This project has ended up being a sort of visual answer to the written work in my dissertation. I wrote about the representation of children, and whilst researching for it and writing it really hit me emotionally and I have had a real passion for these photographs. I have felt that I want to represent them well and fairly. Some of the imagery that is seen of African children is so horrible and sickening, I didn't want my images to show that, I wanted to show the world the African children that I know and love. I feel, at the end of this project looking back, that I have done this. I feel that my photographs show happy children, they are all in uniform which shows that they are in school and none of them look sick and malnourished, even though where they live is nothing more than mud huts which sit on top of a rubbish heap.
It was really quite daunting when I went to The Gambia without giving myself a brief, but it taught me to really look around and study everything that I saw. I found that I took a lot more in and became attached to things that I wouldn't usually be drawn to, because I had a camera and was trying to document everything I was seeing and experiencing. I think that this experience taught me a lot also about being able to photograph at such a fast pace, I had told myself before I went that I did not want to stage photographs and pose children, I really wanted to try to document and photograph in the moment. Because of this, a lot of my images didn't come out as well as I had hoped, but to me that was okay because I was taking a risk and if I didn't take risks I wouldn't push myself and progress in my work. It was really frightening, but I know in my personal development I need to push myself out of my comfort zones now and again just to see if I can cope.
I am really pleased that my images of the children came out well, because it meant that I was able to respond to what I had read and written in the way that I wanted to. The images that I captured of the children, where their requests. I stuck to my original plan and I did not pose any of the children, nor did I ask them if I could photograph them. Each photograph, the child in it had asked me to take their photograph. They asked me to photograph them, I did, and because of their beautiful smiles and the hope that they have I am now showing the photographs to other people and hopefully spreading a more positive message.
I am hoping that I am portraying these children in the best way that I can. I hope that I am doing them justice and not aiding the negative stereotypes that are so freely moving around the western world. Looking at my final series, I believe that I am doing what I set out to do, and I feel that it does respond to my written work.
In terms of cost, I did stay within the budget that I set for myself. That budget did not include my trip to The Gambia, because I did not specifically go just for this university project.
I printed my images A2 size, because I wanted them to be big so that when they are viewed they cannot be ignored. I didn't want people to be able to walk past them, or turn away from them without having some kind of connection. The children are roughly life size, probably slightly bigger, and so there is no way that people cannot have some sort of connection with them. Their warm expressions and friendly eyes draw you in. I knew that these prints would not be the prints that I would be hanging in the exhibition so A2 is big enough I feel, when in exhibition I am unsure whether I would print them even bigger or not. Cost wise, I won't be exhibiting all 10 images in the end of year show, so I will be able to budget for bigger prints. But when printing and handing in 10 images I had to cost that in and work within my budget.
Overall, I am pleased with this project. I truly feel that I have put my all into it. I think that in the future I might come back to or re-visit this project and the children. One idea I have already had is to follow the children and document the great things that they do in life, or to re-visit them in a few years time to document how things changed, what happened to them - this would be more out of personal curiosity and excitement I think, rather than to sell or have on display to the world.
