Poverty in the Face of Resource Wealth

I know what “transparency” is but mostly from my days as a photojournalist working with color slide film. So when the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) came to MediaStorm to create a multimedia piece explaining what they did, it took me a while to figure it out. In the process, I learned a lot more.

For this story, I had the pleasure of traveling to London. Berlin and Washington to interview 6 people that represented all sides of the issue. Fifty or more countries in the world are rich in resources: gold, silver & oil but more than half of their population lives below the poverty line. This projects looks at why.

Maybe the new paradigm is someone like me traveling with 2 HDV cameras, tripods and mic stands plus my laptop. In each country, I worked with a camera person (Kimberley Williams in Washington, DC, Karveh Shirdell in London and Bjorn Forster in Berlin. We used a single light for the interviews. I edited the transcripts and pictures and cut the piece.

Of course, none of this would be possible without all the amazing photographers bravely working in these countries.

Thanks to all for teaching me so much.