Eastern Partnership Photography
Marina BORISOVA:
The main result of the project is the
promotion of person-to-person contacts
between photographers from the EaP
countries
SAY CHEESE! – a project aimed to foster contacts between
professional and amateur photographers from the Eastern
Partnership countries – was launched in December 2012. Over
the last two years, with support from the European Union,
photographers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova,
and Ukraine have participated in several photo contests, visited
thematic seminars and event took a course at an online photo
school. The winners of the photo competition My Country in the
Eastern Partnership attended photo plein airs organized in each
of the EaP countries. What is the mission and objectives of the
massive project, which events have already been held, and which
events are in the pipeline, and what is the main result of the SAY
CHEESE! project? Marina Borisova, the project’s communications
and visibility manager, will answer these questions and share her
insights on the project.
– Marina, what are the goals
and objectives of the SAY CHEESE!
project?
– Photography in the Eastern
Partnership is a potentially lucrative
creative industry. However, its development is still hindered by certain financial, historical and political factors.
Without opportunities for training and
marketing their works and being professionally “isolated,” photographers
from the EaP countries cannot convey
an image of the Eastern Partnership as
a region with a unique culture, nature,
and wide investment and tourism opportunities. There are many serious
challenges that hamper the development of photography in the region.
First, because of their limited capacities, professional associations in the
EaP region hardly provide any help for
photographers, including amateurs.
The second problem is a consequence
of the first one: there is a distinct
lack of cooperation between the asso-
4
ciations and individual photographers
within the Eastern Partnership region.
Exhibitions and contests in each EaP
country hardly ever envisage international cooperation and promotion.
Third, there are still no common educational standards in photography in the
EaP countries. However, lacking up-todate training and expertise, photographers from that region, especially
amateurs from rural areas and small
towns, are unable to compete on the
European and global photo markets.
Finally, photographers from the EaP
countries – most of all amateurs – are
inexperienced in working with photo
stocks and sponsors.
The main objective of the SAY
CHEESE! project is to improve the development of the so-called thematic
Eastern Partnership photography in
order to create a positive image of
the Eastern Partnership both within
the region and beyond it. The following tasks need to be completed. First,
it is important to enhance capacities
of the EaP photographers’ associations
and to encourage their networking.
Second, it is necessary to create new
opportunities for professional and amateur photographers, so that they can
shoot and sell high quality thematic
EaP photos. Third, we need to promote
thematic EaP photography within the
six EaP countries and at the level of
the European Union.
– What are the significant results
of t