Recently, I’ve been thinking about war photography, and the moral arguments that commonly support it. I’ve been seeing people use those arguments to advocate for certain practices in photography in general, and I think there are problems with that.

To me, war-phototography is not the same as non-violent-photography.

For example, in the movie War Photographer, by Christian Frei, photojournalist James Nachtwey describes his process like this: “In a war, the normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended. It would be unthinkable in so called normal life, to go into someone’s home, where the family is grieving over the death of a loved one, and spend long moments photographing them. It simply wouldn’t be done.

“Those pictures could not have been made unless I was accepted by the people I’m photographing. It’s simply impossible to photograph moments such as those without the complicity of the people I’m photographing; without the fact that they welcomed me, that they accepted me, that they wanted me to be there.”

The film shows Nachtwey building relationships, asking questions, and getting to know communities in a conscientious way, even as it also shows him taking pictures in the midst of explosions. But the film emphasizes the picture-taking, not the communication, which I think sends a false message.

I can see how, in a violent situation, neither the photographer nor the subject might be concerned with asking permission or communicating verbally. I can see how permission could be implicit. But I also know that it is easier not to ask permission. It is easier not to communicate. And it’s very easy to misunderstand.

So I’m wary of implicit permission, especially when it’s applied to non-violent situations. I often hear photographers say they are “giving a voice to the voiceless” or “bearing witness.” And when that is the aim, I think that some level of collaboration between photographer and subject—some kind of overt permission—is necessary for the image to have a positive impact.

In a fantastic essay for the online journal Soundscapes, Hans Durrer confronts this issue, saying, “In times when (some) photographers hold celebrity status, it is useful to be reminded that a good photograph does not solely depend on the photographer’s ability to choose the right subject, location and light, but also on the chemistry and the collaboration, between photographer and subject…Despite my deep sympathy for socially inclined photographers, when the people portrayed feel ashamed of their portraits, there clearly is something wrong with this kind of photography.”

That is just an electric statement: When the people portrayed feel ashamed of their portraits, there is something wrong with that kind of photography.

This doesn’t only happen in journalism. It also happens in collaborations between photographers and nonprofit organizations. I spoke to Benjamin Chesterton the other day, who runs the multimedia production company duckrabbit and the blog A Developing Story and he said, “It’s amazing to me that these NGOs’ awareness campaigns will say they’re giving a voice to the voiceless, but you never hear a single actual voice from the community that’s being represented.” This is happening right now with UNICEF’s new Put It Right campaign. Photo/audio slideshows that duckrabbit produces use voices in an incredibly powerful way, as in this one made for MSF (Doctors Without Borders).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBqR5xOSVh4]

Artist Fazal Sheikh photographs war and the issues that surround it, and is a photographer who takes permission seriously, and emphasizes it. Rather than seeing permission as a burden, Sheikh actually builds better projects and makes better pictures by asking permission. Which is intuitive, but not if you’ve just been watching War Photographer.

In his introduction to the book A Camel for the Son, about Somali refugees living in Kenya, Sheikh writes, “I arrived at the camp at Liboi in February 1992 on a UNHCR flight from Nairobi along with news journalists, most of whom were staying for one or two days. The war was fresh and the competition for pictures and stories was fierce.

“I decided to stay on longer and asked one of the Somali leaders whether he would allow me to work in the camp. Some weeks earlier, on the Sudanese border, I had asked an elder the same question. ‘Why are you asking me?’ was his reply. ‘I am only a refugee.’ But his tone made it clear what a violation it was for the refugees to have strangers moving through their communities without their consent.”

This is someone I can look up to. This is someone who has created a process that lines up with his stated goals. He also makes incredibly beautiful images, whose beauty has a lot to do with the energy, self-assertion, and self-possession that people display in front of his lens.

Seeing the strength, the individuality, and the self conscious composure of his subjects, I feel devastated and enraptured; humbled and uplifted. I feel sad. I feel educated. I feel inspired. And I feel proud to be the audience at the end of a photographic process I believe in. By making pictures that his subjects are not ashamed of, he allows me, as the audience, to shed my shame as well.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

Kathleen Hennessy is the Director of Photography at the San Francisco Chronicle and has just joined PhotoPhilanthropy as the Activist Award Director for 2010.

I asked her everything that came rushing into my head. What is your editing process like? And how do you think photography creates social change? And what advice do you have for people submitting photo essays to PhotoPhilanthropy?

Here’s what she said:

Some of the essays I looked at from last year’s submissions were not as strong as they could be because they don’t really have a focus. What I’m seeing is that people are photographing things that are happening around them, but I don’t know what the story is. I don’t know what they’re trying to say.

If you were going to document a pediatric surgical team, for example, it would be really great to have some theme that you follow—maybe a doctor, or a patient—so that you connect with somebody.

I think it’s really important to establish that connection with another individual. Because if you don’t, if the viewer doesn’t get to connect with any person in a deeper way, then everybody becomes sort of anonymous. And that’s a problem. I think you get a much more emotional reaction when you really feel like you got to know someone and their story. And then that one story illustrates the larger organization and the larger issue.

When I was working with Deanne Fitzmaurice on the Pulitzer prize winning story, she got very close to the subject.

It was as story about an Iraqi boy named Saleh, who picked up a bomb he thought was ball. It exploded, killing his brother and severely injuring him. He was eventually brought to Oakland, California for treatment. She worked on that story for about a year and got close to the family. It was impossible not to.

And even though she didn’t want to, she had to show the moments where he was acting up or getting frustrated because that was the whole story. She had to stay somewhat detached. Because the goal of photojournalism is to have the credibility that you are telling the truth.

An artist, on the other hand, is seeking their own truth, in my opinion.

So when you are doing this kind of collaborative work with an organization, you really have to believe in what that organization is doing. If you go in there and you think, “Wow, what are they doing?” then maybe you shouldn’t do it.

It’s also important to really do your homework. You should talk to people who run the organization, who are in the field, and ask them what they see every day. And sometimes you have to be a filter, because they may tell you what they think is a great story, and it may not be. For example, it may not be visual. It has to be a visual story. And it has to prompt an emotional reaction that connects the viewer to the subject

The best thing to do is observe. Spend some time before you ever pick up the camera, observing what they do. You need to think about what it is that attracted you to the story. What is the story that you want to tell?

And take notes. I always say to photographers—who are not necessarily writers—take notes. Jot down words that represent what you are feeling, and then think about how to capture that feeling.

You asked about creating social change as an editor. Well, we were having a staff meeting, and talking about ideas. I wanted to do some stories related to the economy, because that is one of the big issues of the year.

So Brant Ward, one of our staff photographers at the Chronicle, said, “I really want to do something in Chinatown. It’s very difficult to get access to stories there, and there is a lot going on.”

He’s been at the Chronicle for 25 years. He found his own contact and she connected him with the Mo family, who live in a one room flat.  The room has no private bathroom or kitchen so they share with the other families living in the building, which is called an SRO: single room occupancy.

He worked through a community activist who spoke the language and was trusted by the community. I think that’s a very important connection, so that when you are introduced to the community, you are also trusted.

The father, Zhihua, a carpenter and plumber, was out of work. The mom, Lifen, was making minimum wage handing out restaurant coupons to tourists. The grandfather, who lived a block away in another SRO, had a nurse taking care of him but when Zhihua lost his job they could no longer afford the nurse and Zhihua starting taken care of his dad daily.

The grandfather couldn’t walk, and his son told Brant, “When I take him to the doctor, I have to put him on my back and carry him up two flights of stairs.” And so Brant knew that was the picture he needed to get. And so he kept waiting and waiting for that day to come, and it finally did.

When the story was published, it was on the front page with two inside pages full of photographs. There was a real out-pouring of support. Brant received many emails from people who wanted to help, both monetarily and with job offers. Zihua is now working again.

So you hope that you have an impact, and it can be something small like one person getting a job. Or it could be a larger impact, like with Deanne’s story. After her story was published, Saleh’s family received thousands and thousands of dollars in donations and his mother and sisters were granted asylum in the U.S.

And that’s the beauty of documentary photography: hopefully your goal is to have some sort of impact.

Brant told the story of Chinatown through one family. Which gets back to what I was saying in the beginning. You’re more connected through one family than if it was a series of pictures of multiple families who lived in single rooms. I feel more connected to that issue because I know what this one family’s life is like.

If you stay with one story, if you stay with one focus, there’s more intimacy there. And to me that is the key to a successful story or a successful photo essay, intimacy.

And a lot of times you may see a collection of photographs, and they may be beautiful, but I’m left wondering what are they trying to say. Other than, here’s a nonprofit, or here’s a lot of suffering people.

I loved Dmitry Markov’s story, which won the amateur award, because it was so focused. One group of kids, one place—I really got a sense of what their lives were like. Beautiful intimacy with the shaving of the head, wonderful use of light. I felt a sense of connection with the community there because I could see how the boys reacted to each other. I thought that was really successful.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

With now several branches throughout the world (UK, Australia, Israel), Orphfund is continuing to grow and make people more and more aware about the fate of street children and orphans in our world. With the overwhelming news of the earthquake disaster in Haiti, Orphfund has decided to raise funds to raise schools and facilities for some of the children who have been affected by this saddening disaster.

Before the earthquake, knowing that Haiti had a number of about 380 000 orphans, Orphfund was in contact with two communities and was planning a project for 2010 to help vulnerable children. Now, children in the “hatless country”, as Haiti-born author Dany Laferrière calls it, are in much greater need for assistance than ever before. According to the United Nations’ Children Fund, an estimated 1.26 million children – approximately 700,000 of them school-aged – have been directly affected by the earthquake in Haiti. This is a frightening number and it is difficult to estimate how long it will take before this age group recovers from this personal and national trauma caused by the earthquake.

At the moment, world organizations are working towards reuniting families that were displaced or separated during the earthquake. This colossal task is crucial within the chaos and aid needed. This is especially important for young children who are left alone, without knowing their address or their relatives, thus becoming at high risk of trafficking. Let me emphasize that Orphfund does not specialise in emergency or immediate aid. We rather bring help children by building and rebuilding of communities following horrific events or crisis, such as this one. We have projects in Cambodia, Tibet, Sierra Leone and Kenya, and our next projects will take place in Uganda and Haiti.

We are planning on going to the Leogane area in about one year from now, with a team of volunteers. In addition to the building of schools and orphanages, many ideas are in the talks, such as farming and tree nursery projects. However, at the moment, the situation on the ground is far too chaotic to have a detailed idea of what our project will consist of. We will know more details as time unfolds within the next months.

In the mean time, we are raising as many funds as possible among people and hold fundraising events in different parts of the world, so that we will be able to help as much as possible when the time comes. ALL funds received are going to be 100% used for the rebuilding project.

I am sure that some of you readers have already generously donated to charities providing aid and relief for immediate needs. Good job!
-If you did NOT donate for Haiti yet, I strongly encourage you to do, and by helping our initiative.
-If you did already donate for Haiti, I still encourage you to squeeze in a few more dollars from your pocket, to help this rebuilding project, because MANY funds will be needed to truly help this contry.

For donations (there is NO minimum amount, any amount will be greatly appreciated!), please write anneso.orphfund@gmail.com and I will explain to you how to donate, according to your country.
Also, if you are interested in helping or if you want to know more about our projects or about us, send me a message to the above email.

Thank You!
Anne-Sophie Cardinal, co-Director of Orphfund Israel, who is watching this world right now and thinking that Haiti will need help beyond words, to get back on track… (but with your help, we can do it!)

I wish I could show you the pictures I saw last night. Dr. Sylvia A. Earle was in Bozeman to give the Montana State University Friends of Stegner Lecture. This deep-ocean explorer who is currently the Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society is a woman who has made and is making a difference in the collective health of our planet by sharing with us her deep ocean work.

She has inspired many young women to take up the course of marine biology including Helen Scales who has just had published “Poseidon’s Steed.” Helen Scales and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California have inspired me to write this blog and the essay I’m posting as part of it.

Dr. Earle ended her lecture is the message of hope that has been shared by Jane Goodall – that it is not too late for all the creatures who share the earth and water including ourselves. We can learn from past mistakes and inspire our children to do better in the future.

Dancers in the Ocean

The fragment of a sinuous tango undulates through me. Only the press of dozens of children surrounding me on a busy holiday weekend prevents the possibility of a duet.

“Look at the dragon, mommy!” A toddler knocks on the acrylic wall separating me from the dancer.

A swiveling yellow eye stares at me through the wall that separates water from air, fish from woman. As I stare back a strand of energy like spider’s silk connects us. He has borrowed a crown from an elfin princess. His gown is adorned with leaf-like appendages. They drift downwards. They are held aloft. They rival the beauty of any tree in the wood. These many appendages move with the currents in the water of the tank but they do not propel this faerie version of a fish through his element. He moves by fluttering tiny fins at the top of his head, beside his gills and near the end of his body. I am held in his spell.

I break my eyes away from the first leafy sea dragon that swam toward me and scan the tank for others. They blend perfectly into the kelp and sea grasses provided in their refuge. Miniature horses’ heads nod in unison. They twirl around in perfect pirouettes. I long to dance with them, to hear their music. To have gills for a few hours and become weightless. Can I somehow melt through the plastic wall and become sea dragon?

“Welcome to the Seahorse exhibit of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you wish to take pictures of the fish in the tanks, please do not use flash.”

Fish? Seahorses are fish? How can anything that fires my imagination into worlds of gods and goddesses, Poseidon’s golden chariot and lost worlds be a fish? Scientists prevail, according to a sign on the wall beside the tank. The world outside the tank crashes in. Dreams of spring-green leafy gowns and dancing sea tangos vanish like Cinderella’s coach at midnight.

I meander through the schools of crowds toward the Aquarium gift shop.

“Excuse me, do you have any leafy sea dragons?”

“Over there, ma’am.” There’s a post card, a silver pin, and a magnet with leafy sea dragon designs. Nothing sparks my interest.

“Anything else?”

“You might be interested in this book.”

“Poseidon’s Steed—The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality.” I buy it. I support the research work of the Aquarium with my purchase. I read the book from cover to cover at the hotel and then on the plane trip from California to Montana. I skip lunch. I am entertained with the myths and then, by degrees saddened by what is happening to the homes of these tiny creatures surely created by a goddess with a sense of humor. How can anyone capture, dry, grind up or eat a 1-6 inch being with the head of a horse, pouch of a kangaroo and tail of a monkey, or with a sinuous leafy green body?

I miss my new friends when I am in my home too far from the sea to hear the surf or swim among the underwater fields of grasses with them. I surf the Monterey Bay Aquarium web site and become a fan of “Herbie Hippocampus” on facebook. I learn about the creatures that share their neighborhoods—the strawberry crab who loves the sandy sea bottom near Taiwan or the Vampire squid. This animal—neither vampire nor squid—lives a half mile deep in the ocean where the light is very dim. What else is waiting to be discovered?

Will the ocean notice if all the seahorses and sea dragons are captured for home or restaurant aquariums, used in medicines, or sold in shell shops? Most likely not. But what I believe is that we are all better off just knowing there are seahorses swimming wild in the oceans. That they are absolutely important—along with tigers, chimpanzees, macaws and all other wild beings—for the sake of the health of our imaginations.

Turquoise sea, cerulean sky, palms of a million greens, birds of every color singing, decorating our view–A view clouded by gifts from the sea–millions of pieces of plastic.  Plastic cast off, cast aside, cast away. From cruise ships, fishermen, boaters, tourists….A vacation where beauty meets beasts.

A vacation at a private guest house compound for 8 artists interested in learning about clay from a Mayan maestro whose connection to the land on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico goes back to the beginning of his people. A man in whose hands the clay takes on life and story. A vacation laid over the destruction of habitat and a determination to find out why this is happeneing and what can be done about it.

I was alternately in some kind of heaven surrounded by sun, sea, art, and singing birds–an escape from a lingering North American winter–and a vision of hell. I soaked up the sights, sounds and aromas along the Mayan  Caribbean and then came home determined to find out what can be done only to discover the enormous scope of marine debris. Trash gyres the size of Texas, statistics about the  numbers of cigarette butts and plastic water bottles collected from the world’s beaches.

I know – where have I been all this time? Landlocked. Saving wild landscapes so there is something left of the wild for tomorrow. But thousands of miles from the ocean I could surf the web of electronic communication and find out what is already being done — I discovered Oceana and The Blue  Ocean Institute. I nearly gave up in the face of information about national policies, politics, and economics. But I know better. I know that one letter can make a difference.

I printed out lists of cruise ship  companies and came across some good news. Of the 15  companies I wrote, 5 wrote back–including the Disney Corp. I discovered that there are corporations working to reduce the amount of waste and garbage extruded into the oceans every day.

And back in Mexico – in Playa del Carmen and along the route south of Tulum on the  Peninsula forming Bahia de Ascension – there are well marked recycling bins and many local citizens picking up trash.

And the bottle – the one I spin on my desk  that is there to remind me that I don’t need to drink water from a bottle? Through a series of water passageways it could end up in the ocean and stuck on a reef or in a fish’s belly. Or I can bug my city government until they pass a bottle bill. How about a deposit of 50 cents?$2.00?

The King is Dead, Long Live the King. The Phnom Penh municiple dump in Stung Meanchey, Cambodia closed in 2009, and many may say thank god. This was an horrific place, where the poorest of the poor, eked a living from sifting the garbage for recyclables like plastic, glass and metals. The dump still exists but has been moved to a new location several kilmetres outside of the city and the people who worked on the old dump have not been allowed to move with it. No scavenging is allowed on the new area. This is certainly good news, in many ways, but what happens to those people who worked as scavengers and now have no resources or skills to fall back on, is their life made better ? Where do they turn ? I am sure NGO’s such as The People Improvement Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund, For the Smile of Child,Pour un Sourire d’Enfant, will do what they can to help, but I doubt there is any central support planned. It is my intention that this be an introduction to a series of follow up articles where I will endevour to find out what has become of the scavengers and how they are surviving without access to the dump.

Many, I understand, still live around the old dump area in Stung Meanchey. Have their lives improved or are they living even more desperate and impoverished existence ? Have those who came from Rural Cambodia returned to their former homes ? These are just some of the questions that I would like to find answers too, but, I am sure many more unanswered question will be raised during the course of my research.

Potosi, Bolivia Miners: 5 Centuries Deep is a photo documentary project that aims to explore the changing face of the mining community and mining industry in Potosi, Bolivia. Photographer Irina Zhorov hopes to bring more awareness to
the present situation of the miners, the surrounding towns, the country’s nationalization efforts and work with foreign companies in the context of a Colonial past. It’s a beautiful and terrifying place that has, according to lore, yielded enough silver to build a silver bridge from Bolivia to Spain. In reality, it does not fall too short of that claim – it was the biggest silver mine in the world and has been mined continuously for about 500 years. With ore deposits close to exhaustion, new foreign companies operating on site, and a president that promises not to repeat history’s mistakes in Bolivia, changes are afoot. Whether the mining industry in Potosi is changing or, perhaps, yielding its last is yet to be seen and this project aims to document it.

Please read more about it and help make it happen at Kickstarter: Potosi, Bolivia Miners: 5 Centuries Deep.

A miner in Potosi, Bolivia

Traveling opens one’s eyes – not only for the beauty of this world, but also for its inequalities and injustices. This was also the experience of Corinna-Rosa Hacker when she traveled through India in 2008. Fascinated by the colours of the country, but disturbed by poverty and the lack of opportunities for socially disadvantages children, she realised that everyone could contribute to the fight for equal opportunities for children all over the world. Within a couple of months, she gathered an agile community of young professionals from business, public administration, academia, arts and cultural affairs and set up the non-profit organisation “Stella*Finance” in Munich, Germany. They all share a vision that education is the basis for a life in independence. Meanwhile, Stella*Finance has developed into much more than a local endeavour; its network of members and active supporters stretches to Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Paris, New York, Delhi …

Street children in Delhi

The idea of Stella*Finance is rather simple: to provide a direct link between supporters and institutions offering basic education for those in need. As a registered charity, it raises money at various fundraising events, such as charity auctions and concerts, as well as by collecting in-kind and financial contributions and promoting and administering an individual child sponsorship scheme.

Due to the close personal relationship between its individual members and staff of the supported institutions – which Stella*Finance considers essential for securing the proper administration of funds provided –, there is also the possibility for volunteers to work on-site. In all its activities, Stella*Finance takes care to ensure the sustainability of the projects it supports; it restricts its activities to help to people to help themselves: Only locally run projects are supported.

The first project supported by Stella was the Delhi “Udayan Care” education centre for street children – orphans, kids that have been abused, abandoned. The centre does not only provide them with primary education, it also wants to enable them to live in a family-like environment by drawing on volunteer mentor parents. Its long-term objective is to reintegrate those kids into society. Udayan Care is currently taking care of more than 130 children, most of them girls, in nine different places.

Jamyang boarding school

Stella also supports the Jamyang boarding school in Leh, Kashmir (India), which is located in the Himalaya´s Ladakh region. The teaching staff comprises four teachers, two supervisors and one monk. In 2008, schooling started with 54 kids from most remote areas of the mountains; a new class of similar size has started in 2009.

The children have been selected in view of their needs: from the poorest families, often with parents not capable of raising their children properly, and not having any other chances to get primary education. The school supports in particular girls which are at risk of not being supported by their families at all.

Addis Ababa

Most recently Stella*Finance accepted to support a project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: a vocational training school providing professional education to young girls coming from local orphanages. The project, initiated by the local NGO “New Life Community” and supported by other international partners, offers a three-years course for future administrative assistants, thereby giving the orphan girls a much better chance on the job market.

There are more projects currently under evaluation in accordance with Stella’s fundamental principles and its Code of Ethics, notably an educational programme for refugee kids in Munich, Germany, and an orphanage in Hanoi, Vietnam. And the team of Stella*Finance is eager to expand its help even more in providing education to children in need. Because, as the saying goes: “If you educate a child, you will educate an entire village.”

For updates see www.stella-finance.org

October 15 is Blog Action Day 2009, and this year’s theme is Climate Change. So, come on bloggers and let your readers know what they can do to make a difference.

Head over to blogactionday.org for more information.

We’ve all seen the images and heard the statistics. Hunger–indeed starvation–is something that people face all over the world. Many people in Africa and Asia are just one poor harvest away from starvation. Children in the U.S. will soon be at the end of school, and while many will rejoice, many others will lose the only healthy meals they have had for the past 9 months. Global warming, development, poor farming techniques and limited fresh water are threats to the food supply that are in our future. It is easy to be bleak about the outlook for the world food supply.

And yet there is reason for hope. People are learning sustainable farming techniques. Organizations like Heifer International give people the means to produce or purchase their own food, those getting them out of a cycle of poverty. That is why bloggers are uniting today to publicize hunger and the needs people are facing today and in the future. Please consider a donation to Heifer, your local food bank, or another hunger-related charity. Bring hope to someone who is hungry today.