Photography and storytelling provide meaningful ways to unpack and share what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown through your gap year experience. Now, the questions are: How are you expressing this? What do your images and captions convey about the places you’ve visited and your experiences there? Read on for GYA’s tips for making your digital documentation intentional, ethical, and reflective!
Personal & Relational:
One of many things that makes a gap year so meaningful is the people you’ll meet on your journey. As you post pictures you’ve taken with your new friends, consider what you learned from each other. Did you have a conversation entirely in a new language, and did your friend do so while connecting with you in turn?
Did you have a mentor during your gap year, perhaps someone who taught you how to play the djembe or a program leader whose advice impacted you in a surprising way? Before I moved to Perú, a program leader I connected with asked me: “Do you already speak Spanish, or is this a Spanish-learning opportunity for you.” This positively-posed question inspired me to look at gaps in my skillsets as learning opportunities rather than focusing on the lack. I still use this framing in many areas of my life. Thanks, Alex! Oftentimes, it’s our outside-the-classroom teachers who have the strongest impact on us.
Cultural Exploration & Learning
Cultural photography tells stories about the cultures and people you come to know during your gap year experiences. These can include portraits, weaving demonstrations, street scenes, cultural events, and more. This type of photography communicates a commitment to intercultural exchange as a means to foster understanding across cultures. Did you learn something about your own culture while engaging with people from a different cultural background? Did a professional artisan teach you to weave a textile pattern on your gap year?
I had my first conversation completely in Quechua with Sonya, pictured on the left above, during which we learned that we’re the same age! Did you learn something about a new friend while practicing a language?
Accountability and Ethics:
Be mindful to avoid harmful stereotypes in your imagery. More often than not, this can be unintentional, hence the importance of mindfulness and intentionality in your photography practice. Consider the values you carry and how you depict them through your imagery and the words that you choose to describe your photos. Look through the Barbie Savior Instagram posts. As shown in the examples above, their images, captions, and hashtags satirically depict the opposite of best practices in this context.
Also, avoid photos with racially-charged cliches that reinforce divisions and colonial power dynamics. Without context, light-skinned youth helping or teaching a group of dark-skinned kids can perpetuate this. If you volunteered with kids during your gap year, be sure to tell the story behind the image and highlight what you learned from each other. Keep it meaningful and positive!
Ditch isolated imagery depicting problems like pollution, poverty, hunger, or conflict without context; mainstream medias tend to zoom in on those problems and use them to tell one-dimensional stories about their origin.
Watch this video by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the perils of a single story.
Adichie discusses the pitfalls of perpetuating a single story about a place or culture. Similarly, a single image, and sometimes a single caption depending on what message it sends, can omit layers of complexity and context. Be mindful of this as you post.
Many gap year experiences provide the opportunity to engage in community activism and improvement through service learning; GYA encourages gappers to think about context while doing so, and to think even deeper while documenting the experience.
A single image depicting poverty might become someone’s reference for a given community; the problem with this is that there are layers of complexity and context missing from that one story. Many gap year experiences provide the opportunity to help ameliorate challenges through service learning, GYA encourages gappers to think about context while doing so. Learn first. Serve second. Photograph third.
Vocation, Not Work:
Gap year students are far from idle or passive. You grow, achieve, become deeply engaged in experiences and vocational activities that mean something to you. As you take photos during your gap year and as you post them, focus on images that showcase your activities, especially alongside members of the community or communities you’ve visited. These communities can be anywhere from your neighborhood to all the way across the globe! This type of photography communicates the forward-looking nature of gap year experiences.
Education & Fun:
If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right!
Reflection Questions & Challenges
Before you take a photograph, ask yourself:
- Why am I taking this photo?
- Do I have an intended audience?
- Would I take this picture if it were not possible to post it on a blog or social media?
- Have I asked the person or people in the image if I could take it?
Before posting:
- What do I plan to say about the relationship I have with this person or people?
- Have I asked the person or people in this photo if I could post it publicly online? If they speak a language that I haven’t learned yet, have I found someone to interpret so that I’m mindful of everyone’s wishes in this context?
- Am I describing them in a way that I would want to be described?
- Does this image inadvertently showcase an equal systemic power dynamic? If not, it’s an opportunity to learn more!
- How will I send them this image? (E.g. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.)
Some Fun Challenges:
- One of GYA’s Accredited Programs challenges their students to take only one photo per day. Try this for a week or two during your gap year. Did it help you become more present? Did it prompt you to approach photography more intentionally? What did you find challenging about this practice and what did you learn as a result of that challenge?
- Take your favorite image from the past week of your gap year. What did you learn that day? How did you connect with the place or people you’ve photographed? If you learned something meaningful that day, how will you apply what you’ve learned to your daily life moving forward? For example: Today in Nan, Thailand, I learned how to harvest rice. Because of this, I learned to ask questions about the origin of the food I consume; moving forward, I will turn this into curiosity. At least once per week, I plan to learn about the production of the ingredients in my meal.
- Add your own to this list! What is your favorite photographic storytelling challenge or reflection prompt?
Gap year alum, we’re excited for you to continue telling your gap year stories! If you’re planning your gap year or currently on it, we’re excited to see how your journey will develop. We hope that this blog has provided you with reflections and food for thought as you photograph and describe your experiences.
Don’t forget to include #ExploreTheGapYear and to tag us (@gapyearassociation) in your posts so that we can follow along!
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