New Humanitarian Photography Interest Group
Lately there have been exciting conversations about photography among NGOs, thanks to a new group called the Humanitarian Photography Interest Group. Group leaders Ann Hendrix-Jenkins of the CORE Group and Laura Pohl of Bread for the World recently asked me to join them in leading the group. We’ve already had two good meetings.
Our last meeting dealt with the tricky issue of getting consent to take people’s photos, diving into questions like why we need to get consent, the difference between consent and informed consent, when you need to get consent in writing, how to deal with consent for children, and a lot more. Though we didn’t record the session, you can read a summary put together by Linda Raftree, who tweeted the main points of the meeting and put those tweets into a Storify summary.
The group will meet probably once a month, and cover issues like tips for hiring freelance photographers, proper use of photos, photo ethics for NGOs, how to train staff in photo techniques and just about everything else related to photos and NGOs. Though the meetings take place in Washington, DC, anyone can join the meeting by phone (we had more than 50 phone participants in the first meeting). If you’re interested in joining the conversation, please contact Ann Hendrix-Jenkins at ajenkins@coregroupdc.org.
I’m glad to see this is being talked about. When I went to photo school the emphasis was about being the “fly on the wall.” Don’t interact with your subjects and don’t interfere. While I find that practice to be cold hearted and wrong it’s certainly not something that can or should be done in humanitarian photography. I’m looking forward to being a part of the next conversation!