Your Photo, for Your Soul Please.

What is your philosophy around raising money? It would seem that there’s a spectrum. 

• On one hand you have: “Within the limits of the law, earn as much as you can to do as much good with it as you can.”
• And on the other level, for some, particularly in faith communities, it would be: “as you’re presented opportunities, see what happens.”

Wherever you are on this spectrum, you’re challenged to deal with the matter of story, and how you present the story. When it comes to humans, this gets particularly challenging. The further removed from the subject itself, the more challenging it gets for us to tell the full, accurate, nuanced story. Our brain is wired for pattern matching, for shortcuts, for “if this, then that.” For example, when you start telling the story without the human in the room, it’s hard to give the real picture. 

Speaking of pictures, one of the most important ways we’ve told stories for decades now is through photos. Digital photography, combined with social media has enabled charities to tell a part of a story unlike anything before. Which has left me wondering if our assumption that:  “just because we can, we should” is always right.

Photos create caricatures of a person, at a time in a place. A good photographer and charity will ensure those caricatures are relatively accurate, a poor one will over accentuate certain parts and leave out others. Caricatures are necessary when fundraising, without the subject “in the room” - without your ability to have the person themselves tell that whole, complete and nuanced story. However, when you spread that caricature or that story around without enough thought on these platforms: a picture, without their humanity represented, and just a call to action, are we really stewarding that story with the fullness and intent we should be? Is the exchange that was given: the subject's story, their likeness and heart a fair one in exchange for us plastering it across the web to raise money, a fair one? 

Some cultures were apparently particularly wary of photos because they thought it took a piece of their souls. How much more wary should they be if they knew charities like ours sold those photos to a corporation that undermines their very democracy, so that our caricature of a stay at home mom who is particularly vulnerable to their dark skinned, round face, might be specifically targeted to click, give and be re-targeted around the web forevermore. Amen. Something tells me that the consent form you had them scribble their name on in the field didn’t quite talk about how their face would be sold in a callus auction for a penny more than the next guy to a platform who’d use its profits to help elect a new Senator, who in a particularly ironic twist would double down on the tariffs that ultimately would further drive their country into poverty. But hey, the lighting was perfect. 

The further removed we get from the person themselves telling their story, or even being present in the room, and the closer we get to building a caricature, or an idea of a person (and then spread that caricature without much thought across the internet), the greater the chasm we build between “us” and “them” and I’ll predict overtime the less chance we’ll have at creating meaningful, lasting change. This isn’t about ads, or auctions or even Facebook. It’s about what they represent. Stories, particularly of those we seek to serve whether they’re told in photo form or other should be treated with respect, and the ease of taking and sharing and selling photos in exchange for donation dollars (i.e. ads to FB) has eliminated our need to consider the human cost of giving away these stories.

Charities will applaud themselves for coming a “long way” since flies-on-eyes photography. Looking at this “like a scientist,” I have to wonder if that’s true? On one hand, most charities take beautiful, dignified photos wherever possible and balance the realities of the field without guilt and drama. On the other hand, photos and quotes have never been plastered further across the web, sold in bidding wars between tech giants, used in cold A/B tests on your favourite mail client, only to be tossed if the girl with short hair underperforms against the girl with long hair. 

The wonderful thing about photos is capturing the beauty and awe of a person and the work without being there. Photographers are artists and the digital age has given us so much to celebrate. The downside of telling a story with an overdependence on that image is that you lose the chance to share in their humanity, their agency, their failures and successes… their name.

I don’t have a short answer here. Visit our site and you’ll see some beautiful photography by artists - real artists I love (and love to work with - please don’t fire me).  We need to start making changes. But I will offer these takeaways so that this piece can be more than a rant:

1. Let us first ask ourselves if we know the name and story of the subject of each of our photos we’re currently using. Try to think back to when the picture was taken, and dig into it a bit. 
2. Now imagine how they would want their picture used. What if they knew it was being sold to Facebook for a penny more than your ‘competitors’ photo, or cropped and tossed digitally in an A/B test? Just as a heart check. See where you stand there. Consider how you would feel about your face or your child’s face being seen by all your friends, strangers and family in that way just because you got a free meal once and signed a waiver? 
3. Consider removing one photo that you feel is too sacred to be shared anymore. As I was pausing and contemplating this, there’s one of a newborn and her mother - it’s a beautiful shot, but it’s too beautiful. We shouldn’t share it anymore. When I get back to Uganda I want to start printing and giving photos back to the subjects - perhaps this could be done by you too.

I didn’t write this post with an end in mind, but rather with the goal to process to think with my team and with you what might be done to ensure we’re not just patting ourselves on the back for taking ‘beautiful pictures’ unlike those that came before us, but using them in a more damaging way. The internet has given us such incredible tools, and my hope is that the photos you take and the stories you tell lead you to build a more beautiful, whole world.