Disclaimer*: The articles shared under 'Your Voice' section are sent to us by contributors and we neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of any facts stated below. Parhlo News will not be liable for any false, inaccurate, inappropriate or incomplete information presented on the website. Read our disclaimer.
This post is also available in: العربية (Arabic) اردو (Urdu)
Pakistan is one of those countries that tend to fall victim most often to negative media portrayals. In this hustle and bustle of showing terror, politics, and poverty from Pakistan, many local photographers are using Instagram as a medium to showcase the real side of Pakistan.
Recently, International Organisation National Geographic announced their 2018 Travel Photography Contest, and they have excluded Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan and many EU countries from this contest. “Theek hai bahir nikal dia, lekin yahan se photos kyun nahe?” Okay, if Pakistan is excluded then they shouldn’t use any photo taken in this land of pure by any other nationalist.
Apparently, how will our local photographers feel once someone wins $10k from a photo captured in our country but you cannot even enter the contest? This is not about dollars or grants, this is decades of exclusion and visual exploitation by western publications and photographers.
Earlier this year National Geographic accepted that their coverage was racist. We haven’t seen National Geographic ever saying that a villager from Pakistan was extraordinary. Absolutely, we cannot argue that the magazine will feature stories from local photographers of Pakistan or other South Asian countries like India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and others. Whenever they do any project in Pakistan, they send their own photographers to our country to capture our people while local photographers can capture a more beautiful image of the country.
Why we always lack behind and face exclusion? This is because we don’t promote our local photographers. This is because a lot of us are swayed by numbers and tend to follow photographers with a huge following. This is because of our lack of understanding of the visual language. This is because we are besieged with colonial vision imposed on us for decades by outlets like Natgeo. Lastly, this is because we see everything but stay blind and closes the door to every opportunity we get to speak.
While local photographers are using Instagram and email services to contact NatGeo and asking about the exclusion of Pakistan into the photo contest, we as a community need to support our native photographers. That’s the only solution we can fight this discrimination factor.
