With the help of some of the teachers that I am still in contact with in The Gambia I have managed to find out all the names and ages of the children that I am printing portraits of.
I am so thankful for their help because without them searching villages and school classes for me, my project would not work the way that I have been wanting it to.
So, each photograph has a caption of the child's name and their age. This allows the viewer to connect with the child. Not to feel sorry for, or ignore the child because they are nameless to who is viewing the image, it is a portrait of a child, happy and smiling, who lives in The Gambia. I as the photographer have photographed them, documented that they are a person, in the same way I feel that somebody would document a friend in a portrait, or a celebrity.
I don't feel it fair to keep portraying African children as sick, malnourished, starving, sad and miserable people. The children that I met were happy, it happens that the images I am printing are all in school, but even the children outside of the school were happy, they live with what they have and they are all so thankful for what they do have. The don't know any different - until Westerners go in and start saying 'oh poor you' and 'oh how tragic' ... then they become aware that there is a difference! Who's place is it to say things like that to these people - nobodys! They are people! They should not be treated like they are lower than us, just because they don't have iphones and computers and gadgets that make our children so anti-social and brain square-eyed. They play in sand, they play with sticks and stone - so what?! So did the older generations of the Western world!
I am totally against them living in pig sty's, and totally for putting an end to diseases and malaria and everything else like that. They have the right to life just the same as everybody else - I am not disputing that at all! I just don't agree with the West being shown such ugly imagery of beautiful.. truly beautiful children!
