Alice Smeets | Blog

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September 24th, 2009 at 18:41 (general)

hey,

it’s been a long time I haven’t written any news about my photography and what my plans are. In August I have been back to Haiti, some of the pictures I have taken there you have seen in my previous post about Miriam. When I came back to Belgium I photographed some portraits and a wedding (I will post the pictures soon on my blog), than I went to Perpignan to the festival Visa pour l’image, which was really fun. Also in September I went to Paris with two photography-friends to show my portfolio to magazines and newspapers there and the week after that I did the same in London. In the meantime I have travelled to the Northern Lakes in England to photograph a witches-weekend. Pics will follow soon.

My plan is now to also travel to Hamburg to present myself and my pictures to the magazines there and than work a little bit at home to earn some money. Selling pictures, photographing portraits and other commercial work. By the end of October I will than travel to South Africa. The German NGO Kindermissionswerk will give me an assignment to photograph their projects there. In November/December I will either go to Cameroun, Benin or back to Haiti another time. I will let you know. And I will soon update my website so that you can all see my new work.

I wish you all the best!

Alice

1 Comment

Miriam

September 9th, 2009 at 17:06 (Haiti)

In Haiti there are over 300 000 “Restavek. The Restavecs are children of Haiti living in a family different from their family of origin and often used as domestic servants or as slaves. From poor families in rural areas, they are placed by their families in urban families. Often the economic situation of host families is not very different from those of biological families of these children. Also orphans often end up as Restavecs.

Miriam is a little 7 year old girl who lives in Port-au-Prince and is a restavek. Her father died 4 years ago. Her mother went to the countryside to organize the funeral and never returned. Today, she lives with her neighbors, who have a 6 year old son. When he is outside playing with his friends, she does the cleaning, dishes, and shopping. In return for her work Miriam has the right to sleep on the floor and eat the remains of the family meal.

More pictures - soon on my homepage

1 Comment