Postcards

I have been working on scetches for the MS Uganda Calendar 2007, and after finishing I got somehow carried away with the idea of making postcards illustrating life in northern Uganda.

I have been thinking about it for a while - the challenge to present northern Uganda in its true colors, and avoiding the pseudo-romantic style. Besides, most postcards you can buy in Uganda are real crap (bad quality of the photos and the printing).

When using photos within MS Uganda, the represen-tation of men and women, geographical areas, religious symbols and colors must be considered. Like if there are too many men, it is a bad signal gender-wise. Using a photo of a yellow bus makes people associate to the Movement (the symbol of the Presidents' party). When I have choosen a photo of a mosque or a man wearing his little round hat, people associate it with islam, and hence Christians could feel left out. Last year however, someone stated that maybe that was thoughtfull (in the light of the Danish Muhammed cartoon story - and though we had no clue at the time, I liked the idea).

I like to crop people's foreheads, in general I abuse the cropping tool (while shooting the photo, but also editing it), which at one session made people go 'I want to know what else was going on that day, around that person'. I compromise when people want to be photographed in full body, it doesn't look right to me.

I'm thinking colors which match for the sake of shapes and general impressions, preferably completely regardless of gender, political or symbolic interpretations. So - difficult to escape this world completely....

Comments

[Tom L]

Love that one with the flipflops!