Seed: Students for Education Empowerment and Development

So far, one of my favourite tasks we’ve done here is our photography project called PhotoVoice. Taking pictures is one of my biggest hobbies, so I’ve definitely identified with the assignment. I love taking pictures; I love both the artistic quality of a good picture and the act of capturing a moment of my life in film so I can extend its memory beyond that moment.

This project involved more than just handing out some cameras. First, we had to choose five guardians to participate; our students are too young, we thought. They were chosen somewhat randomly because all we did was chose different relationships and found one of each: one mother, one grandmother, one grandfather, one sister, one uncle. We chose people we thought might have something interesting to tell us about in the pictures, like the grandparents who make their own alcohol to sell for income.

We gave each of the participants a disposable camera to take one roll of pictures. We showed them how to roll forward to the next exposure and how to use the flash button (which we tried to stress that this was important for indoor shots—there’s very little electricity for indoor lighting), and highlighted the need to keep fingers out of the way. A few quick trial pictures on the demonstration disposable camera, and they were off on their own for two weeks to take pictures of what was special or important to them, what they wanted to share with their community, what was a part of their lives. (But of course, only one took the full two weeks; the others were done in a day or two. Believe me: we were quite excited to see what was on the film!)

After developing their pictures, we interviewed each of the participants so they could tell us about each picture. We made sure to record the interviews along with our notes so that we could get their own words—after all, this is their story. (Though we had to use a translator for most of the interviews, we still tried to get their words. Thankfully, Paul tends to pepper his translations with “I don’t know, that’s their words” so we think we’re getting it accurate.)

Yesterday was Exhibition Day. We invited about two hundred people from the community—including school headmasters, our sponsored students and their guardians, and the PhotoVoice participants—to view each participants’ five favourite pictures and read the captions about each photo. We had Coke and Fanta and buns for everyone, too. Everyone said they had a great time and loved seeing the photos of people in their communities. Some people had questions for the participants, who gladly talked about their photos to viewers.

This project has not been without problems. Digital cameras would have been ideal because then we could have properly demonstrated and practiced taking good pictures. As it happened, many pictures couldn’t even be developed—one participant only received 9 of 27 exposures! One participant had her camera stolen by her sister, so when the photos were developed and she couldn’t explain the significance any of the photos (which were mostly her sister’s children), she admitted what happened. We gave her the “practice” camera, which had about 20 exposures remaining, and she had just one day to take her pictures, but luckily they turned out and we were able to finish hers on time.

But there were also a lot of successes. Watching someone take their first picture was amazing. Having people from the community admire our participants’ photo collection was even better. While we expected to learn a lot about the daily lives of our students and their families—and in fact did learn a lot—there were some unexpected lessons I learned as well.

One thing that stuck me during the interviews was that people said they wanted to take the pictures to have “reference points.” Guardians took pictures of their child returning from school so that, when they were older, they could see what they used to look like. They took pictures of their children eating so that the children, if they grew to be successful, could see how they used to live. They took pictures of neighbours carrying water jugs so that their neighbours could see what they look like when they do this demanding chore. There were pictures of women plaiting each others’ hair, neighbours washing the laundry, and children collecting maize meal from the market. They just want a recording of their daily lives. Maybe this is a basic human desire: a desire to have a recording of one’s life for both personal reflection and communal sharing.

Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. ~Edward Steichen

Melanie Ferguson
Overseas Intern – Zambia