Full Frame: From sunup to sundown

Full Frame features photo essays and conversations with photographers in the field.

I’ve always been passionate about images and photography, but I didn’t find my way as a photographer until I connected this passion with journalism and the larger human story. I am increasingly troubled by the degree of inequality among people, and disappointed in the traditional media. But I am also convinced of the power of photojournalism, fascinated by the ways a photograph can touch someone. I made a conscious choice: I would use photography to speak of the human condition. Photography allows me to express my own personal, subjective vision. I want to dedicate my life to caring about people.  

What’s the point? I often wonder that myself. What can any photo do for this man? (See photo of a rickshaw driver in the monsoon, Kolkata.) He’s an economic refugee from the state of Bihar, India, where the land has been bought up by Western companies that don’t need him anymore. Now he pulls his rickshaw from sunup to sundown, for next to nothing. He shares a tiny room in a shantytown with 10 other people. What can a photograph change for him? Sometimes it’s hard to notice the changes photography makes. Yet I remain convinced that powerful, authentic images allow us to see the connections we are often too self-centered to grasp. When a photograph opens our eyes in this way, we better understand and accept other traditions, cultures and people. And when we witness the suffering of people like us, we have a responsibility to share what we see with our friends and loved ones. Everything is connected. Perhaps nothing will change for this rickshaw driver. But if his photograph helps make a connection here, then it’s worth it. 

Photography is above all a moment of intimate contact between people, an opportunity to share your common humanity with someone who may not always have a voice but always has something to teach you. It is a human medium. You put yourself in someone else’s shoes. A transposition occurs: you see what you have in common with a Masai, an Arab, an Indian; you see what these people have in common with you. 

In a globalized world our neighbors are not only those who live next door. If you accept the logic of the “global village” for international trade, you have to accept the flipside: social problems abroad are our problems as well; we are inextricably linked to them. In my photographs I leave room for hope, a long-term hope for a better, more harmonious world.

About the photographer:

Renaud Philippe is a French freelance photojournalist based in Quebec City, Canada. After getting a degree in journalism, he fell in love with India and the Himalayan regions where he has traveled several times. He co-founded the collective Stigmat Photo. A self-taught photographer, Renaud is very active in the local press and teaches photojournalism to Somalian refugees in Kenya and Bhutanese refugees in Canada. At 25 years old and at the beginning of his career, Renaud is deeply determined to follow his way and to make his pictures become a tool to awaken the collective conscience on social issues.