Hilary Spiteri: Photographing a Crisis

On Saturday 17th June, the Malta Institute of Professional Photographers (MIPP) commemorated its 15th anniversary by organising a seminar entitled “Photographing a Crisis”. The guest speaker was Lorenzo di Pietro, a journalist who in 2010 spent almost a month in the African continent where he traced and documented the tragic trafficing of human beings and the crossing of the so called illegal immigrants from Africa towards the European continent.

A brief insight into the activity conducted by Lorenzo Di Pietro:

Lorenzo di Pietro works as a photo and investigative journalist. He deals with matters concerning politics, immigration and foreign affairs. Di Pietro collaborates with several important Italian agencies such as Rai, Corriere della Sera online, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Il Punto and Terra.

During the seminar di Pietro shared his travel experience and demonstrated a hefty portfolio of pictures and video clips documenting his sojourn in Africa. The journalist stressed a very important concept that perhaps some photographers who are keen to capture a candid image did not bear that much. In fact, he made it clear that his images where not to present an aesthetically pleasing experience. On the other hand he demonstrated that his photographic documentation was to testify his passage in the African continent. Furthermore, di Pietro clarified that majorly he was using point and shoot cameras which made it possible documenting facts in disguise without ending up being caught by the austere African authorities.

The images presented by di Pietro offered a thorough insight of what is life in Africa and the poor and devastating way people live such as in places like Niamey and Zinder. The images presented and insight of the domestic life and the intimate domestic environment. In fact, as he explained, these images were only made possible through the friendship built on trust between the inhabitants and the journalist. Di Pietro explained that the gaining of trust plays a very important role in African communities. Trusts rewarded him a free passport to document and illustrate their present state of living.

Lorenzo di Pietro also showed to those present at the seminar a series of striking video clips. Their content presented the current hard situation in the African continent. All the video clips were captured either by using a mobile phone or a point and shoot camera. As stated above, aesthetic quality was not the aim of the reportage. Contrarily, the video clips brutally demonstrate the way the immigrants are left starving and with no water in the middle of the Sahara desert. As di Pietro confirmed, these people last till about ten days until they die in the middle of nowhere because of dehydration. Their corpses are left decomposing or most probably eaten by wild animals.

During the second part of this seminar an interactive forum lead by Sergio Muscat was presented. He was accompanied by Lorenzo di Pietro, Darrin Zammit Lupi (Times of Malta), Andrew Galea Debono (Human rights lawyer) and Maj. Ivan Consiglio (AFM).

On a personal note, I got acquainted with Lorenzo di Pietro the day after during a photo-walk organised by MIPP at Senglea. I had the occasion to share some time (also humbly offering him a bottle of water) with the journalist, this time not under the African sun but in a much more pleasurable Maltese environment. On a personal note, discussing with Lorenzo, despite of my humble Italian language speaking, was an enriching experience. Di Pietro’s humble and professional character inspires all those who in a way or another encounter him.

Also, thumbs up go to MIPP for inviting such a talented individual and for this wonderful experience.

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