Manufactured Reality

"In deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects. Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are." Susan Sontag on photography.Photographers show what they want the audience to see, the same way painters do their work. If the photographer feels a beautiful woman is one that is of fair skin, slim and has blond hair, then that is what he will show. If the photographer wants to show what poverty looks like, the photographer will travel to communities filled with poor people. They do not capture reality but what they understand or feel that reality is in their own understanding.I remember being back in Africa watching American movies and the movies will show the rich, clean and beautiful areas of America. I believed that America was just beautiful and not so many gangs of black Americans. When I came here, I was blown away to see the sides of America that the films I watched failed to depict. The quote from Susan Sontag "clicked" because I experienced it.

The reality is that I'm proudly African but I try to portray other sides of Africans that the media fails to portray. As much as we are proud and embrace our culture, we also accept modern changes. We basically try to manufacture the reality of what the media portrays Africa to be. I'm torn between two cultures. It's hard to try and balance two cultures. I just need to be myself and do what I feel is the "true me." That's why I chose this picture