that's really interesting. I'm also frustrated with the ignorant media portrayal (and even photographers' series) on photos of the Middle East & Islamic world, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, China, etc.

I dare anyone to show a contrast of a Muslim woman kneeling in prayer and covered up in an abaya or chador. then show the same Muslim woman in the next photo, wearing a pretty short dress and laughing with her family over dinner.

The self-consciously cheesy cell-phone-and-thumbs-up in the second pairing ruins the effect a little. It makes the "finest" image looks more constructed than the "poor" image as a result.

The first pairing is great however. The "finest" picture is just the guy, relaxed and laughing.

Anyway, the photographer also made a specific choice in color balance too. The "poor" images are washed out a little, as those kind of photos often are. The "finest" photos (especially seen in the first one) have a much warmer tone. Far more lively and happy.

Reminds me of the standard before-and-after diet ad photos. The "fat" picture is generally low toned and the person is rarely smiling. The "skinny" picture is warm toned and the person looks happy. Specific composition choices to widen the apparent gap in comparison.

I love the contrast of the hands between the images. The hands alone in the 'poor' images evoke all those solicitation ads I've seen -- in odd, aimless positions or reaching out.

The hands in the 'dressed to kill' images are purposeful -- holding a cell phone, holding an umbrella ... involved with the person, not disconnected. (I may not be expressing this well.)

Huh. I wouldn't have thought the hands would be the first thing to strike me in these images. But there you go.

The views that we hold and influence our people toward as 'the liberating west, givers of aid, rescuers of the downtrodden' needs victims to 'liberate, freedomize, and save' it is not in the best interest of those being 'saved' to be portrayed as powerless victims, but we do it anyway. It is extremely ethnocentric and it makes me really angry.

Good post.

I love these! They're similar to a game I like to play with old black-and-white photos: imagining the people therein with modern clothes and hairstyles. It reminds me that they're not old-timey people, as though that were a different species; they were just like the people I know, but in a different cultural context.

Of course, sometimes that culture is extremely problematic (I'm not necessarily saying the one above is), but that doesn't mean the people in it are simply objects to be pitied or hated or whatever. They're still people, and are reacting to that environment/experience/history the way many others would in the same situation.

so what is the message? should Unicef and other organizations use the "happy pics" instead? i sure as hell wouldnt donate to the cellphone-guy, he seems to be doing fine on his own! ( yea i know he isnt, from the context of this, but if u show that photo and ask for a donation i dont think i am convinced).

nice photo series idea, as a documentary sort of, but i dont think it would make great critique as there is a reason those organizations use the pics they do. i think the question is what do we see in the news about Africa and in the other media? they should take more responsibility in showing other sides of Africa, as there naturally are many sides to it.

If they showed pictures of smiling people I am sure that they would be criticized for not showing the reality of poverty by skewing it as too positive. I don't think that pictures will ever capture the complexity and wonderful properties of human beings in general. If I had to pick a way for it to be skewed, it would be towards the negative, in order to cause more aid. I am pretty certain that securing as much aid as possible would be my priority if I was in such a situation.

For anyone who is interested, Dr Fiona Ross of the University of Cape Town has written a great book called "Raw Life, New Hope" about the realities of living in an informal settlement near Cape Town.

The whole book is available to buy, or for free download at http://www.uctpress.co.za/catalogue/itemdisplay.jsp?item_id=9588&addprint=true&vol_id=

There are some great pictures in the book of people getting dressed up for a wedding i.e. in their finest. Its also a really great insight for someone who would like to know more about what being poor in South Africa is really like.

Just to add, I'm not involved in selling or promoting this book!

I was just thinking something related to this the other day, when I saw a picture of a "poor" mother and her child in a box, where you can leave clothes to be donated to the Humana people to people organisation. I started thinking about the differences of charity work within a country and outside of it; I could never imagine that an organisation helping, for example, poor families in my country, would take a picture of a mother holding a child and then print in on their adds! That would be invasive, dehumanising and breaking their right to privacy. So why is it not the same thing, when there are black Africans involved?

This is a matter of otherness; I guess no one in Humana organisation ever came to think, that someone looking at their box might know the woman and/or child pictured. It's not seen in the same way, rather, as mentioned above, all Africa is seen as one nation and all Africans (which, at least in here, actually meens all black Africans, because people automatically assume that being an African means being black - and vice versa) are seen as the same, poor people that, apparently, can't even be told apart from each other (my point here being that one can represent all the others, and that there's no concern of the privacy of the ones in pictures, as there would be of the people where white European).

This issue came up in a RedR training I was at last year--although we're going to be exposed to such images in the news, it's specifically identified as inappropriate and dehumanising for disaster relief organisations to use images of injured or suffering people in information or fundraising campaigns. This is a great project; I hope Duncan goes on to show us some images of women. There's no finery like the finery of a Malawian woman getting ready to do the town! I did development work there for a year and the local women I knew routinely either made fun of me or criticised me for looking so dowdy and utilitarian all the time.

"The photos of Bauleni Banda had the same kind of hilarity, with community members shouting out helpful hints on how to 'look more poor.'"

The mental image of this made me burst out laughing.

One other thing I wish people realized is that impoverished people aren't usually smelly or dirty either. It's a complete stereotype, and a very, very offensive one at that. In my experience, people in developing nations are usually as neat and tidy as possible, given their circumstances, and are quite hygenic (after all, for them hygiene can be the difference between life and death...it's not about trying to attract a mate or be fashionable). I have also noticed they tend to have higher standards of dress (unlike slobby Westerners who show up for formal dinners in jeans and baseball caps, or who wear shorts everywhere).

Give me an overweight American slob with too much money and too little motivation, and I will show you a lack of hygiene, stench and a disregard for dress standards that leaves the rest of the world in the dust. No offense, but the smelliest, grossest, most poorly dressed people I have ever encountered have been relatively well-off white people in North America.

I know that will rub some people the wrong way. I'm just saying, it's another stereotype much like the one addressed here.