“In moments of crisis, I myself have never greatly trusted words” – Laurens van der Post

As photographers we sometimes like to think about our pictures as art or at least as something with a high value. Or something very important, when it is about telling stories. And thinking in a commercial way, the value of the photograph that is used for an ad campain is high, without a doubt. Reason number one: It reaches a big audience that hopefully will react on the advertising. But what is the value of our pictures when we do documentary work? When we take pictures of lifes and areas in crisis? It is important and i think everyone who is doing this job is first of all believing in that this is important and no one is doing it for the money that in the business, as there is not much of it. This is not getting a ground discussion of the meaning of photojournalism and documentary photography, this are some thoughts of what value we bring to NGOs, as potential clients, with our work.

Let’s switch a bit between the perspective of a photographer and of an NGO. What are their motivations and why is visual media in general a good way to communicate? A NGO has normally one major goal: It wants to help people in one way or another. For that they normally also have a true motivation to create awareness for the issues, as more awareness means more people that might donate or support the efforts in other ways. And this is the part where the media comes in. I always think about my work as a form of communication. I don’t consider myself an artist in the classical way. I try to create something aesthetic to attract and move as many people as possible. I want to tell the stories, but if you want to reach people the aesthetics is one major part beside others. NGOs want to tell the stories, about the people’s situations (to create awareness that there is a need to help), about their projects (to show what is done) and what is achieved (to show that it actually works). How can photography help there? It is quite obvious that there is a big chance that pictures reach people more directly as most people learn visually. Another reason is for visual media as a form of communication are the high-paced times we live in. Most people will barely read a long report from projects or crisis (especially not on the internet), and if, it might be way harder the emotionally reach them. Helping someone is first of all highly emotional. Politicians might support countries for rational reasons, but what is the rational reason for a single person for supporting a godchild somewhere in Africa? Pictures or video have the power to give people the understanding of a situation they could only imagine when they read about it. It is more direct and therefore maybe also more emotional. So we as photographers seem to be on the right side. There should be a high value in commissioning a photographer to document projects or crisis a NGO is working in. But why isn’t it like that? Why are many NGO are barely paying for photography?

One of the reasons is that especially photography was easy to reach for them. Photojournalists were paid by magazines and could offer some of their pictures and/or time for free. That is today barley the fact. So why pay for something a lot of money when you could get it for free? That is especially for the bigger NGOs the case, i think, as they also have more contacts to photographers, could offer them access to areas and things like that. One Question in that is still if this photographs they might get for free always perfectly work, when they are just part of another assignment that is not specific about the NGO or their work.

NGOs have in general a hard position when it comes to spending money for something else than their projects, for something else than what they are set out to do: Help people. No one wants to donate money for a photographer, but to help people. How to give people the feeling that their money is actually helping and is not getting lost in a big machinery of office costs, advertising, events. That is in my perception another reason why NGOs try to keep that costs as low as possible. It is difficult to communicate especially when you are not sure that it will bring back the money you spent. And at the end it is the wrong thought to think that someone, a NGO (or a company) is paying for something where there are not sure if it will bring back the money they spent on it or create the awarness the campain should reach. And as said a NGO might be even more sensible for everything outside their direct projects.

From my experience so far (working together with smaller NGOs) it seems like that one other reason is that many NGOs do not know how to use the photography, what means it has no value. To bring up the beginning thought about the value of commercial photography again, what brings the value is coming with the same. The value is only there when it is reaching people, when you get people involved in the issue and projects, when they donate money. So thinking of a small NGO with few staff, no real marketing or public relations, some volunteer people donateing some time now and then, the major problem is to use the photography or video they should pay you for, when they have no channels to actually bring it to enough people to bring back the costs for it. And when no one is experienced with photography, the value of good pictures compared to some medicore pictures shot in the field, how should you tell them that they should pay you a flight and a dayrate for some pictures they use on their website afterwards? There is not enough value in this. Especially when the website is also done in the same style as the pictures were used to be. Also great pictures will not reach their value when it is presented in a not attracting way.

So do NGOs need photographers or visual media in general? Of course, but they need more than that. Everytime i worked with NGOs they asked me also for help to bring the stories out afterwards, to reach people. And if not, the stuff just got lost somewhere on their website without being recogniced at all. Maybe NGOs (especially smaller ones) need not only someone who is taking great pictures, great video, great multimedia, does great storytelling, maybe what they really need is someone who could offer them concepts. Who not stops after delivering the pictures, video or multimedia piece, who has a vision how to tell the stories that it works for the NGO, who could help to reach people, who knows a bit about marketing, about channels to reach people, about the possibilities of the use of different forms of media. Who brings in not only his abbility to shot great imagery, but also his knowledge how to get the audience. Someone who knows how to squezze the highest value for the NGO out of the assignment.

I want to tell stories that i think are important to tell. This is why i use video, photography, audio and words, because each medium has weaknesses and strengths. And i want that they are told direct and honest. And of course i want to reach as many people as possible with my stories. And i think that is the case for many who work in that field. So shouldn’t we be experts in what  i wrote before anyway? And isn’t it also not part of our job that we educate NGO staff about the value of visual media, not only to send us to the places in need (and pay for it), but also to get with a few steps more out of the staff pictures to rise the quality of visual communication on the average? Not for every issue there is the need for a photographer, sometimes the pictures of staff could be even more direct, when they are presented with personal stories for instance, but they will only reach people when they are good enough to tell the stories and when there are enough possibilities to communicate it to a bigger audience.

It is a quite difficult topic in any way and my thoughts in one or another direction are far from being thought to the end. But maybe there are also other important thoughts that i’m missing?