April 2015

We decided to shake things up a little bit this week. Amy shares with us her journey with Lensational since November 2014. She has been working as our marketing and public relations manager in Hong Kong. She tells us how her involvement with Lensational, especially the photo teach workshops, gradually changed her concept about women empowerment.

I started volunteering at Lensational in Nov 2014 and have introduced Lensational to people for numerous times in the past six months. Yet, I always feel that there is an element lacked in my sharing/pitching. Everything I’ve said seems to be mere paper talk without hands-on experience – It is not convincing (at least to myself) enough.

The photo-teach workshop held on last Sunday is a turning point for me. Our Indonesian helpers’ Cantonese is so fluent that there was no language barrier; the professional cameras and photography skills they owned surprised me; the photographic angles they captured were very interesting; and the views they shared were thought-provoking. During those few hours of interaction, I was impressed by their persistency and could truly feel their passion for photography as well as life. There is so much to share, but in short, it was a fantastic experience and we all enjoyed the day a lot. Now I believe I am confident to answer queries like ‘Does photography really help or work? The idea is abstract.’ again.

We often need something to uphold our values – I guess that something is personal experience, and with more and more. Therefore, I look forward to the Bangladesh impact tour in a month’s time, anticipating more insights.”
Photo credits to Sinna Hermanto, one of our Lensational students. She captured this special photo while the group were taking a selfie – see how good they are in snapping moments!

Thank you so much for your sharing Amy and we really appreciate what you have contributed so far to the group! Can’t wait for the Bangladesh impact tour too!

Stay tuned for our upcoming exhibition in London May 5-9!

Member of the Week is back! Today, we are introducing Jenny Liu from our London team. Jenny has worked with our photography and research team and helped organize our first exhibition in London.

Let’s see what inspired her to join Lensational:

“Lensational speaks to me because it shows us another possibility of photography and life – we all have potentials no matter who we are, where we come from, what job we do and so on; what really matters is our attitude towards life and what we believe we are capable of doing. I have found myself in photography and in working as a member of Lensational, so do those domestic workers I believe.”
Thank you so much Jenny. We love having you on our team as well. Stay tuned for our upcoming exhibition in London in May!

This week we are presenting Alejandra Zolezzi, in our Photography & Research team based in Barcelona! Alejandra is a psychologist, a documentary-maker, a mother… Working remotely with the team based in London is not easy, but she’s been helping us with writing up our photography manual!

Here is what she says about Lensational:

Lensational combines art, in the form of photography, with social change, as it aims to empower women through photography. Love the combination!

Alejandra will travel to London over the first week of May to meet the team. It collides with another exhibition we are planning – so stay tuned for more updates! Have a great weekend!