"BEAUTIFUL" PHOTOS

By Matthew Malek

You have likely seen this photo before. The sky radiates blue. The rolling ground shines the golden hue of dried wheat stalk. And a cluster of small huts sits in the center with thatched, dried wheat roofs echoing a marvelous simplicity. Hanging on the coffee shop wall, passersby smile at this photo. Beautiful? No. Behind many such photos, taken during trips to impoverished global communities, lie a cycle of abject poverty and death from preventable diseases. Such photos may be pleasing to the eye, but the beauty disguises a harsh reality. Promoting such photos as "beautiful" propagate the injustices that we seek to end.

A tranquil hut in Africa has behind it a sobering reality. One room may be home to a family of what used to be ten-two children that have already died of diarrhea. It comes as no surprise to the mother that she will pass at forty, the age she anticipated to be taken away without access to anti-retrovirals for her HIV. Another look at the hut reveals the lack of a well and sufficient arable land to keep the father at home and away from sexual temptations. This photo begins to reveal a new reality; it becomes a poster of injustice. To enjoy it, one must ignore the devastation it represents.

Countless photos taken abroad, if viewed with an understanding of the disease, poverty, and hopelessness they capture, are no longer enjoyable. As global health advocates, we must remember this every time we see such a photo.

There is a harm incurred by sharing such photos of suffering simply for their aesthetic merits. Many reasons can be cited for the continuing inequality across the globe: lack of funding for relief efforts, insufficient numbers of health workers in needy areas, and systems of power that perpetuate the injustice. Behind all these legitimate claims, however, lie two common root causes: ignorance and apathy among the most fortunate. Only in response to a broadly reaching social outcry for the human rights for all will governments and NGOs expand funding and support, sufficient enough to achieve global justice. Changing current apathy toward the realities of poverty includes changing the way we portray poverty in our photography.

The majority of people gain insight into global health and poverty from the images they see. These images come largely from those who are indeed advocates of global health rights, working abroad. Few people have the opportunity to experience dire poverty first-hand. Thus, when the public sees a beautiful image of huts sitting tranquilly on an African hillside, they do not see the disease and death lurking inside the dark walls of each home. Instead, they may see how "the poor live simple but peaceful lives"; they see "people who are happy with how they live". Impressions of this type represent a grossly romanticized and inaccurate view of poverty. This relatively unspoken, yet powerful, misunderstanding of poverty pervades wealthy societies and presents a barrier to beginning a social movement against poverty in developing nations. Presentations of impoverished communities through imagery and photography recreate and perpetuate false beliefs.

Most travelers instinctively, and justifiably so, desire pictures of their encounters to capture a memory or to share inexplicable experiences of service abroad with others. Unfortunately, the utility of photos as story-telling agents encourages individuals to frame the subject in a positive light, even abject poverty. For even the most well-intentioned champion of social justice, it is easier to avoid the unpleasantness of taking the harsh picture of the inside of the hut. The desire to please audiences at home with "beautiful" photos from travels, combined with an innate penchant for beauty, motivates individuals to take idyllic photos of circumstances universally recognized as unjust. Part of the solution, then, must be to recognize the opportunity to allow photography to capture images of injustice, and to allow these images to breed emotions of injustice in our audience.

To raise awareness and begin a social movement, it is necessary to engage and include a hesitant, and sometimes resistant, audience. One great asset for this outreach is photography. Photos are undoubtedly powerful. The choice of the photo used, however, must not leave out the truth. Photos can be both engaging and honest. Consider the "Partners in Health" web page (www.pih.org), which complements the text with images of people who are clearly facing difficulties but are visibly working to change their situation. Though these photos demonstrate the harshness of poverty, they engage the audience by focusing on the hope that activism can bring.

The repercussions of our photographs must be considered. Some photos of children may serve to present realities of malnutrition, while others may lead an audience to believe that malnutrition is "part of the way the world works" so long as long as the children are smiling. As a global health advocates, it is necessary for us to challenge the implications of our photos from abroad, so that one day there is less poverty available to photograph.

Matthew Malek is a second year medical student at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, NY. He can be contacted for questions or comments at matthew_malek@urmc.rochester.edu