Peter diCampo’s project, Everyday Africa, is a collection of iPhone photos taken by a group of photographers working throughout the continent.
The dominant 1990s narrative of Afro-pessimism—famine! war! strife!—is currently being swapped out for an equally simplistic narrative of Afro-optimism—mobile phones! emerging markets! Chinese investment! Ultimately, Afro-pessimism and Afro-optimism are both predetermined narratives with pat conclusions. Some critics of the old pessimism now claim that media coverage of Africa is getting better. But what does better media coverage of Africa mean? With a proliferation of different types of images, perhaps we can look past simple conclusions and find a more complicated narrative that leaves space for simple moments, like a woman doing laundry.
[…] Using the iPhone to photograph Africa takes the political act of representing a place whose “otherness” usually allows it to be a repository for our stereotyped narratives and instead renders them in the same color palette as yesterday’s summer afternoon BBQ.
We have so many ideas about what Africa looks like. Using an iPhone circumvents these preconceived notions and makes a distant place accessible and familiar. We don’t just need photojournalism about Africa; we need a whole new visual literacy. The iPhone’s shortcomings as a tool of photojournalism might be its strength in a battle against stereotypes—it normalizes images of Africa by participating in today’s dominant visual aesthetic. And this makes it revolutionary. (Glenna Gordon) More here.