
The Ethics of Photographing Slums
My eyes are filled with tears because of the smoke. The plastic particles in the air are irritating my lungs. I'm climbing this mountain with my two friends.
My eyes are filled with tears because of the smoke. The plastic particles in the air are irritating my lungs. I'm climbing this mountain with my two friends.
When politicians talk about the gap between the rich and poor or racial divides, they're usually not being literal. But as Cape Town-based photographer Johnny Miller shows with his startling photo series Unequal Scenes, the gap in South Africa is literal... you just need to get airborne to see it.
Given the utter ubiquity of photography in the USA, most Americans probably don’t view photography as special. But in impoverished areas around the world, personal photos can be rare. On visits to her birthplace of Kolkata, India, Bipasha Shom frequently took portraits of people she met, and she was struck by how many people lacked access to a camera and had no family photos of her own.
Soccer, known as football around the world, is played by hundreds of millions of people in hundreds of countries, making it the world's most popular sport. However, a large percentage of its enthusiasts are unable to afford actual soccer balls to play with. Instead, they fashion their own makeshift balls out of things they have on hand -- things like socks, rubber bands, plastic bags, strips of cloth, and string. The DIY balls may be difficult to use and ugly in appearance, but each one is a treasured possession of its owner.
Belgian photographer Jessica Hilltout decided to turn her attention and her camera lens on these one-of-a-kind creations, documenting "football in its purest form" in Africa. The project is titled AMEN.