THE UMOJA PHOTOGRAPHERS

2018

By Standing Voice

August 16^th, 2018

Silence falls, faces illuminate.

The Umoja Photographers are sat, huddled in a dim room, transfixed by the sight of their work on screen.

For the first time, their intimate portraits of life on Ukerewe Island are reproduced at scale—in vivid quality and captivating detail—as their instructors help them to analyse their own and one another’s photographs.

The Umoja Photographers are a talented collective of Tanzanian creatives using photography to document their world and ignite social change. Based at the Umoja Training Centre on Ukerewe Island and formed by Standing Voice in 2017, the group is a mixture of young people with and without albinism passionate about photography as a platform for professional empowerment and a weapon to unearth marginalised perspectives.

Photos by Brian Benson and Ebrahim Mirmalek

The group recently reunited for Standing Voice’s second annual Summer Skills Workshop, this time under the guidance of international professional photographers Brian Benson and Ebrahim Mirmalek, and local facilitator and translator Yohana Ladislaus. Over the course of one week, the Umoja Photographers expanded their technical skill sets and started to explore the entrepreneurial possibilities of their craft. More than that, less tangibly but somehow most palpably, they bonded as a collective, beginning to glimpse their own power as observers and storytellers: mirrors, able at once to reflect their society and to furnish a space from which it can be critiqued.

“I had my apprehensions about running a photography workshop for people with albinism: how would I teach the intricacies of lighting to students for whom light can be uncomfortable, and even threatening? How would I encourage precision, and an instinct for composition, among people who are visually impaired? Fortunately, I had the pleasure of working through these difficulties with Brian, an extremely talented photographer from the UK who ran the workshop alongside me. Together, we overcame these issues to deliver an accessible and stimulating course.” Ebrahim Mirmalek

Photography workshop leaders Brian Benson (left) and Ebrahim Mirmalek (right)

“As much as possible, I encouraged participants to capture glimpses of their own individual realities through photography. Rather than focusing on the unusual or spectacular, I wanted to convey the enormous power of the real, the material, the mundane. People’s everyday lives are so beautiful! Opening our participants’ eyes and encouraging them to capture personal moments, to tell real stories, enabled a shared vulnerability through which the group became closer, forging stronger connections to each other while also taking stunning photos!” Ebrahim Mirmalek

“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. Beyond these skills, the group 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.” Brian Benson

“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. It was wonderful, too, to see the photographers using their cameras as a tool for social integration: something to take pride in and draw confidence from; an entry point for conversation with others.” Brian Benson

Photos by Brian Benson (Left) Sabine Zetteler (Right)

With the cameras that Brian and I crowdsourced abroad and left at the Umoja Training Centre, the photographers have the resources to begin capturing and sharing with the world their authentic perceptions of what it means to know, or be, a person with albinism in Africa today.” Ebrahim Mirmalek