One of the main goals of my work is to bring also the normal parts of life into my stories. And my experience was that every situation has this normal parts, no matter if you are in Europe or in the DR Congo (where i got one of the best cakes of my life for instance). There is more than the news hitting sad & horrific stories. My impression is that the human being is like that, highly adaptable and finding the ‘normal’ in everything. There might be differences in the situation, in the culture and there is nothing what makes war and poverty less horrific, but this is one side of it. It might be the part that influences life to a big extend and many other things are like that because of this, but it seems like that everyone is searching for the normality in the state of emergency, if you could call it like that. And the refugee in Congo without a home and the fear to get raped or killed by rebels or die because of some disease might be more in this state as the poor mother of three living somewhere in the Kibera slum in Nairobi.
Why i’m writing all this? Because i think it is important to think about that from time to time. That it is important to also get the other sides. From journalists you often hear that they are searching for the truth. And they might find this, but in many news stories it is about the state of emergency and not about what is existing beside or in that. One part of the truth is that we follow each other, that we are influenced by eachother. I was writing recently about redundancy in the coverage from Haiti. This is part of the story. Maybe it is important to step beside the obvious path from time to time. To get off the beaten track and search for something different than what you are used to. Find the stories beside the stereotypes we are seeing and reactivating on and on again. Why that is important, beside treating the people you photograph with the sensibility and respect they deserve? It is also important for all the people in Europe or the US that might be interested in that and see it. Just because it is important for the understanding of situations. In my mind, part of the job is also to educate people in the way, that you deliver knowledge and impressions. And when we want to step out of the stereotype way, tell stories differently, we have to find the other stories, to bring a deeper and brighter understanding of situations. That there is life, normal life, that a slum for instance is not a unorganized space of lawlessness, but that the people there are organized as well, that they organize their lifes, that there are structures and daily routines, that the informal sector is making it possible, that they sell drinks or fruits in a slum as well, that there are shops. That it is not a lost space, but actually a place where a lot of energy of many big cities in Africa is coming from. They might not have running water or electricity, what makes the situation hard and also brings many problems and dangers for their lifes, criminality might be a problem, but it is only one part of it. The biggest part is still the normal life, the daily routines and all that. And it is important to bring the other sides to attention, because we can’t understand to a situation as long as we can’t relate to it. The horror is the thing what brings up our attention for a short period of time, but in the moment something becomes more diverse, it also has the chance to get more interesting. And i really think that this should be the starting point for most coverage, no matter if it’s in Europe, Afganisthan, Thailand or the DRC, to make people interested beyond the point of sensationalism. Only then we bring something the attention it needs to make a long-term difference. Not in the way to help people, but first to understand them a little bit better and bring them closer.
Sometimes this stories do not have to be far away from the classic story. Sometimes it is enough to change the perspective a little bit. For instance many people have to live in IDP camps in DR Congo. We know that because we see all the pictures of people fleeing or standing in long rows waiting for food. But is that daily life in a refugee camp? Maybe not. Who knows how a refugee camp is organized or what the daily habits in of the people living there are? To be honest, many of this situations are quite different to what we have experienced ourselves and hopefully will never experience. But it is about perspective. And about respect. At least to try to understand it.
