An African photo
2002-02-25 11:40
Paris - A women's bathhouse in Morocco, a movie studio in Cairo and the Lagos music scene are among hundreds of subjects that will be photographed across Africa on a single day this week to help in the fight against Aids.
One hundred of the world's top photojournalists, some still coming to grips with their new digital cameras, will fan out across 53 African states on February 28 to bring back snapshots for a book entitled A Day in the Life of Africa.
The mammoth photo-shoot has drawn photojournalists from 20 countries, including Pulitzer prize-winners, members of the famed Magnum agency and laureates from the World Press Photo competition.
The photographers, who include about 20 women, are leaving from Paris this weekend.
Project creator David Cohen said he had been inspired by prize-winning photographer James Nachtwey's coverage of the Aids epidemic in Africa.
"I always said that if there was another holocaust, I wouldn't be one of those who'd be sitting around, and effectively this is a holocaust on a massive scale, a holocaust that involves neglect," said Cohen, in Paris for the photographers' final briefing.
He and project manager, Australian Lee Liebermann, are donating proceeds from the book, the 14th in the Day in the Life series, to Aids education programs in Africa. It stands to raise $1 million if 100 000 books are sold.
The pictures will also be displayed on a website and in a travelling exhibition.
Tarzan images
The project aims to fill the space between what one photographer called "Tarzan images of Africa" and refugee camp shots of the victims of hunger and war.
"We have asked the photographers to be hopeful, because they tend on their usual assignments not to be; we asked them to capture pictures of everyday life, which they don't ordinarily cover; and we asked them not to think of Africa in terms of the usual clichés," Cohen said.
Organisers have trained all 100 photographers to work with digital cameras, some for the first time.
The photographers, who were canvassed for their own ideas, will have about four days to get their bearings before the shoot begins.
"People expect us to hang out with tribes or in the bush, but I'm not an anthropologist," said dreadlocked Afro-American photographer Jeffrey Salter, assigned to Uganda.
"I want to show the things that people don't normally expect to see; to see when other people are blinking," added Salter, who will be spending February 28 with Miss Uganda.
Miami-based photographer CW Griffin is flying to the Ivory Coast capital Abidjan to track down traditional folk dancers.
"I want to make the ordinary spectacular," he said. "In America there is a big misconception about what Africa is, that it is this open land where animals roam. They just don't see the modern metropolitan Africa."
With the entire project taking two years from conception to publication, the book will be published in November and sell at around $50 a copy.
"The Day in the Life series shows extraordinary pictures of everyday events," Cohen said. "Africa is always shown as hopeless; well we are trying to show there is hope."