BRIAN BENSON

The Photographer

By Standing Voice

August 22^nd, 2019

UK-based professional photographer Brian Benson first journeyed to Tanzania in Summer 2017 in partnership with fellow photographer Imogen Freeland, determined to support Standing Voice after witnessing our work earlier that year in the landmark BBC documentary Born Too White. Humbled and enchanted by his time on Ukerewe Island, where he helped to deliver our inaugural Summer Skills Workshop, Brian returned in both 2018 and 2019 to mentor our budding photography group. In 2018 Brian worked in collaboration with Iranian documentary photographer Ebrahim Mirmalek, and in 2019 he was joined by friend and collaborator Jim Fisher and journalist Sarah Bancroft. Below, Brian reflects on his unexpected odyssey into one of Africa’s most remote corners and most acute human rights predicaments. For the Umoja Photographers, he maintains, a promising future awaits.

Prior to my first trip to Tanzania in 2017, I was worried about teaching a visual medium like photography to people with poor eyesight. It sounds almost obviously problematic: how do you teach precision and acuity to students for whom detail may not be so clear? As soon as I got to Tanzania, those anxieties dissolved rapidly: I was stunned and encouraged by the resourcefulness of my students with albinism, who had a great knack for visual composition and would often outperform their peers who didn’t have the condition! Sometimes a student with albinism would need to look a little closer, or take slightly longer, but they would always get there in the end.

In 2017, I was eager to keep students focused on developing their photography skills. One unfortunate consequence of this was that I spent too much of my own time labouring over practical stuff like changing batteries and camera maintenance. In 2018, I decided to be more proactive and give the students greater responsibility in this area: even with all the talent in the world, the Umoja Photographers - a name the group unanimously coined in 2017, umoja meaning unity - will only thrive sustainably if they understand how to maintain functional equipment. For that reason, my co-instructor Ebrahim and I left behind plenty of cameras for the group to use indefinitely at the Umoja Training Centre, educating them in basic camera care so they can continue honing their craft in future.

Practicality aside, our teaching was comprehensive: how to hold a camera; use landscape and portrait mode; critically analyse composition; and observe the world through a photographer’s eyes. It is always exciting to see the development of the new starters. Their images invariably go from being shaky, blurred and cropped, to well-composed, sharp and well-exposed shots. Beyond these skills, the group has progressed to thinking outside the box and using their cameras as instruments of documentation or vehicles for telling stories. Photography is a powerful weapon for social change, and our teaching highlighted the importance of complementing technical skills with intimate storytelling.

By giving the students the cameras, we intended to put the story in their hands, to document their lives from their perspective.

One delightful bonus of mentoring the photography group was that we were constantly out on excursions. With the handy Summer Skills bus, the class welcomed several opportunities to explore Ukerewe in search of new settings for their photography. Invaluably, these journeys also made the group closer: on one trip in 2018, I noticed Kajula—a young guy without albinism, who’d been quite quiet the year before—sat at the back of the bus, singing his heart out with Mussa, who does have albinism. It struck me that the workshop was about so much more than photography. We were nurturing a community of friendship, understanding and respect. I felt like Kajula might return to his village with a fresh and positive perception of people with albinism, linking his own trajectory of growth and joy to the fulfilment of others, who may suddenly seem not so different after all.

On one of our excursions, we were invited to attend a local wedding. Yohana, our workshop assistant and translator, got on the mic and explained who we were, what we were trying to achieve, and why we were all mixed together, people with and without albinism. Then he asked Mussa to dance. It was truly powerful to watch someone with albinism, hidden away for years and shunned by his parents, to be celebrated by friends and strangers alike as he entered the crowd and occupied centre stage – a special moment, and one I won’t forget. I am particularly proud of Yohana. He is the bond through all of this, we couldn’t do this without him.

At the end of the workshop in 2018, as well as cameras, we left sleeves and printing paper at the Umoja Training Centre, enabling the young photographers to expand their portfolios over time and share their work with the public. In 2019, we wanted to focus on helping participants develop skills that can be utilised in a business capacity. We did an ID photoshoot to show the workshop attendees how to compose a proper ID photo against a background. Now if they want their own ID photo, they don’t have to pay for it; if they want to set up a business they can go and take the photo, come back here and use the printer.

The importance of these workshops—particularly for those lacking education or with few transferrable skills—can’t be overstated. Learning photography gives people a window of opportunity, a platform to transcend menial jobs and pursue a professional career that can both interest and support them. For people with albinism, the prospect of escaping outdoor labour and its associated risks of sun exposure has an additional layer of resonance.

Across 2018 and 2019, I witnessed a wonderful collaboration between the photographers and other groups at the centre, using their separate skills to enhance the work of their fellow peers. In 2018, the artists created brilliant paintings of photographs the Umoja Photographers had taken and in 2019, the photography team conducted a fashion shoot on the beach of the garments that had been created by the tailoring group across the week of workshops.

The Summer Skills Workshop brings an entire community together through shared experiences and learning. Peers become closer; assumptions are challenged. As with all prejudice, there’s a small minority we may always struggle to convert. But, if you can enable people with albinism to stand proudly, speak up, and reveal to their communities exactly who they are—just that: people—then that’s a massive accomplishment of which we can all be proud. The workshops always seem to flow really nicely, it is a lot of fun for those teaching and for the students. I can't help but come back each year!