many of the teachers that work in the schools where I photographed the children whilst I was in The Gambia. I have emailed them the photographs of some of the children and have asked them to provide me with the child's name and possibly age or school year.
I would like to use that information as the caption with each photograph and for those children that are from the villages and surrounding areas, it would be too difficult without returning to find out that information so I will possibly use quotes from the people I have sent questions too, or something from the charity mission statements or from my dissertation research.

Hopefully I will be successful in that and be able to provide names for the photographs. This will also add the connection between image and viewer I hope. It will allow the viewer to know that small bit of information about the child they are looking at to make that slight connection.

Contact Sheet

 

These are all of the portrait images I have to choose from. There is a total of 99. Some of them cannot be used because they have one of the volunteer group members in the background, this gives a sense of 'the other' which I don't want to obviously portray. Although it will come through in a small sense if people know that I, the photographer am white and female. There will always be that lingering over the image but I hope that it does not over power the images.

Some of them the children are slightly blurred or are not really smiling, more looking puzzled or just blank emotions. They look very similar to the images we see day to day of African children, which I don't want to show as part of my project. 

I will sort through these images and get rid of the ones that I know I definitely don't want to use in this instance, and then will spend time with those that are left and make a decision on the strongest images.

Re-try tracing paper

Since I have sort of changed my idea and am now using light to aid the transparency of my images.. I decided to retry the tracing paper.
I wondered if perhaps when held to the light it would become transparent.
Here is the test:

It is slightly more see-through against the light, but still not enough for how I want it to be.
The colour is still there, sometimes when light is put behind an image the colour can fade, but in this instance it doesn't which is nice.

Unfortunately though I don't think it will work for this project.

Charity websites

I looked at the websites of the six charities that I had emailed.

Everything on most of the websites is about hungry, ill and poverty-stricken children. There is a lot about disaster and poverty on each website.
I know that they want people to help but the imagery that they are using only adds to the stereotypes and perception that all Africa needs is help from the West and that they are all poor and needy.

This is not true! Yet, there is nothing to tell us otherwise. Everywhere we look we are bombarded with the same message - that we need to give money to help African Children.


On Tearfund's website (http://www.tearfund.org/) they have a few success stories visible for people to clearly see and read. They are from people who have been helped by one of the Tearfund projects.

The Compasison website (http://www.compassionuk.org/) also has more positive imagery to be seen and doesn't only show poverty and disaster. The immediate feeling you get from the site is quite warm I think, the imagery is of happy children. And although there are things on there to try and encourage you to sponsor a child or donate money, they are not what catches the eye straight away.

Responses from charities

I only heard back from three of the six charities that I e-mailed. And within their very polite text was the following responses:

 



All three of them pointed me towards their respective websites to try and find the information I am looking for.
They do have the information of their aims and mission statements online, but I feel that these are really very generic.
I understand also that they don't perhaps have the time to respond to such e-mails and questions, however, if they are trying to make people feel connected and wanting money support or help with aid surely they should be replying (even if it is a generic email that is sent to all people who ask, outlining their mission statement, which has been written and saved as a document and just forwarded to the inquiry). The want people to spend time giving money, or fundraising, or visiting the poverty-stricken places, yet they don't have time the inquiring person feel valued and connected.

So now, I will try to look through their websites to see what I can find that could possibly answer my questions.