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Several years ago, I noticed that the media coverage of Africa cast such a negative face on the continent – poverty, pestilence, and conflict — that it resulted in a form of neocolonialism. panAFRICAproject was born out of my need to cast a different light on the subject, using photography as the “universal language.” I set about trying to make a visual amalgamation of contemporary Africa, country by country, on African terms, with the help of local people who can best tell us what is important, unique, and personal about their environments. This journey has taken us from the tops of mountains to the depths of depravity, from manufacturing to tribal villages, from camels to high tech transportation, from farm to table.
Such boots-on-the-ground that is required is arduous. But adapting to different conditions, climates, personalities, and seasons makes all the difference. It is the job of a lifetime and I have flourished in the task. But in order to crowdfund the first volume of a book series, redesign the website, and outfit another trip, we are mounting a KickStarter campaign, contribute here.
Lou Jones has maintained a commercial photography studio in Boston for many years. Much of the work is for advertising agencies, design studios & directly for Fortune 500 corporations. A large portion of the commissioned work is for publications & magazines, such as Time/Life, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic & Paris Match in 63 foreign countries & 48 or the fty USA states. Jones has covered thirteen Winter & Summer Olympic Games.
Lou Jones has served on the boards of directors for Photographic Resource Center & the American Society of Media Photographers. He has taught photography at several colleges & universities & continues to lecture about photojournalism & ne art photography.
When not traveling Jones exhibits at schools, museums & galleries around the world: Smithsonian Institution, deCordova Museum, Grin Museum of Photography, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Texas Tech University, Harvard University as well as libraries & institutions.
For his entire career, Jones has undertaken many personal long term projects, such as, Japan, tall ships, jazz, pregnancy & six years photographing men/women on fourteen death rows in the USA which resulted in two books & many exhibitions.
For the past few years, Lou Jones has been documenting all 54 countries in contemporary Africa country by country. We are trying to change the narrative from the stereotypical negative topics of poverty. pestilence & conict. http://www.panAFRICAproject.org We just returned from number sixteen & ve weeks in Mozambique. This series is a sampling of the work we have done to date.
