Rwandan Landscape
By Genevieve Williams
It‘s difficult to create something when someone tells you ―NO,‖ and that sentiment seems to be the general consensus when it comes to portrait photography and photojournalism at my site. I find myself too scared to take out my camera most days, and when I finally feel enough comfort to do so I get glares or unwanted attention. My temporary solution to this problem
involves me being sneaky with my shots, but, alas, it‘s not easy for a white girl with a camera to not be seen in this country much less keep rhythm in church choir, but I am getting ahead of myself. What makes a photograph so special is the relationships the photographers develop with their subjects and how they choose to portray that relationship.
Ansel Adams would spend entire days (sometimes weeks, but I could be exaggerating) setting up his camera in one spot of Yosemite for one image. He had a relationship with that park for years and even though the digital age has allowed many tourists to photograph the same place to death, nothing has compared. Every photographer creates different images because each one has different relationships to what he or she photographs (which goes hand in hand with each of our experiences as Peace Corps Volun-teers). However, just like integration, it takes time to develop that relationship to make a good photograph and so far, for me, it‘s been a slow process especially when I‘ve been trying to find where I fit in a community that perceives me as being so different.
What I have for you now is a sort of timeline of my nine months in Rwanda consisting of my favorite images ranging from the training in Nyanza to the commute to my site. What I hope to show you in the future are the more meaningful relationships I have developed with my neighbors and fellow teachers, but we‘ll save that for another day.
involves me being sneaky with my shots, but, alas, it‘s not easy for a white girl with a camera to not be seen in this country much less keep rhythm in church choir, but I am getting ahead of myself. What makes a photograph so special is the relationships the photographers develop with their subjects and how they choose to portray that relationship.
Ansel Adams would spend entire days (sometimes weeks, but I could be exaggerating) setting up his camera in one spot of Yosemite for one image. He had a relationship with that park for years and even though the digital age has allowed many tourists to photograph the same place to death, nothing has compared. Every photographer creates different images because each one has different relationships to what he or she photographs (which goes hand in hand with each of our experiences as Peace Corps Volun-teers). However, just like integration, it takes time to develop that relationship to make a good photograph and so far, for me, it‘s been a slow process especially when I‘ve been trying to find where I fit in a community that perceives me as being so different.
What I have for you now is a sort of timeline of my nine months in Rwanda consisting of my favorite images ranging from the training in Nyanza to the commute to my site. What I hope to show you in the future are the more meaningful relationships I have developed with my neighbors and fellow teachers, but we‘ll save that for another day.