I was at Woodford (in southwest Queensland, Australia) over the weekend to attend the annual celebration of indigenous cultures at the Dreaming Festival. It was a fantastic place where you really felt inspired by the positive elements of Aboriginal culture, the phenomenal talent there and the pressing need to continue preserving it for generations to come.

I didn’t really attend the festival with the idea of taking any photographs and brought only a point and shoot digital. However here are a few photos anyway.

Mornington Island women teaching festival goers a dance

Mornington Island dance group

Mornington Island dance group

Women from Mornington Island

Didgeridoo workshop

Market drawing

Doomadgee dance group

Doomadgee dancer

Dan Sultan

These images are not yet online however you can see other photographs of Aboriginal people on my website https://www.visitedplanet.com

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Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

One of the most common questions I am asked is how to approach people for a photograph, particularly in developing countries.

I probably take more portrait photographs than anything else as you can see from my website. Portraits are probably amongst the trickiest photos to get because while it’s easy to get photos of a person it may be less easy to get photos about them. But I think the real question people are asking, is how I approach complete strangers for a photo, perhaps in developing countries where you may feel you are exploiting them.

Of course all of this is easier said than done as we often have to work hard to overcome our shyness or their’s. I usually follow some of the following techniques:

1. Engage the person first. The more time you spend with people they are more likely to allow you to photograph. In aboriginal communities in Australia this is often the case. I’ve spent a bit of time in some Queensland communities where the children are asking you to take photos of them by the end of the week. However there are cultures in which photography maybe taboo or be regarded suspiciously. The important thing is to be sensitive to people and the reactions they have to you and your camera.

Aboriginal kids

2. I keep my camera out in the open and let them have a good look at it. I don’t hide behind bushes or do anything covertly, everything is very upfront so people have the chance to refuse the photography.

3. I warm them up towards a portrait by first photographing them doing something instead of looking directly at the camera. For example I might photograph the hands of a woman sewing or take a wider shot before I move in to photograph her face, like this image of the old grandmother below in Vietnam. The first photo is not great but as she got used to me I moved in closer until I finally took this great portrait.

Sapa, Vietnam

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Aboriginal girl, Doomadgee

I just finished watching the fantastic ABC TV special tonight “The New Black” with short films averaging about 10 minutes telling Aboriginal stories. Wow! It was incredibly insightful about really pertinent issues such as rape, neglect, adoption, relationships and childhood in both Aboriginal communities and in the city.

Some of it was bleak, a lot was tough going but I often measure stories like this by the impact they have on me personally. And these films made me rethink experiences I have had with Aboriginal people both as a child at school when I might not really have been aware of issues going on for some of my Aboriginal classmates. And as an adult doing voluntary work in several Aboriginal communities and probably not fully grasping what’s involved in the drinking, truancy, suicide and relationships.

If these stories impacted me so personally and sensitively I can only hope that they have done the same for others. The incredible power of these stories are they are actually directed and written by Aboriginal people. They are telling their own stories and that is incredibly empowering both for them as a story telling people and for the wider Australian population. The director of Samson and Delilah, Warwick Thornton, said on the special that there is a real hunger amongst the Australian population for these stories.  I hope more are told and more people see them.

Which reminds me I still need to put the finishing touches to my Doomadgee Memoirs book, telling the lives of six people in a far north Queensland community. I’m still waiting for three signatures so I can print the book but I might just have to go ahead with only the three I have. You can read more about this project here: https://www.visitedplanet.com/page.php?f=doomadgee

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Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com