Kyle Feenstra
Photographer,
Educator, Historian
Photography plays a unique and significant role in the recording of our history. What I find most fascinating is how the photography of history shapes our collective consciousness. What we "remember" about the past is probably more closely associated with the images that become imprinted in our minds as we view life through the lens of a camera.
The history that will be captured by film and digital media are likely to overshadow all other accounts of the past.
Photographer,
Educator, Historian
Photography plays a unique and significant role in the recording of our history. What I find most fascinating is how the photography of history shapes our collective consciousness. What we "remember" about the past is probably more closely associated with the images that become imprinted in our minds as we view life through the lens of a camera.
The history that will be captured by film and digital media are likely to overshadow all other accounts of the past.
I have focused a lot of my photography on portraiture. Human expression is so multifaceted. We use our various expressions to reveal, hide or disguise the soul and our identity becomes wrapped up in all of this. Inevitably, photography will have a role in how we are remembered and also how those who did not know us will see us after we are gone.
My grandparents were the first in my family to own a camera. I now have their old medium format Brownie that they bought in the Netherlands in the late 1940's before they came to Canada. Hopefully you have had the pleasure of pulling out old dusty family photo albums full of irreplaceable black and white prints. The value of these images speak for themselves. In my grandparent's photo albums I turn through the pages of a history that does not only tell me where I came from, these pictures are a part of a history that has shaped who I am.
In 2006 I moved my life to the small nation of Burundi to teach at a small school in the capital, Bujumbura. I am not sure if I knew what to expect. On one level everything appeared as it did in all the magazines and photojournalistic work done in Africa. The images of poverty and human suffering were available at ever turn and at first I focused my camera on these pictures. However as time passed a different face of Africa revealed itself to me. The stereotypes started to fall away and I began to see Burundi for what it is, a nation of people who, despite their circumstances, are not altogether different from the folks I knew back home. They had the same ideas, inspirations and interests as everyone else I knew but in addition to that it seemed that their culture, place and time cultivated some of the most vibrant personalities I have ever encountered.
In Africa it first occurred to me that the work of photojournalism often teaches us a dehumanizing view of people in the developing world. I doubt that any photojournalist intends this but the kinds of images that grab a readers attention and the type of news that makes headlines inevitably creates a disproportionate emphasis on human suffering. I don't argue that tragedy is important to report, it is necessary. However there needs to be an honest balance between the tragedies and the rest of life.
As we unravel a history of war, suffering, conflict and corruption we must also dig beneath the surface of tragedy and uncover the strength, endurance, and resilience in humanity.
My grandparents were the first in my family to own a camera. I now have their old medium format Brownie that they bought in the Netherlands in the late 1940's before they came to Canada. Hopefully you have had the pleasure of pulling out old dusty family photo albums full of irreplaceable black and white prints. The value of these images speak for themselves. In my grandparent's photo albums I turn through the pages of a history that does not only tell me where I came from, these pictures are a part of a history that has shaped who I am.
In 2006 I moved my life to the small nation of Burundi to teach at a small school in the capital, Bujumbura. I am not sure if I knew what to expect. On one level everything appeared as it did in all the magazines and photojournalistic work done in Africa. The images of poverty and human suffering were available at ever turn and at first I focused my camera on these pictures. However as time passed a different face of Africa revealed itself to me. The stereotypes started to fall away and I began to see Burundi for what it is, a nation of people who, despite their circumstances, are not altogether different from the folks I knew back home. They had the same ideas, inspirations and interests as everyone else I knew but in addition to that it seemed that their culture, place and time cultivated some of the most vibrant personalities I have ever encountered.
In Africa it first occurred to me that the work of photojournalism often teaches us a dehumanizing view of people in the developing world. I doubt that any photojournalist intends this but the kinds of images that grab a readers attention and the type of news that makes headlines inevitably creates a disproportionate emphasis on human suffering. I don't argue that tragedy is important to report, it is necessary. However there needs to be an honest balance between the tragedies and the rest of life.
As we unravel a history of war, suffering, conflict and corruption we must also dig beneath the surface of tragedy and uncover the strength, endurance, and resilience in humanity.