Shortly after the earthquake in Haiti some photojournalism workshops were announced to be held in Haiti. The reactions on lightstalkers, duckrabbit and so on were, let’s say, harsh. One of the difficulties of discussions like that is that it pretty fast gets personal and in my opinion is in many ways missing the point and is creating just a lot of noise at some point, not really making any criticim useful at all.
Let’s have a short look in what was offered, before further thinking. The start was made by Andy Levin, who offered a ‚Photo Aid’ workshop in Haiti (which is running right now.). They not only want to teach a small group of students but also bring supplies. The second workshop was offered by Zoriah, bringing four students to cover the aftermath of the disaster with subjects like „working in disaster zones and other difficult and dangerous situations, survival and logistics in difficult environments, photograph people, working with NGO’s (Non Governmental Organizations) and aid organizations, editing and digital darkroom technique and marketing and making your stories available for the world to see.“ The whole thing was offered for 4000 $.
The idea to make a workshop in an enviroment where the last thing right now is to have more photographers in the country, especially unexperienced ones who might never have exposed themselves to an enviroment close to that before, might be hilarious in itself, but my thoughts go in different directions. The discussions were most of the time focusing on the aspect that they want to do money out of the disaster, using the tragedy of people to make money out of it. Especially Zoriah’s 4000$ was often criticized, even to the point that he is not worth the money and all that. The reply was often that all the other media was doing money out of it too. And that is right to some point. The question is in my mind is not if it is alright to make money with it. This discussion is existing as long as journalism exists. The big difference is that the media is bringing their work out to a big audience as the people in the workshop are doing it for their own sake without even seeing something published. Obviously that is nothing new as workshops are in first hand for a learning experience. And that brings me to my main concern. In my mind it is not really important if they do money with their workshops, it is also not a question if 4000$ is worth it or not for what is offered. This is just a thing if you are willing to pay that and when you pay that it is fine. It might feel shameless to do money in an area like that, totally destroyed with hundreds of thousands of people suffering. It really puts this ‚making money with the suffereing of others’ to a new level, but from an inside perspective they offer something where they want to get paid for. The question is for me way more if they bring something in what really helps the people, something more than the chance for the students to have some ‚disaster porn’ in their portfolios afterwards. Haiti right now needs all help that it could get to help the people build up their houses again, get the infrastructure running again, get oportunities to get education, jobs, all that. And for sure it also needs people who document that. It needs long-term projects that show that, keep the attention up for it. But offering a workshop for some guys that leave after a week again with some crazy stuff in mind and on their memory cards, is that in any way helping and sustainable? Why for instance not offer that workshops also to local journalists (for free!) to join the group and in that way maybe create the chance to let them tell the stories with new learned abbilities?
Isn’t the main question right now, if what you do in Haiti helps the people? And when you can’t answer this question with ‚Yes, it helps them’, isn’t it then maybe a better way to find other ways to support them? Like doing workshops somewhere else, but still donating money to the people (what Zoriah changed after some time from his original post, now donating 2000$ of each student). Does it need to be in Haiti, where the destruction is so big? Where the media coverage is so big? And where you might be in the way or more disturbing than anything else?
I would like to end with a short film produced by Cine Institute. They support young Haitian students with education in filming, postproduction and so on. I think that programs like that could be a way for developing countries to get a voice with using the internet and the alternatives that cheap decent cameras offer nowadays. Like we also did with our ‚With our own eyes’ workshop in Rwanda. To do a step away from the outside perspective of foreign journalists, but giving the voice to the ones that did not had the chance to speak out in that way before. These film was produced by Haitians directly after the earthquake, documenting their country, their losses and their suffering. Raw and unfiltered. Something we could learn from.
„I have a mission. It is to grab my camera and record the people’s suffering, all their sufferings, all their miseries and show it to other people in order for them to see and live what they had lived themselves.“
You can find more films on their Vimeo account here.
