Be part of the first ever 24 hour BLOGATHON for the Through Their Eyes Africa Project.
So what is Through Their Eyes Africa?
In 2008 a team of very well known wedding photographers will travel to Africa to help one of the most needy people on earth. Who you ask? So far the team we are looking at is David Jay, Jessica Claire and myself and we will be adding another photographer or two to the list.
We are going to a remote village in an area in Northern Kenya that has received little or no help with their trials from AIDS and Malaria. It is rumored that there are even places in this area that all the adults have died and only children are left in the villages. This is a very remote place where there is no electricity, no TV, no media exposure at all and believe it or not a place where they do not even know what a camera is. Besides health issues like AIDS, Malaria, water problems an starvation, the biggest danger are elephants!
We will each teach a young African adult to use a point and shoot digital camera. (Hear that Canon, Nikon or Fuji. Who wants it to be their cameras we use?) Each one of us will mentor our chosen student and try in 5 days to get them to be able to shoot pictures on their own. We will leave the cameras with them for another 2 months then gather all the images and each photographer will then do post production and create a traveling Fine Art Photography Exhibit that will go around the country to bring awareness to the needs of these "forgotten" people. We will also produce a coffee table book of the images. We want to get a picture of their society through their eyes. What do they think is beautiful, funny, tragic, happy, or sad all through the pictures they take.
Well that is the project in a nut shell.
You can visit the Through their Eyes Africa site for all th details or the Through their Eyes Africa Blog for up to the minute information but here is what we are doing. We have a very basic web site now but a very cool site is on the way thanks to Bludomain that has donated a site and hosting to the project. Thanks Blu.
We need to get some funding to get the project off the ground. I will be traveling with the first ever medical team to this remote area with Global Hope Network International, our on site partner for this project this August and will do a test run for the 2008 project. It will be expensive reaching these isolated villages and although I will be part of the medial team for part of the trip, I will be left for several days in the bush to try to train a young African to take pictures. You get the idea. It costs money. I have donated all my time to this project but the cost for something this big is beyond what one person can do. It takes a partnership. I think by the time we do the 2008 project we will have corporate sponsorship but for now we need help. I believe this project can generate a lot of interest and money for these needy people so I am going for it full speed ahead. The August trip is designed to show this will work and to get some great images.
So what is this BLOGATHON thing and how can I get involved.
I am asking everyone that I know that has a blog to do a post at 6PM pacific time on July 9th and leave it up for 24 hours. We will provide you with a PDF page you can post or be creative and do several posts to drive traffic to our Through Their Eyes Africa Blog. I will post every hour on the hour for one whole day! There will be prizes, giveaways, special videos, and even the world premier of our theme song. We will be in the sound studio this week recording it. There will be a silent e-mail auction and what ever else I can dream up this next week.
So if you will participate then send me an e-mail to david@throughtheireyesafrica.com and tell me you are in and I will start the list. So here is the list so far of who will be part of the first ever 24 hour Blogathon!
David Jay
Jessica Claire
David Hessemer
Lets get this out there and do a great thing. This is Wedding Photographers Gives Back. Heck American Idol Gives Back got $7,000,000 in a night. Come on now lets do a big thing here. Wedding Photographers Gone Wild, Africa style. I hope you will be part of history here. Hope to hear from you soon.
