A couple of weeks ago I spent five days doing docu photography in rural Uganda on behalf of an education charity and their supporters.
For the charity itself it was an opportunity to capture life in rural Uganda and the work that the charity funds across the region. For their corporate supporters it was about capturing corporate responsibility images that demonstrated that their donations were making a difference to peoples’ lives.
Docu Photography – the brief
I knew the charity well and I had been on assignment for them two years ago but on that occasion I was new to the area and their work.
When they asked me to go back I had a better idea of what to expect and what photographs we needed to tell a more rounded visual story of their work and the impact it has.
So, on this occasion I wrote the brief and asked them to approve it; after all I was being employed as the visual storyteller and in this instance I felt that my experience meant I was better placed to write the initial brief for us to then discuss and agree.
As a result I covered aspects that we never touched on my last visit, such as spending time with parents of the children who were at school to see what home life was like and where the children came from and returned to each day. These visits resulted in a not just understanding where people lived but also what they did to get by and earn a living, which I felt was important for a charity trying to raise funds for schools.
Corporate Responsibility Images
I also had to take into account that I was trying to serve two objectives. On the one hand the charity was seeking images and visual stories that would help them to raise funds and awareness, whilst on the other I was trying to capture images that evidenced the impact that donations were having which I knew that corporate sponsors would want to use to demonstrate their own commitment to CSR and sustainability.
Keeping Docu Photography Fresh
Whilst I had a brief and a schedule of what needed to be covered each day – along with contacts and phone numbers – I resisted writing a list because I didn’t want to be a slave to ticking things off. My approach is to observe and then photograph.
At each of the locations we visited I asked minimal questions up front because I didn’t want anyone to influence what I was seeing or how I would capture the moments.
The videographer that I was with on the other hand wanted as much information as possible for very practical reasons. He needed to know what type of shots he might get, whether he needed a tripod, what sort of lenses to pack, whether there would be interviews and the like. It was much more complex for video than it was for photography.
I took two cameras with me a Leica Q with a fixed 28mm lens and a Leica SL2-S with 35mm and 50mm lenses. All of this went into my camera bag and over my shoulder, which meant that my photography was more nimble than video and given the same period of time at each location I had a greater variety of images than the videographer was able to get – simply because of the constraints.
Andrew Cameron and Docu Photography
I am a documentary photographer who work with retailers, the construction sector, manufacturing, and agriculture to engage audiences about change, sustainability, ways of working and project progression.
I work with my clients to create compelling visual stories that support employee communication, investor relations and external stakeholder engagement.
Find out more about the services I offer here.
I have written a book, Making Documentary Photography, which can be downloaded here.
You can read other articles about documentary photography here.
You can contact me here.
