Posts Tagged ‘photography’

A Covid-19 update from our community

Sunday, October 18th, 2020

The past months have surely been among the most challenging times in the history of FairMail as a social enterprise, but most of all as a family.

Despite one of the earliest and strictest lockdowns in Latin America, the deep inequality of Peru’s health system, high levels of informal economic activity, and corruption have contributed to a massive loss of life and a severe economic crisis that will have repercussions for years ahead.

Daily reported cases fell in June and July to rise again in August to a point that a second lockdown was issued on August 29.
To comply with the restrictions imposed by the government FairMail stopped its activities for about 5 months and re-opened its doors in July and August. During the lockdown we maintained constant contact with the photographers and their families, and thanks to the generosity of many of you, we offered our support in the form of recurring donations of food and money throughout the quarantine.
Several family members of the photographers have contracted the virus and one of them has unfortunately passed away.

Going back to classes in the months of July and August required a complete readjustment in the way we carry out our photography sessions. The photographers were split into 3 small groups to limit exposure during classes, they came to the office with private cars instead of public transport, they always wore face masks and they disinfected every working station and object after use.

Despite the restrictions, the photographers have shown a great deal of enthusiasm, motivation and creativity and the result is an astounding collection of Christmas pictures that you can see here.

None of this would have been possible without the amazing work of our two local managers Angeles and Anidela, their great organizational and communication skills made it possible for FairMail to go through this harsh time.

Now we are back, and we really want to make up for all the time we have lost. We’re ready to create new memories and new fantastic pictures!

The Cacao Route – Photo documentary

Wednesday, October 26th, 2016
Children of cacao producers from the Peruvian Amazon showing their parents harvest

Children of cacao producers from the Peruvian Amazon showing their parents harvest

In August the Peruvian FairMail teenagers made an unforgettable journey along North Peru’s Cacao route (see video here). This not only provided a unique insight into the “From Bean to Bar” chocolate producing process. But also resulted in a photo documentary series with amazing photographs of the various production stages and inspiring stories by the cacao bean producers.

From Coca to Cacao

We all got quite inspired by the story of the founder of Mishki Cacao, a female run chocolate producing cooperative. During our visit to their artisanal chocolate factory she explained about the prior negative influence of coca cultivation in the area. This raw material to produce cocaine was an attractive cash crop for many farmers of the Amazon. Unfortunately, the presence of drug traffickers and -producers created an atmosphere that made it difficult for the women to keep their sons and husbands on the right track.

Cacao beans after drying

Cacao beans after drying

Cacao cultivation was introduced as an alternative source of income, but unfortunately not as profitable as coca. Unless added value could be created in the form of local chocolate production. With this mission in mind the women fought hard to make their dream reality. Now they have their own professional production facilities, sell their chocolate all over the country and have won international awards for their chocolate’s quality.

From Bean to Bar

Apart from visiting and photographing Mishki Cacao, the FairMail teenagers also visited the factory of La Orquidea which produces organic chocolate for the export market. And they visited the friendly cacao producers in the jungle village of Tununtunumba to learn more about cultivation and post-harvesting.

Production of organic cacao

Production of organic cacao

Chocolate Photo Series

The teenagers’ images have resulted in a beautiful photo series telling the story behind the delicious chocolate. This photo series is now available for photo exhibitions, marketing campaigns, year reports and chocolate packaging.

Please contact us if you are interested to learn more.

One of the friendly cacao producers from the Amazon village of Tununtunumba

One of the friendly cacao producers from the Amazon village of Tununtunumba

25% discount on tailor made Corporate Season’s Greetings cards for your employer

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

Imagine the reactions of your fellow employees, clients and other relations if your employer makes a visible difference this year when sending out your season’s greetings card!

Whether as printed Christmas card, New Year’s E-card or tailor made fairtrade calendar, you can be sure to see a smile on the face of the receivers when they find out who took the beautiful photograph. And you can be sure to create a smile on the face of the FairMail teenager who can pay for his or her own education with the sale of their image to your employer.

FairMail teenagers presenting DHV-GL's tailor made corporate calendar

FairMail teenagers presenting DHV-GL’s tailor made corporate calendar

As you can read here FairMail is happy to work with you in co-creating any tailor made product, including your logo and personalized message. It is even possible to send a specific image request to our teenagers on a no-cure-no-pay basis.

Due to lower printing prices this year, we can offer you our tailor made products with a 25% to 75% discount compared to last year, depending on the size and quantity. So check out the attractive prices and read more here.

As FairMail lacks the means to contact all the potential customers we would be very, very happy with any tips or suggestions you might have regarding who we can contact to present our unique offering. You can either pass on our digital flyer which you can download here or contact us directly with the name and contact details of the person we should contact.

Thank you so much in advance!

FairMail's B2B Christmas Flyer

Front side of FairMail’s Corporate Christmas Flyer

25% discount on pre-sale of 2016 children’s yoga calendar

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015
fair trade yoga calendar 2016

Childrens Yoga Calendar 2016

Thanks to your votes after the last newsletter, 8 photos shot by the FairMail teenagers made it to the top 12 selection for next year’s Children’s Yoga Calendar! Thank you so much for your help and for making a difference!

As sign of our gratitude we are now offering you a 25% early bird discount on all pre-orders. The calendar makes a great Christmas gift. This promotion is only valid until the 15th of October 2015, so don’t be late. The calendars will be sent in the fourth week of October.

View the calendar here

fair trade yoga calendar 2016

The inside of the calendar

The children’s yoga calendar is a yearly project set up by Devayani Yoga. 100% of the proceeds of the calendar sale are distributed amongst 12 different children’s charities chosen by the photographers who submitted the 12 winning pictures. In the case of the FairMail teenagers the proceeds will go into their personal education funds.

fair trade yoga calendar 2016

The backside of the calendar

FairMail teenagers teach us about “Simple Happiness”

Friday, December 5th, 2014
Simple happiness on a bicycle

Simple happiness on a bicycle

Simple happiness with water

Simple happiness with water

From feedback on our cards we learned that the FairMail teenagers have an important life lesson to teach us all, through their perspective on the world:

More material wealth does not necessarily mean being more happy.

Many of our teenager’s images show children having a lot of fun playing with an old tire or a bucket of water, of people simply relaxing and enjoying a rest in the sun or taking time to chat with each other on the street.

Simple happiness relaxing in the sun

Simple happiness relaxing in the sun

These images show our customers in the west that having more material gadgets is less important for being happy than your perception on life, your ingenuity, having meaningful social relationships and a positive mind set.

In marketing terms you could say that this “Simple Happiness” is a unique selling point of our teenagers’ photography. So as FairMail is a social enterprise, totally dependent on the sales of our cards, we have decided to spend more attention making use of this natural strength of our teenagers and their surroundings to shoot images of “Simple Happiness”.

Anidela and Ruth making kites from trash

Anidela and Ruth making kites from trash

Time to see if the kites will fly

Time to see if the kites will fly

One such example was the kite workshop we organized in Peru a few months back. With leftover plastic garbage from the earlier “garbage art workshops” the teenagers made their own kites during class.

By being creative with the available resources and experimenting with designs and colour combinations some great kites were made.

During the next class they brought along their little sisters, brothers and neighbourhood friends to a kite flying photo shoot on the beach of Huanchaco, close to the FairMail office.

As the photos show it was a very fun day. Everybody enjoyed playing with the kites, dancing on the rhythm of the afternoon breeze until the sun went down. Sand, sun, beach, kites and friends were all the ingredients they needed. When it started getting cold we all headed back to the office for a nice cup of hot chocolate and looked back at a very productive (and low cost!) photo session.

Sun going down

Sun going down

Future FairMail card of simple happiness?

Future FairMail card of simple happiness?

We hope the first kite cards will become available on FairMail cards soon. Please stay tuned to our webshop for the newest cards.

NEW: Low resolution stock photography webshop

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014
FairMail's Fair Trade Photo Database

FairMail’s Fair Trade Photo Database

Besides new cards we are also launching FairMail’s new “Low Resolution Stock Photography Website”.

This website is aimed at social media managers, bloggers and any other people and organizations interested in purchasing professional images for their work or private use. Nearly 10,000 fair trade images can now be downloaded directly from our website in low resolution* and clear of the FairMail watermark.

The advantages of FairMail’s stock photos are:

• The images are easy to find with nearly 900 key words, in 5 different languages each.

• Several filter options (like horizontal/vertical, coloured/black & white, newest, most voted)

• The world’s only stock site with 100% fair trade images.

• Payment, image download and invoice directly in your inbox with just a few clicks.

• Fixed low price of 19,95 euro per image.

• 50% of the profit FairMail makes goes directly into the education fund of the teenager who took the purchased image.

• Including back ground information about teenager who took the photograph.

Besides as low resolution photos the FairMail images are also available as high resolution photos for printing in brochures, flyers, greeting cards, magazines etc. Please request a quote by clicking here.

We would like to thank Vevida for providing FairMail with free server space to store our images online.

Vevida

Vevida

* Low Resolution means the image size is 600 x 400 pixels at 72 dpi (dot’s per inch)

NEW: Fairtrade photography books

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014
FairMail Peru teenagers showing their own fairtrade photography books

FairMail Peru teenagers showing their own fairtrade photography books

We are proud to announce a new product featuring our teenager’s great photos: FairMail photography books!

In cooperation with Blurb the FairMail teenagers in Peru and India designed different photo books themselves, which are now on sale in FairMail’s online bookstore.

The best-seller so far is Sandhya Rao’s book “Life along Ganges” in which she tries to show the life of people who are living along the Ganges and how they, according to Sandhya enjoy every moment of their life.

Other teenagers chose to show the pride they have for their countries beauty, make a collection of their favorite love pictures or simply show the world through teenage eyes.

Have a look at them all in FairMail’s online bookstore. Prices start at 15 euro each.

Fairtrade Photography Book by Sandhya Rao

Fairtrade Photography Book by Sandhya Rao

Fairtrade Photography Book by Angeles

Fairtrade Photography Book by Angeles

Fairtrade Photography Book by Anil Rao

Fairtrade Photography Book by Anil Rao

Peruvian teenagers take pictures for Ben & Jerry’s corporate Christmas card

Sunday, September 15th, 2013
Ksanier being assisted by volunteer Jie during the photoshoot

Ksanier being assisted by volunteer Jie during the photoshoot

Even though it is still summer in many parts of the world, our teenagers are already busy taking pictures for the upcoming Christmas card season. Among their customers this year is Ben & Jerry’s. They requested a tailor made picture for their fair trade corporate Christmas card. In order to do so they sent a box stuffed with all kinds of Ben & Jerry’s props like caps, pens, slippers, cooler bags, ice cream cups etc. to our teenagers in Peru.

Yomira drawing her idea for a perfect picture

Yomira drawing her idea for a perfect picture

The teenagers in Peru set their creativity to work. By first imagining their perfect picture that transmits the right feeling. After drawing their perfect picture they presented their ideas to the other photographers so everyone could give and get valuable feedback. By now everyone knew what to do and went to work.

Anidela working on her perfect picture

Anidela working on her perfect picture

After every photography session the pictures where evaluated during the FairMail class on the computer. With the help of the volunteer photography trainers points for improvement where discussed. This way in several rounds the pictures actually started becoming “perfect pictures”.

A pre-selection of 40 images has been sent to Ben & Jerry’s who will pick their favorite image for this year’s card. Exciting!

One of Anidela's pictures for Ben & Jerry's

One of Anidela’s pictures for Ben & Jerry’s

Would you like your employer to also send out fair trade Christmas cards, either custom made or from our stock? Then have a look at this digital flyer about what FairMail has to offer.

And let us know who within your company or organization we can contact directly. Thanks for your help!

One of Jorge's pictures for Ben & Jerry's

One of Jorge’s pictures for Ben & Jerry’s

FairMail images also available on stock photography sites

Thursday, June 27th, 2013
Hollandse Hoogte

Hollandse Hoogte

In our everlasting quest to try and find new markets for the teenagers pictures FairMail has signed deals with 4 international stock photography agencies (Corbis, Majority World, World Portraits and Hollandse Hoogte). This means that a selection of the teenager’s pictures will be available on their on-line image databases. These are used by their customers looking for images for a wide range of products varying from magazines to newspapers and from advertisements to book covers. From now on they will also be able to select FairMail images, directly supporting our motivated and talented teenagers. Just like with their postcards, 50% of the profit FairMail makes with the sale of the images goes directly into the teenagers personal education fund.

World Portraits

World Portraits

According to Cila d’Oliviera, production manager at World Portraits, “representing FairMail’s photography is a logical step for World Portraits. It fits with our special concept to let (deprived) individuals everywhere in the world share in the profits of the pictures sold. This way we don’t only offer the models, but also the talented teenage photographers, a new perspective. Together we can take the idea of fair trade photography to a new level

Majority World

Majority World

Please feel free to share the opportunity to purchase fair trade images to any friends and colleagues who purchase images professionally and might be interested in fair trade photography.

Look out for news in the next newsletter about the possibility to download low cost low resolution images directly from the new FairMail website!

Who really takes the pictures on the FairMail cards?

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

Last week one of our teenagers received an email from a customer who bought his card, asking him if it is really true that he took the picture on the card. Good question we thought! And time to show some proof that it is really the FairMail kids who are taking these amazing, professional pictures. Despite never having held a camera before in their whole life before they entered FairMail a few months earlier.

Below you can find a few examples of FairMail Cards where we happened to be around taking pictures of some of the action. Convinced now?

New Home Card made by Betty

Betty in action during a first try with a grass background

Best selling card by Maria flor

Best selling card by Maria flor

Maria flor in action on the picknick table

Maria flor in action on the picknick table

Best selling Christmas Card

shot in the flowers just around the corner from our office

shot in the flowers just around the corner from our office

 Thank you card by Ankita

Thank you card by Ankita

Which she shot with the help of a volunteer

Which she shot with the help of a volunteer