Exploring 'place' post-genocide

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Rwanda | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

I'm drawn to places after seeing beautiful or interesting photos of them, so I see photography as a chance to dispel myths about places & show the reality. Despite being one of the most beautiful & friendly places in Africa, Rwanda still suffers from a bad reputation following the 1994 genocide when more than 800,000 people were killed in just 100 days. If people are aware of how special a place & its inhabitants are (humans & wildlife), then other potential atrocities may bring the assistance of the international community more rapidly.

4 out of 5 of my photos have a dark side, reflecting the juxtaposition of beauty & tranquility with what occurred here in 1994. Photo 1 is taken of a place called Kibuye, which played host to the majority of killings during the genocide. Photo 2 is a glimpse of self-sufficient village life, but green leaves such as these were worn in 1994 to distinguish Hutu from Tutsi.

Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills & a million smiles. Photo 3 shows some of those hills which are recovering after environmental degradation. These hills are also home to the rare mountain gorilla whose expression in photo 4 reflects a dark history of civil war, poaching, deforestation, & a difficult task of conservation & protection ahead.

Finally, photo 5 captures some of the million smiles! The future!

This scholarship will give me a chance to improve my photography skills; I currently have an old & small, automatic Pentax Optio S6 so I am eager to learn more about manual photography (& buy a new camera!). It is also a chance to show the precious wildlife & environment of Bhutan to others. My photos may inform & influence people to support conservation projects there. My dream is to be a wildlife photographer so this may be the crucial first step!