Africa in the West’s eyes has stereotypically been seen through the gaze of Afro-pessimism, only seeing Africa has a place of disease, famine, war, and essentially primitive, and static. Through this gaze the west has sought out “primitive man” as an exotic, sensationalized idea that fits conveniently into the dramatic documentary work of many western photographers, such as Kevin Carter’s work with Sudanese famine victims and Steve Mcurry’s work with National Geographic. These sensationalized images play into the idea that Africa exists in a stagnant state, never evolving, and therefore not existing in the same modern context as the west. Moyo Okediji refutes these Afro-Pessimistic views vehemently; he states” The artistic object in Africa is constantly evolving with unpredictable volatility, because society is always mutating and no identity is static or permanently determined in its interpretive potential.” Moyo Okediji also takes this a step further, not just denouncing the ridiculous views of Afro-pessimist view, he evokes the theory of Al Jabara to heal the injustices and inequities of representation. These theories of balance, healing and evolving identity relate closely to the work of contemporary African Photographers. They are currently analyzing their constantly changing identity, and balancing the sensationalized and shallow techniques of representation the West deploys, by creating Anti-photogenic works, that are personal, humanistic in their approach and a direct rejection of Western techniques, that over sensationalize, primitivism and ultimately create a commodity out of Africa. Contemporary African photographers are deploying the theories Okediji sets in motion of Al jarbara, seeking to balance out the vast collection of Afro-pessimistic work of the West, with photographic works that reject western techniques, and depict a dynamic, evolving, vital Africa, that seeks to balance out the illustrative Western view, with a realistic and humanistic view.



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Western problems of depicting Africa: Steven Mcurry, Leni riestahl, Kevin Carter


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Early African Photographers and how they differ from previous photography of the west:
Sedou Keita, Sidebe
Humanistic, honorable, seeing African life as it exists and allowing the people in the photos to be the subject not the heroric acts of the photographers, or the exotic content that stripes Africans of individual identity and makes them alien.



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How photographers are seeking balance to stereotypes, Moyo Okediji talks about algebra and how it is an African theory, that seeks to heal broken bones, to bring balance, and how the work of these photographers are doing that. They are exploring their culture, their post colonial identity, and bring just images to the surface. They ultimately become artists of Mami Wata that travel globally to show an African View of Africa. Reference Enwezor and his tools of anti photogentic eye and how they seek balance to the over sensationalized eye of the west. How it is more humanistic in its approach and
This needs to be a very long paragraph or several paragraphs, this is the meat of my argument and my paper, everything after this is the research that supports my theories.

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Adrew Dosunmu and Nontiskeolo Veloko south African photographers that use fashion photograph to celebrate a post apartheid identity

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Colonial tension and the the artists that reflect upon the past. Allan deSouza, Zarina Bhimji, Otobong Nkanga

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Guy Tillman bring insome stuff from grey areas. Communites have every right to be suspicious of outsiders. Talks about the sensitivity needed to photograph subjects where you are an outsider.

Paragraph 7 Conclusion

Kerry Brown

Paris, je t'aime: David (Peter Sarsgaard, right) has just the sort of savoir-faire to charm Mulligan's quick-witted Jenny, who's eager to leave the suburbs behind for more cosmopolitan pleasures.



Life studies: A 16-year-old schoolgirl (Carey Mulligan, center) learns hard lessons — but also discovers a thing or two about the value of experience — as she navigates an affair with an older man.

Cross Processing

Cross processing (sometimes abbreviated to Xpro) is the procedure of deliberately processing photographic film in a chemical solution intended for a different type of film. The effect was discovered independently by many different photographers often by mistake in the days of C-22 and E-4 . The process is seen most often in fashion advertising and band photography, and in more recent years has become more synonymous with the Lomography movement.

Cross processing usually involves one of the two following methods:

* Processing positive color reversal film in C-41 chemicals, resulting in a negative image on a colorless base
* Processing negative color print film in E-6 chemicals, resulting in a positive image but with the orange base of a normally processed color negative

"The vast emptiness of the sky, as seen from the confines of an airplane seat, becomes a metaphor for the suspended travel of time."
-David Carson's Book : Fotograficks

http://contest.pdnedu.com/rules.shtml

Toensing Places
Focus on Places
National Geographic photographer Amy Toensing is your expert mentor in the Places category.
Photograph by Amy Toensing

When Amy Toensing traveled to Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal, and India at the age of 20, she realized that a camera offered her a way to engage the world. "I've always been curious," she explains, "and photography was a license to engage in people's lives, to discover more about places I visited. It gave me a role in the world."

Toensing was drawn to places through their people, and gradually her work evolved toward the social issues that shape everyday life. Whether documenting life on the New Jersey Shore or the Kingdom of Tonga, she seeks out the familiar rather than the exotic. "I look for the ordinary in the extraordinary," she says. "I think about place the way I think about people: every place has its own personality, its own moods. A good photographer becomes attuned to these."

Toensing captured the mood of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin drought (above) by photographing the barren land with a high horizon in the day's harshest light. She followed Simon Booth as he checked his ranch for growth after a rare rainfall. "It still looked like moonscape," she explains. "These people were simply overpowered by the dramatic changes in their world. Murray-Darling was the story of a landscape and of people's fading place in it.”

“Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man.”

Edward Steichen quotes