American Photo: NGOs To The Rescue

Is American Photography magazine finally getting serious and useful? I don't know if that's really the case but its website published another interesting article this month (yes, two in the same issue!) on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their growing influence and relationship with photographers. A similar article was published by PDN a year or so ago, but it was only available to subscribers.

My experience working for NGOs has been limited to a joint effort in Vietnam, and a handful of times photographing eye-clinics in India, so this article has given me a lot of information and guidance should I ever want to re-enter the field of NGO photography.

Social-documentary photographers interested in having a career working with NGOs will find this article a good starting point. As the article says, new opportunities have recently opened up, allowing photographers to make, exhibit, and publish work that has little chance of being seen in magazines. NGOs have increased in numbers during the past 20 years, and the internet enables NGOs to form coalitions easily and cheaply, enhancing their reach and providing photographers with a potentially vast audience.

Here's something I wasn't clued in to...the article advises photographers to explore the viability of establishing their own NGO: "Rather than partnering with an already existing NGO, many photographers create their own, which they target to a specific cause such as empowering poor communities through photography. When you create your own not-for-profit, you keep all the money you raise -- and it's tax-free."

Here's another interesting tidbit in the article: Phil Borges has found generosity within the photo industry: Getty Images donates office space to Borges's NGO Bridges to Understanding, while Hewlett Packard has printed an entire UN exhibition of his work for free. HP printing Phil's work for free makes a lot of commercial sense, since it probably gained publicity from the UN exhibition.

Click on NGOs To The Rescue for the full article.