I just attended the 13th international Energy Film Festival in Lausanne, Switzerland. One of the multimedia pieces I produced for the African Development Bank was selected for the festival, and it won the prize for Best Corporate Film. The film, titled “Les nuits ne sont plus sombres” (“Nights are no longer dark”), is a video montage of approximately 150 still photographs and captured audio. It is the story of a village in Benin where the lives of its inhabitants were radically transformed as a result of a rural electrification project. It documents how access to affordable energy can lift people out of poverty and shows how infrastructure investments can improve the quality of life in a remote community. (French language version, subtitled in English).

About the prize: It was humbling to receive it in the company of so many talented film-makers, but a great opportunity to share this small story about a big issue, namely Africa’s energy deficit and the work supported by the AfDB.

With the World Cup in soccer playing out in South Africa, I was reflecting on how we see Africa through photographs. This shot (top right) was taken last year in Monrovia, Liberia during an assignment for the African Development Bank. It shows a downtown street scene, photographed through a storefront window pierced by bullets sometime during the brutal civil war which lasted from 1989 to 2003. While it is true that the image may still be symbolic of Liberia’s challenges in moving ahead (much of Monrovia still bears such scars of the country’s bullet-ridden past) it also fails to capture positive developments (basic security has been reestablished and economic recovery is starting to take hold). It is, in other words, a picture we expect to see from Liberia, and Africa. We are daily bombarded with photographs in our media that define the continent in the most negative way and most subjects easily fit in one of the following categories: poverty, conflicts, famines, HIV/AIDS, etc.

The photograph below is also from Liberia, taken a few days later in the town of Ganta in central Liberia, where reconstruction was booming, and clinics, schools, churches and public buildings were being reopened. I was shooting near a church that was being renovated (in the background) when I turned around and saw this group of young Liberians approaching. One of the young men pulled out his camera phone and starting photographing the group I was with, and I photographed him. It is a just an informal grab-shot, but I love his expression and posture that convey so much exuberance and positive energy.

To many viewers, this image may be unexpected and perhaps it can even offer a fresh perspective on Africa’s post-conflict nations, and on Africa. It shows healthy, well-dressed youth using state-of-the-art mobile information technology to document an ordinary day in their lives. Actually, this is very much today’s Africa, where mobile phones are becoming a truly universal technology that is transforming the continent. (According to the World Bank, 94 percent of urban Africans now live near a GSM signal.) With camera phones becoming more and more commonplace in Africa, we may get to see more and more of “another” Africa, through the eyes (and lenses) of Africans.  Hopefully, this will change some of our perceptions of Africa. It may also change the way Africans see themselves and their own continent.