Week 8

As I'm sure everyone is aware, the African cup of Nations is again upon us. In 2006 I was lucky enough to be in Egypt for the final (which they won) and could not believe the level of support. It was a little odd being a 15 year old white girl and being crammed into a 3x3ft shop with eight Arabs to watch penalties on an 8 inch TV screen, but everyone get's so caught up in it. We're known for our hoolaganism when it comes to football support, but it's a little different in Africa, as I'm sure you'll see from the photo's.

Week 7

On Friday night I was invited to the opening of the Africa Awakes photography exhibition in Poole. Africa Awakens is a series of exhibitions that started in August 2008 by Italian photographer Manuel Scrima. It is supporting the work of two non-government organisations (NGO's): ICROSS - International community for the relief of starvation and suffering, and NWI - New world international. I was very impressed with Manuel's photography and got to talk to him for a while about what I've been trying to do in East Africa. I nearly cried at one point when I recognised some of the children in a photograph of Nakuru, where I spent 2 months last summer. Hopefully I will be meeting up with him or some of his team next summer in Kenya. There might even be room for me in their car for a trip to Turkana! It was so refreshing to meet someone who is successfully managing to do exactly what I want to do. He can't do it as a full time job, because it doesn't pay the bills, but he is saving peoples lives through photography. If you would like to read more about ICROSS or NWI or make a donation, you can check out their websites http://www.icrossinternational.org/ http://www.nwikeny.com/ or the Africa Awakes website http://www.africa-awakes.com/.

Week 6

Wedding photography. What do you think? Sell out? I'm not sure anymore. I guess because I'm doing a commercial photography degree I've always aimed a bit higher, but is it really that bad? I mean, at least £1000 for a day's work, very little pre and post production and free cake sounds pretty good to me! My sister got married a couple of weeks ago and I've just seen the photos, which I have to say, I am very impressed with. I was expecting pretty boring, traditional photo's but the photographer has been very creative and produced some interesting, contemporary images. I probably wouldn't have thought to use a fish-eye for a wedding, for example. Morally, I'm still not sure where I lie though.

Week 5

SNOW!! On Tuesday morning I woke up to see the whole town covered in a beautiful white blanket. I've spent most of the week trying to snowboard on a body board, being told off be the chiropractor, trying again and not leaving much time for work or photography. I did, however, take a short break from crippling myself to hike up to the top of the Quantocks (part of my Kilimanjaro training). The view's there were unbelievable. Unfortunately my camera was broken so I only had my dad's 6mp Olympus which I've never used before and found very tricky through gloves in -25 degree c winds. I did manage to get some nice shots of the pony's digging for food in the end, though I'm not sure if they were worth getting hypothermia for...

Week 4

Now were coming to the end of the year, I've been noticing a lot of pages people have created looking back on the photography of 2009. It's weird looking back on everything and I can hardly believe so much has happened in a year. Some things I had forgotten about and needed to be reminded of. Historic elections were held in Iran, India and the US, some wars wound down while others escalated, Micheal Jackson died and China turned 60. These sites are really interesting and a great way of summing up a year from a non-personal perspective. Some of my favourites are the LA Times' 2009 in focus: The best of Times photography and the Boston Globe's 2009 in photo's.

Week 3

I've been spending a lot of time this week looking at the photo's of Zoriah Miller. The critically acclaimed photographer specialises in what he describes as "concerned" or "humanitarian" photography. He started off working in disaster management and humanitarian aid in developing countries but found that aid organisations are horrible to work for and the waste and miss-management made him angry. I can relate to this because I felt the exact same thing during my time in Kenya. He says that you need to find a balance: you need to spend enough time in a place to understand the situation and get close to the people you are photographing , but often if you stay too long, things start to become normal to you and you are not able to capture the intensities of a situation. This was a huge problem for me while I was in Kenya, but it's something I have learned from and will change when I go back. He also had some good advice for photojournalist's about how to cope with intense situations - 'it is important to realise that these situations exist, whether we see them or not. The choice is whether or not we do something about them. I choose to do something, but not let the sadness or depression ruin my life.' (some advice Kevin Carter could have done with.) When asked about his motivation, he simply says "My motivation is pretty simple..... I just want to change the world........ and I'm pretty sure I can do it."

It's difficult to get Zoriah's images, but you can check them out on his website - www.zoriah.com. he also has a separate website specifically for war photography - warphotographer.org .

Week 2

I came across Simon Bond in an article in the metro called 'The crystal gaze'. Born in Winchester, Bond moved to Korea and wanted to make images that expressed how different it was. Taking photographs through a glass sphere is his way of capturing scenes that don't seem real. "Travelling around Asia I often found myself seeing such alien images,' he says. 'Some of the sights are so different from back home I felt like what I was seeing wasn't real. I wanted to capture that on the camera. One of my favourites is the image of Suncheon Bay, which is popular with photographers and has been pictured to death. I was trying to find a way to get a fresh angle on it and realised the ball would bring a great new dimension.'