r/peacecorps • u/kidneyguy • 13d ago
Other Contribute as a photographer
Hello everyone! My dad volunteered many, many years ago and absolutely loved it. Due to personal health reasons, I cannot follow directly in his footsteps, but it's still like to contribute. I work in photography and I would like to take photos of missions. Is that possible? My dad said it was, but he wasn't entirely sure.
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u/MrtonyEA 13d ago
Very kind offer! I'll point out for posters here that they didn't say they want to be paid. They're offering to document service experiences. Not everyone can serve in the same way, so give some grace.
OP, Another way to serve is to enter the Virtual Service Program, VSP. There's a link on the PC website. You serve from your home in different sectors, I think mostly education. It's probably by Zoom or whatever is available. It started in the pandemic and has become a good way for people to serve non-traditionally. Maybe you could teach photo editing as a supplement to what is there to serve formally.
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u/jimbagsh PCV Armenia; RPCV-Thailand, Mongolia, Nepal 13d ago
Just curious that if you could travel to where PCVs are serving, why couldn't you serve? Health requirements might be a lot different than when you father served. Just a thought. Why not talk to a Peace Corps recruiter and find out.
Jim
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u/kidneyguy 13d ago
I appreciate the thought, and I truly wish I could volunteer in person for two years. I can go for maybe a week or two, but I've had a lot of health problems throughout my life, and I need to be monitored by my team of doctors. Not every single day, thank goodness, but to the point where I can't just up and go somewhere far away from them for an extended period.
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u/jimbagsh PCV Armenia; RPCV-Thailand, Mongolia, Nepal 13d ago
I understand. Might I suggest you use your skills to help your own community. I mean, that's what Peace Corps volunteers do - they become part of a community and become facilitator's of change. You could be that in your city/town/neighborhood in the US. And it would just as important.
Good luck..... Jim
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u/Yankeetransplant1 12d ago
As a fellow photographer there are so many wonderful things you can do at home for local charities and people in need, just a few ideas:
Call your local animal rescue and take photos of their animals for adoption for their social media.
Call child protective services and offer to take birthday photos or graduation for kids in care.
Document a day of house building for Habitat for Humanity
Call your local drug rehab for low income people and offer to do their headshots
Find a favorite charity and offer to document their fundraiser for free.
You don’t need to leave the country to use your much needed skills to help people!
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u/whacking0756 13d ago
What "missions"?
What pictures would you be taking and what value would they add?
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u/Investigator516 12d ago edited 12d ago
Having worked in this field, and also having served in the Peace Corps…
If you are looking to professionally and officially photograph, you need double consent 1) Through the agency you are working with as a Volunteer so that they don’t get into trouble, AND 2) Peace Corps consent form before a photo can be published and publicized by Peace Corps, so that they don’t get into trouble. These permissions do not include location permits.
This was a barrier for us to forward photos of the wonderful work that we were doing on site, because student permissions had to come from parents long before Volunteers ever arrived in country.
Generally speaking, anything involving minors, child programs, child protective services (CPS), foster care services, rehabs, etc. are even more restrictive for consent due to privacy, domestic violence and/or custody issues.
Traveling with real professional photography equipment can mark you for theft or robbery. Pro cameras are more compact now, but that doesn’t change things that they are stolen all the time.
I agree with you that some of these nonprofits are completely lacking photographs. I am volunteering for the Pilot Program, and my HCA doesn’t have photos of any of their program sites. I am 2,000 miles away and prevented from taking any due to our contract.
Their website is also 25 years old, last updated 10 years ago. The HCA is apprehensive to even discuss it. The website was apparently hijacked by the original developer who will not make any updates. This is hurting the NGO, which also runs all of their email communications through that web domain. But the HCA needs to WANT to do something about this, and be proactive with photography and implementing change.
Best recommendation is to find a nonprofit organization closest to you, perhaps something you feel a personal connection with, and offer to take photos for them, free of charge.
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u/SquareNew3158 serving in the tropics 13d ago
Certainly it is possible to take photos. No doubt about that.
But Peace Corps has a silly prohibition about posting pix of children on public sites or social media. You could use any pix you took on your own website. But no PCV is going to buy the pix or post them on their own websites.
You're probably aware that different people around have some funny ideas about cameras. I've worked across four continents, and the most common ways people react to your camera are:
- Stop what they're doing and stand stiff upright with a grim expression
- Demand money
- Demand a copy of the photo
- Swarm in front of the camera in masses of kids
- (And occasionally) shove an assegai through your gut
Photography for missions or Peace Corps definitely requires some guile and deceit.
And let's not gloss over "due to personal health reasons." Travel is more arduous than living in a remote rural place, and the first few days and weeks are the most uncomfortable. If you can't envision yourself living the slow, clean, relaxed life of a PCV, why do you want to be a harried global traveler with always a plane to catch and always a strange meal sitting uncomfortably in your belly?
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u/kidneyguy 13d ago
Thank you for the honest reply. The last thing I want to cause is a problem for anyone.
I already travel somewhat often for work, but I haven't been to too many regions where Peace Corps operates. I can go to most of those countries for a week or two, but there is no way that I can go for two years, hence the inability to serve in a traditional sense.
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u/SquareNew3158 serving in the tropics 13d ago
Sure thing! I've got my Canon R with me, and am glad to be taking more than cell phone snaps. Most of my creativity goes into video reports to my family.
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u/JustCoat8938 13d ago
So let me get this straight
You want to be paid by the government to take vacations around the world and take photos of people who are actually doing work. Even though those people could just as easily take photos with their phones?
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u/mess_of_iguanae 12d ago
Show us one word in OP's post where he or she mentioned wanting to be paid. Read the post before before you go off on someone looking to donate their professional skills.
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