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[2]By Leah Den Hartogh [3]
BELLEVILLE – Recent Loyalist graduate Annie Sakkab shared her photographs at a presentation in Alumni Hall Tuesday showcasing her long-time passion advocating for women’s rights.
Her presentation exhibited her work from her time as a photojournalism student at Loyalist to her most current photos.
When current students, who packed the hall to listen to her presentation, asked her why she chose Loyalist, she said, “I needed to go back to the basics, I needed to know how to do captions, how to do video, how to write, how to do all of this…it seemed like it offered what I was looking for.”
Some of the work in the Sakkab’s exhibit was a piece she created when at the college “To Be a Boy [4]” and a video she shot since she started working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [5] about girls being married at a young age in refugee camps [6].
Sakkab said she is drawn to fighting for women’s rights and uses her photography to challenge the status quo. She does this by exploring the issues women face. She said, “I want to talk about more – gender abuse and underage marriage and issues of women growing up in the Middle East and what type of issues they have to deal with.”
When working for the Waterloo Record, Sakkab spent time with the Mennonite community trying to capture photographs that show females in that community.
It wasn’t until the end of the photo shoot that she captured what she thought was the most powerful photo. The photo was of two sisters who let their hair down for the first time since she had started photographing them. The younger of the pair was running her fingers through the hair of her older sister tenderly.
When commenting on the photoshoot she said, “These people are giving you their picture, their time – you need to respect that.”
“It’s important to build a relationship with the people you are taking pictures of.”
She told students that the relationships she has created in her work has been crucial for developing future stories.
“You have to know who you are taking pictures of. You can’t just go in and assume that you know everything. You have to know your subject, their background and their culture so when you are talking to people you can be respectful.”
Sakkab will be moving to Winnipeg on Dec. 1 where she begins a new project for the United Nations.