I Want to Photograph People.
Do I want to take pics of everything? You bet.
Is it always appropriate in the places I am traveling? Not always.
Has photography been used in the past by many to exploit others? For sure.
I wanted to share a couple paragraphs from “Friendship at the Margins” that struck a cord with me in terms of photographing ‘missional’ experiences. Bread for the World seeks to do missions by moving into the poorest communities in the world to build relational friendships that show the love of Christ. This is the type of ‘missional’ experience I love.
This concept was Mother Teresa at her best.
“Bread for the World (BFW) explicitly avoided publishing distressing pictures of individuals in need, unwilling to contribute to what has sometimes been called ‘hunger pornography.’ It is attempting to capture a portion of the human experience at the expense of the whole to accomplish some other purpose. Hunger, exploitation, or need, may be part of someone’s experience, but it does not define them.”
And that’s something I want to point out here. While I might shoot people immersed in illness, poverty, and need; those attributes of living do not define who they are.
Here is a personal example.
When I was younger I never wanted people taking pictures of me when I was at my most vulnerable moment of sickness. I didn’t like having to show my bloated steroid face to others in public while wearing a Darth Vador mask. I didn’t want my own friends seeing me in my hospital bed at times, let alone having a picture of me sent in a letter to hundreds others to raise money for my cause. I didn’t want others to look at me and simply feel lucky for not having a disease like me. I never wanted to be pitied.
“Can we imagine the letters being read by the people among whom we serve…during short-term mission trips, it is particularly tempting to engage in some version of travel voyeurism. With little time to build relationship, well meaning volunteers try to capture their experience by taking pictures of cute kids or deplorable slums. The more desperate the scene, the more persuasive the message when they return home. as the photos are processed or e-mailed back home and passed around churches and supporters, the implicit message is to see the suffering of the ‘other,’ or peek into their unguarded lives and respond by saying, ‘we really do take a lot for granted.”
That’s not what I want this trip to be about.
I don’t want to go home and boil down eleven months to I took “a lot for granted.�
This post is not directed at anyone specifically, or any non-profit mission’s group specifically. It is more a starting point of conversation often left out in the “missions� world. Honestly, I think that I may have done a bit of this type of photography to an extent in the past. I am learning when to take the cap off and when to leave the camera at home. If photos are lacking this month or the next, it’s because I am learning the balance of the two. I would love to do some version of photo journalism in the future to relay a message that advocates support or brings awareness to injustice.
Photography for me is a process.
I’m learning how and when to use it.
Ansel Adams
