In a perfect world, the subjects we wish to photograph would immediately want to tell us their stories and our lives would be easy.
But this isn’t a perfect world, our jobs are not easy, and that is what makes our work so rewarding in the end.
It isn’t easy for someone to understand why I want to sit with them and hear about their life and their stories. Part of what we have to do is communicate to them that they have a story to tell and that that story is worth being told.
We experienced our first problem to be solved today when we tried to contact our subject to set up a time and date for an interview. There seemed to be a miscommunication over the phone about who were and what our intentions were. This short interaction made me realize how much of an extra effort needs to be put into making people feel comfortable.
Our job as documentarians is to figure out a solution when we inevitably come across a problem. We face many challenges but it’s important to not let them get in the way of sharing someone’s story. I expected to face difficulties with the language barrier when we started working here, but I didn’t think we would have bumps in the road so soon.
In the end, it was all a learning experience that will better me as a person and as a photographer. I am still very excited to begin the Newborn project and hope to learn a lot from the generation living here!