Change the world with a shoot | Antonio Amendola | TEDxLakeComo

41 years spent between laws, decrees, new technologies, cameras, blogs, travel, old maps and GPS. Founder of Shoot 4 Change (www.shoot4change.net), an international network of volunteer social photographers, persuaded that life is beautiful and its beauty can be conveyed through "ugly" photographs that inspire others to make a social change within their communities.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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Eighteen minutes to talk about...

to talk, to try to talk about
the good use of the world when,

a short distance from here,

we have damaged Liguria, Genoa.

Eighteen minutes
not to talk about photography

but to talk, to try
to convince you, if I can,

of how small and big stories,

can bring a small social change

and change not the world but our worlds.

Now, 17 minutes and 30 seconds
to tell you about the birth of my idea,

the foundation of Shoot4Change,
how I had it, how I developed it,

how it is growing
and how it is consolidating.

Shoot4Change was actually born
almost by chance -

as it often happens
to understand in retrospective.

It was born as a blog.

With an old expertise,

an old personal story of blogging
and travel photography,

I started a new one
after the earthquake in L'Aquila,

and just on the eve of the World March
for Peace and Non-violence,

two years ago,

blogging on the social change potential
of the great photographs of the past.

In a short time,

a community started to develop,
even if I didn't feel its presence.

At the same time

as the World March
for Peace and Non-Violence

started from Oakland two years ago,

I was contacted by the organizers
of the march from Oakland,

and they asked me to cover the event
of the march while passing by Rome.

Having other parallel lives -

because Shoot4Change
is my second parallel life.

Sometimes I feel not so much
like Clark Kent and Superman

but more like Donald Duck or Goofy

and their undercover alter ego
for the parallel lives.

So they ask me to cover the march
but I was not available that day in Rome,

and so I published a post that I titled,

probably in a manner
even a little too provocative,

"Call to the Photographic Weapons".

See how this oxymoron often returns
in our terminology.

Shoot4Change is already an oxymoron

because in English shoot means
at the same time to take a picture

but also to shoot,

and change is both the social
change but also money,

so much so that during
the first days of life of our network,

it became a network of volunteers
from all over the world,

I had a big peak of accesses
from Washinghton!

Evidently they feared
that we were a group of mercenaries

shooting for money!

Then they reassured themselves

and realized that we are actually
just poor street photographers.

So, I made this call
to the photographic weapons,

and in a few hours

My mailbox was literally
overloaded with messages

and in a few days we managed to cover
not only Rome, not only Milan

but most of Italy down to Lecce.

New York, San Francisco followed,

until we reach the end in Argentina,

on the peaks of the mountains of Argentina
where the march ended its journey.

Well, there I understood
that maybe something could be done.

I understood that people wanted
to go down the street

and tell their own story.

Their stories, from their
own point of view.

So we started, we kept blogging,

asking people to not only
to tell us their stories of proximity -

one of our slogans, of our claims
is "Shoot Local, Change Global" -

but to come and do it with us,

or to ask us for help
when they were unable to do it alone.

One of the messages that I try to convey,
that we try to convey,

with our activities
and with our reportages

is not only to tell a story

but not to pretend
that we must necessarily emulate

the great photographer
of the National Geographic -

by the way many of them
are our voluntary members,

from Ed Kashi in New York
for National Geographic USA

to Alfonso Rodriguez
National Geographic Spain

and other great professionals,

but that with our motto
“Shoot Local Change Global”

it is enough to go down to the street,

perhaps armed just
with a compact camera, a smartphone,

and tell the stories of proximity.

What we called Social Photography Km0.

Hence the claim
Shoot Local, Change Global.

The aim, or rather at the end the result
that we have achieved

and that we are achieving
and that we are consolidating,

is an invitation to raise awareness,
to observe what happens,

to attentively look
at the reality that surrounds us,

asking people to take an active part
in a social change.

For us, our concept of social photography
is not only to stimulate,

to give a punch
in the stomach of the readers

by leveraging the classic
aesthetics of pain,

the drama of images, of tragedies.

We ask for a contribution.

And above all, we try to tell
those positive stories,

ordinary or extraordinary,
that in our small way behind the house,

bring a relief,

a positive change
in situations of social distress.

There are a myriad of stories.

Many small or very small
or tiny one like, in some cases,

those of associations of volunteers
that nobody knows.

We tell them for free,

we lend ourselves for free
to make professional photographic services

to those who cannot afford it.

So, we bring to the public attention
in a logic of true citizen journalis,

those stories that are not
considered remunerative

by the information Main Stream,
and thay are many.

Some people accused us
at the beginning, above all,

of being the ones who work for free
and who disrupt the market,

and destroy photo agencies or newspapers
because they work for free.

That's not the case.
I often answer these people:

"Would you ever tell the story
of a small homeless shelter?"

They say "No." "And why not?"

"Because no one would buy that story."

"Would you ever go
into a refugee shelter?"

"No, I wouldn't do that because
no one would buy me those pictures."

We do it.

Over time I developed this concept
of Crowd Photography.

I often remember,
I often quote on such occasions,

the old and famous African saying,
"If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far away,
go with others".

A photographer is enough to tell a story,

two are better off and three,
maybe four are even better.

Then it starts to get messy, of course.

But the more the better,

because each story
can be seen with 360 degrees angles,

360 points of view to be told.

And this enriches the story.

The concept of Crowd Photography

is a concept according to which
almost all our projects -

we try, we don't always succeed -

are the result
of the creative contribution

of people who maybe don't know each other.

And believe me, our method
is growing and consolidating,

not only with photographers,
but with creatives of all kinds.

We have painters and designers
who draft our logos and graphics.

We have musicians who compose
and give us the music for our clips.

We have journalists, we have writers.

We have all those who want
to put ideas online and share them,

and add a piece to the story
with their ideas.

We try to be unconventional
in our stories.

Also here, we often succeed,
sometimes we fail.

For example -

this is just an example out of many -

can a photo of a horse, or a series
of photos of undernourished horses,

tell us about the economic
recession in Europe?

Yes, it does. This is a reportage
that one of our Italian members,

who has lived for many years,
he's very young, in Ireland,

has never been able
to place in any Irish magazine,

because it seems in Ireland

they don't want to talk about
these social stories

because, say the magazines,
they give a distorted image of Ireland.

He discovered that one of the unexpected
consequences of the economic recession

is that many Irish,

who have typically always been very keen

to buy horses,

sell their horses in some fairs

run by the Irish Mob
in the suburbs of Dublin.

And they sell for 20, 30, 40 euros

already malnourished horses.

Obviously the kids, driven by enthusiasm,

buy them or barter them for mobile phones,

except after two or three days,

no longer being able
to afford the management,

not knowing obviously
where to put them at home,

abandon them in the suburbs of Dublin.

It's a story no one wanted to buy.

We published it.
It's been on the internet,

and it's an unconventional way
to tell an episode of world news,

unfortunately,
like the economic recession.

But we do not only tell unhappy stories
but also very positive ones.

This is one of a thousand examples
of projects that we keep every day.

Like this story of the Liberi Nantes,

a sports club we've been following
for years in Rome.

It is a club composed
of political refugees and asylum seekers,

which uses sport to free them
of the memory of the tragedies

from which they escaped.

We entered a refugee in Rome,
La Casa di Giorgia,

a refugees shelter that gives hospitality
to women asylum seekers,

and we discovered
that these women, these girls,

had never been in the center of Rome
despite having been in Rome for months,

in some cases even a year,

for fear of traffic, the city,
pollution and Italians.

They got themselves imprisoned
in thei rown cage,

which they had built themselves,
of commonplaces.

So we divided them into various groups,

we gave each one of them compact cameras,

some of our girl photographers
were accompanying them,

also for a matter of greater ease

in reaching empathy
between teacher and pupil.

We taught them roughly and quickly

to use a camera

and we went around with them over a month
and a every weekend in Rome,

literally taking them with us,
dragging them with us.

They had a great time.

The camera with which
they then portrayed their Rome

was a filter that made them focus
on looking at Rome through a box.

The thesis of our project

is that a city you know
is a city you recognize over time

and a city you recognize,
through your own photographs,

is a city in which you find
a level of trust

that allows you to recreate
and regain possession

of some social dynamics and,
eventually, inclusion.

The small photographic
exhibition we launched

after this project has gone around Rome
and is starting to go around Italy now.

It was a huge success.

Many other centers
are asking to replicate.

These little photographs
may have changed the world.

Now I'll try, in the
few minutes I have left -

I don't see it on the screen anymore,
seven minutes and 48 seconds -

to dismantle this concept.

That's probably not true,

I told you something maybe stupid,
photography doesn't change the world.

Rather…

Take this person, for example.

I met him in Cairo,
in the "City of the Dead".

Someone may know it,

it is the old monumental cemetery in Cairo

where over the years hundreds
of thousands of people,

mostly from the first waves
of Palestinian refugees,

years ago,

found accommodation
in and among the tombs,

in the mausoleums of the old
Cairo monumental cemetery,

creating a real society within Cairo.

Cairo considers these people
to be outcasts of society,

considers them immoral
because they live among the dead.

They have recreated their own ecosystem,

their own social environment
in absolute equilibrium.

Yet they do not exist for others.
These people live there.

This man had started
as the guardian of this mausoleum

and over the years he moved in
with his family.

I took a picture,

it started going around the internet.

It eventually didn't change his world
or the world in general:

I came back and he's still there.

These people, too,
live in the City of the Dead

and when I asked her to take her picture

this old lady with her grandchild,
she posed next to this tomb,

let's say the family tomb
in their courtyard.

I asked if he was their relative,

and they said:

"No, but we've lived here for many years,

it's as if he were.

We'd like to have a portrait with him."

This photograph
hasn't changed their world,

they still live there among the dead.

This other person, moving on, is Sergei.

Sergei lives in a homeless shelter.

From a semantic point of view,
this is something that makes me uneasy.

Do we really need to define a person
for what he doesn't have

instead of what he has: homeless.

He is Russian.

For many years now he's been on the street

and no longer speaks to or of his family.

When he asked me for a portrait,

he asked me to do it in half

because he says that he's missing
something in his life. He's missing a lot.

I came home, he's still there.

This picture, probably beautiful or not,
has gone around the internet;

it has not changed his world.

Carmine also lives
in that homeless shelter.

He lives in his own world:

he says he grows bees, loves his bees.

He no longer talks about his family,

he closed himself
in an embarrassing silence

when asked about his story.

This photo hasn't changed his world,
he still lives on the street.

There are many examples,
I need to speed up a little bit.

These are photos of the boats

with which the refugees
from the Middle East arrive in Lampedusa.

And they keep coming every day.

They escape from their countries,
from their human and social tragedies.

This photo hasn't changed their world
and they keep coming,

yet I told their story.
It served no other purpose.

This person lives in a refugee camp

in Bourj el-Barajneh,
on the outskirts of Beirut.

It's a huge refugee camp,

but it's not mapped
in the city of Beirut map.

He sells in the street, in the heat.

He goes around the camp
selling ice creams.

He sweats, he sweats a lot.

He walks and sells ice cream

in a place where everyone grows up
without social rights.

This photo hasn't changed his world.

He's still there selling right now,
well now he's sleeping,

but tomorrow morning he'll get up
and will continue to sell ice cream.

In the same camp I met this little girl.

For her, that Refugee Camp,
she told me - that is, they translated -

was her big playground.

She found it immense, enormous.

She doesn't know she is growing up
without any rights

in a place not even mapped,
as I told you, in the city of Beirut.

She'll probably be there
all her life, without rights.

Not only has this photo
not changed her world now,

it will not have changed it
in the next 20, 30 or 40 years either.

So, their world hasn't changed.
Photography probably didn't do any good.

My photographs have been
a hole in the water

and probably simply fulfilled their task
of tickling my egocentricity

in showing them to you,

a very typical characteristic
of us photographers,

to be rather egocentric.

They are still there.

What has probably changed, however,

is in the person who took the photograph.

Because I'm back,
I know those stories now.

I know they'll get up tomorrow morning
and will still be there.

I know that there is someone

who still lives
around the corner of my house.

I know that if I only decide to go down

there are a thousand situations
of social distress

that I can and must tell.

So, you now...

Somehow I fooled you.

I told you that social photography
doesn't change the world

but now you know those stories too.

Because, as we often say,

there are stories
that must and can be told.

And it's probably the narration
of these little big stories,

asking people to go down the street
and tell them with us,

that changes the world eventually.

This is our concept
of good use of the world.

It's good use not of naive people.

We are not dreamers, we are not idealists,
we are not activists,

we do not take part in social changes,

political movements, etc.

We tell stories.

We do it in a neutral and free way
for those who cannot afford it.

Because there are stories
that must be told,

stories that want to be told
and stories that have to be known.

Thank you.

(Applause)