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December 1st, 2009

Should photojournalists seek out the silver lining?

Posted by liveBooks

Considering that today is World AIDS Day, this seemed like the perfect time to highlight a new book from photographer Karen Ande, Face to Face: Children of the AIDS Crisis in Africa. Although hardly the first person to document this topic, Karen’s emphasis on telling positive stories is unusual. And her technique presents a hard — but important — question for documentary photographers: Do too many images of suffering make people feel helpless to improve things?
©Karen Ande

These three women are members of a granny support group that meets weekly to discuss issues and solve problems related to caring for their many young charges. ©Karen Ande

Miki Johnson: Tell me about the book you just released with Ruthann Richter, Face to Face: Children of the AIDS Crisis in Africa. What was the impetus of this project and what were you hoping to achieve with it?

Karen Ande: This book represents the culmination of seven years of work. The project began in 2002 when I was traveling in Kenya with my husband and friends. Our tour guide asked me if I’d like to visit an orphanage she had opened in the town of Naivasha and photograph the children, whose parents had died of AIDS.

I agreed to do it, thinking it would be a one-time visit that might result in a few shots she could use for fundraising. I did not realize that the children would charm me and that their survival hung in such a delicate balance. The orphanage ran out of rice the day I was there.

We left them with some money for food and I eventually went home and began to print the photographs. When I saw the images emerge in the developing tray I realized that I had an opportunity and a decision to make. I could choose to become involved in this issue or not. I chose to get involved, to reach out to nonprofits who were already supporting projects, to make multiple trips to document this issue. It has taken an enormous amount of time and personal finances, but I have never looked back.

©Karen Ande

Vannah is only 15 years old but is caring for five younger brothers and sisters after their parent's death from AIDS. ©Karen Ande

I am driven by this issue — 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. There is little infrastructure to care for the children, but many local people whom I have met through NGO’s have creative viable projects that make a difference in these children’s lives. I hope this book will convince people to take a close look at the children I’ve met and begin to care enough to try to help them.

MJ: You’ve said that when you started photographing it was important to you to focus on the positive, things are getting better and people who are making a difference. Why was this so important to you?

KA: People do not hang around to be depressed. The media overexposes us to images of suffering I think, consistently giving us two messages: 1) there is really nothing one person can do to affect these overwhelming problems, and 2) money donated to Africa will be diverted by corrupt governments and aid agencies and never get to the people who need it.

In fact there is a great deal one person can do if they know how. If you donate to organizations working with in-country activists who know and understand their communities’ needs, the money is not wasted. In fact it is often the best way to help, as these projects are generally successful and sustainable. We list many NGO’s in our book that support these types of projects.

Ultimately I would like my photography to make a difference to the people and organizations I have worked with. While I certainly photograph heartbreaking situations—I do not try to misrepresent the situation by providing an artificially cheery picture—I learned that people in desperate circumstances also have dreams, hopes and goals for themselves. Not many photographers document them.

©Karen Ande

These three young girls are proud of their new school uniforms, but not too proud to muss them on the sidewalk during a game of hide and seek. ©Karen Ande

MJ: How have you connected and worked with NGOs? Have you ever found it hard to find or tell the positive story in a situation?

KA: Connecting with NGO’s has generally been easy for me. The first organization I volunteered for was Firelight Foundation of Santa Cruz, California. I simply called them up and told them about photos I’d taken at an orphanage in Kenya, that I intended to go back, and that I’d noticed they sponsored some projects near where I planned to be. Would they like me to take photographs for them? I made an appointment with the staff and went in with a portfolio under my arm.

They agreed to connect me to some of their grantee partners and I began what became a seven-year saga of visiting grassroots projects piloted by local activists responding to AIDS in their communities. These projects included micro-enterprises, schools, home-based care, HIV education projects, and more.

My working arrangements with NGO’s have varied. I ask to be reimbursed for my on-the-ground expenses while I work with the agencies’ partners. I was reimbursed once for airfare, but that was unusual. The great advantage for me working with NGO’s is that I have been given access to people I would never otherwise meet — child-headed families in Kibera or HIV-positive parents and children, for example.

AIDS_Kenya_Karen_ande

Patrick stands in front of his mother's bed. She herded cows for a living and made about $1.00 a day. ©Karen Ande

You asked if I sometimes have problems connecting to the positive in a situation. Of course I do. I once met a family that included a dying mother, a 13-year old girl named Esther taking care of her plus her three younger brothers. They lived in a 10’x10’ tin shack, with sunlight pouring in the window, an open door, and all of the holes in the walls. The mother had TB and was to die several weeks after I took this photograph (left) of her with her youngest son.

One of the things that I see in this photograph is love. We devote a chapter in our book to this family. We managed to stay involved, arranging the children to be placed together in an orphanage. We followed them there and this boy is now in boarding school. Esther trained to be become a seamstress and now is able to support herself.

MJ: Do you find that viewers of your images react differently than they do to other “social documentary” images that tend to focus on the horror and pain of a situation?

KA: People feel more empowered by images of solutions than of pain. I don’t ignore pain in my images. I think it is very easy to focus on pain because the images themselves are so compelling and they affect you emotionally. But the stories I photograph are bigger than that. Yes people are seriously ill, yes children are orphaned. But those orphans play games, and the seriously ill people sit in the sun and talk with their friends. The people are engaged in living. Pain is not the entire picture.

MJ: How are you using your images and this book to continue making a positive impact on the people you have documented?

KA: We have partnered with many of the NGO’s whose projects we feature to use the book for fundraising — as gifts for major donors, for example. As the authors, we are donating the profits of the book to these organizations and others that help African children.

Be Part of the RESOLUTION: Should photographers try to find the silver lining in difficult stories? Do you think images of suffering contribute to public apathy about the issues being documented?


4 Comments

  1. December 1st, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    Should photojournalists seek out the silver lining? | RESOLVE | The Click

    […] Considering that today is World AIDS Day, this seemed like the perfect time to highlight a new book from photographer Karen Ande, Face to Face: Children of the AIDS Crisis in Africa. Although hardly the first person to document this topic, Karen’s emphasis on telling positive stories is unusual. And her technique presents a hard — but important — question for documentary photographers: Do too many images of suffering make people feel helpless to improve things? […]

  2. December 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am

    k.a.

    Thanks for sharing this perspective. I agree with Karen wholeheartedly. I believe that whoever it is running the communications of these NGOs feel like the best way to “hit home” is to show a suffering child, and this will in some way make people want to jump up and contribute that “cup of coffee a day”'s worth of goodness. However, I agree with those photographers who say the best way to get someone involved is to show -positive- results. If an NGO specialises in providing clean water, its images should show how their assistance has made a difference. This encourages trust in the organisation or at least curiosity as to how the audience can help continue to 'do good'.

  3. December 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Twitted by halflifestudio

    […] This post was Twitted by halflifestudio […]

  4. December 3rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    | duckrabbit - we produce beautifully crafted multimedia

    […] Ande talking to Miki Johnson on RESOLVE Spread the […]

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