Human Rights Watch held a press conference in Buenos Aires today to drum up interest in their latest report: “Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina.” I’m pleased to announce the cover image of the report was made by yours truly. It was great to put my photography to work for HRW. It’s even greater that it’s a relationship that has just begun. The next phase will involve my making for them a multimedia production, a topic about which I have been writing so much lately. (In fact, my writing led directly to this job, which is very cool and which I will explain below.)

For the “Illusions of Care” cover I was charged with making an image that spoke to the report’s theme — roadblocks to better reproductive health care for women and girls in Argentina. I could not show the identity of anyone I photographed, unless I obtained a model release, and so I focused on a graffiti-filled hallway in the maternity ward at Hospital Alvarez in Buenos Aires. (The graffiti “Aca nacio” features prominently in the image. “Born here” in Spanish.)

Actually, I was able to get model releases from a number of women I photographed. And some of these images show the women with distressed expressions that might have made a more powerful cover image. However, using one of these images for “Illusions of Care” would have been disingenuous, to say the least. The care at Alvarez maternity ward is excellent. The women’s expressions were the result of them being in various stages of labor.

Although many of the images I made at Alvarez were not right for the report cover, I’ll likely be able to use some in the multimedia project I am now working on for HRW.

Building Trust Was Key

A couple months back Marianne Møllman, the author of “Illusions of Care, contacted me to see if I might be able to make a cover image for the report. I told her I was very interested in putting my camera to work for HRW here in Argentina, and we began having a number of conversations over a number of weeks. Møllman had two big concerns:

1. Would I utterly respect the privacy of the women I would photograph?

2. How would we be able to convey all the themes of the report with only one cover image?

Issue Number One was the most important, and more than anything it required a lot of honest, open talking on both our parts. I couldn’t just tell Møllman I was a respectful photographer. I had to show her by asking questions about her work, showing my genuine interest in the topic, sharing my experiences living in Buenos Aires and also sharing images I have made that required a sensitive reporting approach. Over time she was clearly gaining confidence in me, but we were still getting held up on a “go” by Issue Number Two.

Issue Number Two is really not that big of an issue, of course. No one photograph can ever tell an entire story but can only give a sense of the story. For one cover shot that’s all we would want to do. Møllman seemed to appreciate the point and seemed close to saying “yes.” However,  she still had not given me a “go” for one cover shot when she suddenly gave me a “go” for a much bigger multimedia project. Let me explain.

Landing a Multimedia Job by Listening to Colleagues

My talks with Møllman overlapped with the reporting I was doing on my latest article on multimedia: strategies for photographers “moving into motion.” These conversations were getting me very excited about possibilities in multimedia (some of which I shared in posts featuring Tony Wu, Mary Lynn Price, Ian Shive, Ralph Clevenger and Rob Sheppard.) Of all the great thoughts from photographers racing through my mind, two were particularly prominent in relation to my life:

1. Photographers can learn multimedia skills on the job.

2. Photographers can increase the value of still imaging services by offering multimedia solutions.

With these thoughts on my mind I got an email from Møllman checking in about how we might proceed with a cover shot. Almost reflexively I shot back an email reply that seemed quite natural, saying something like:

“You know what we should really do? We should make a relatively simple multimedia piece that uses extensive still images and a voice over narration and possibly a little royalty-free music. It can be in Spanish and in English, and we can post it on YouTube and the Human Rights Watch multimedia site, and it can really help get out the information in your report in a different, very effective manner.”

“Yes! Let’s do it,” is basically what Møllman wrote back immediately

In short, while we had been spending a lot of time working to get to a “yes” for one single cover image, we easily and quickly arrived at a “yes” for a bigger multimedia project — agreeing on a fee that is reasonable for them and which makes me pleased as punch, especially considering — shh! — this is the kind of job I would be willing to do for free.

Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Conscientious Photography, Documentary Photography, Hospital Alvarez, Human Rights Watch, Ian Shive, Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina, Making Multimedia for Human Rights Watch, Marianne Møllman, Mary Lynn Price, Moving Into Motion, Photojournalism, Ralph Clevenger, Rob Sheppard, Tony Wu