ISSP 2019 Publication - Photography and the World

First and foremost it has to matter to myself. It starts
from a personal connection in some way, whether
the location or the people. That way you have an
emotional involvement, you automatically care a lot
more and want to represent it in the most sincere and
honest way.
To create a story that matters, I start from the closest,
most personal point of view possible, and then of
course it’s good to expand and include a group of
people wider than that.
In this world there’s a lot of repetition, and things
tend to repeat themselves in history or in different
locations. It’s never just one person experiencing
something—there are others going through the same
thing even if you don’t know about it. That commonality
might be painful—it can be trauma—but it
can become what connects you to others.
Linda Muižniece
In my case, it’s the pictures that make my heart feel
sentimental or sad. It’s difficult—very difficult—to
tell a sad story in a way that is not too obvious, but
this is what I want to do, what I want to share.
Kai Yokoyama
It depends on the story, but sometimes there are
some situations which are connected to me personally
with my friends or relatives, or sometimes
situations just affect me because it’s so strong in
emotions. There are different cases. I did a story on
missing persons, and another on sex slavery. Maybe
because of the problems I work with, they’re social
problems, they connect to a lot of people.
Ekaterina Balaban
First, I find stories that matter to me, and then I try
to see if the story is somehow relevant to a bigger
audience or if it’s just a personal project that
doesn’t really concern others and is more like personal
therapy. If there’s an element that’s universal
or global, then there are probably other people
that have the same feelings, and there’s a story
that matters. You find stories by talking to people,
and by showing it to see the reaction, if people are
engaged by it or if they don’t really care.
Feedback is important.
Anna-Tia Buss
I focus a lot on participatory and collaborative
work so, for me, to see if it really matters, I feel
that it should start with the people who are actually
featured in the project. When I see this dynamic of
023 Does this make you laugh?
024
Should this be funny?