Today i would like to bring your attention to multimedia producer Benjamin Chesterton of Duckrabbit. I came across is work from two directions. The first contact with his work was through Condition Critical, a project from Eastern Congo by MSF i wrote a couple of times in the blog before. Later we came in contact through the project ‘A developing story’ what Ben put up with a couple of other people and where i contribute to from time to time. A great project you should check out for sure. The purpose of the project is sharing multimedia from and about the developing world, but at the same time is a forum for discussions about how we picture the developing world and what could be done better or different. So if you are keen on working in that field, this is a place to get some inspiration.

Ben and i are brothers in mind in two major opinions. The one is about the picture of the developing world, the stereotypes, the never ending stories of war, famine and rape, the problems of b/w photography in this context and the single stories of Africa, that most of the time tell only one small part of the truth, seperating the viewer from the story instead of connecting him with it. We here, they are there – two worlds, not connected, only through our donations to charities. There is a big need to think about different approaches. The second opinion we share is the thought about giving a voice. We both believe to connect with stories it is about perspective and you change the perspective when only the journalist or photographer is telling the stories instead of letting the people tell their stories. And i believe it is also a form of respect for the people whos stories we tell.

Interesting enough Ben is coming from a different direction than i as he was working for the BBC doing radio. It is interesting to see how he approches audio totally differently as this is where he comes from, now adding the visual part. I’m coming from the visual side and now learn to use audio to support my visual storytelling. Quite interesting, at least for me, and a good place to learn more about the use of audio.

I want to leave you with a couple of articles and multimedia by Benjamin to the end that are worth watching or reading. First check out the story of Mishoka that won just two days ago 3rd prize for Feature Audio Slideshow for Best of Photojournalism 2010. An interesting must read is for sure ‘The blindfolded photographer’ raising some important questions. Comments are welcome!

Last but not least check out his full body of work here, check the blog for thoughts and inspiration here, connect on Twitter here and for sure check out ‘A developing story’ here. Below you can find a speech Ben gave a couple of days ago at the ‘Digital Storytelling 10′ conference, what gives a good insight in his work and thoughts about it.