Women in photography: Allison Joyce "couldn't just be an observer"

Allison Joyce's work explores human rights stories, gender issues and tales of empowerment that challenge perceptions of South Asia as a region plagued by poverty and division. Back in 2009, the Canon-shooting photographer swapped bustling New York City newsrooms for life as a stringer – a freelance photojournalist regularly contributing to news organisations – in Bangladesh and India, working for Getty Images, international publications, news agencies, commercial clients and NGOs. Soon her physical presence turned into an emotional attachment. Here, she talks about crossing the line between photojournalist observer and campaigner.

Allison grew up in Boston and began her career in New York City as a photographer for the Daily News and the New York Post, cutting her journalistic teeth on the local 24-hour news cycle. "In one day I could go from covering a big national news story, to a press conference, to a woman whose cat was rescued by firefighters, to a portrait session, and then to a restaurant review. It was a fantastic education," she says.

But in 2009, Allison made the decision to leave New York to travel to South Asia, which led to her new life as a stringer in the region. "I backpacked for six months alone, working on photo stories in India and Bangladesh. They were places where I could travel on a shoestring budget for a long time while providing the kind of stories I wanted to tell. Those six months changed my life. I realised I didn't want to be a US-based freelancer, I wanted to tell stories in South Asia. I've been bouncing back and forth between Bangladesh and India ever since."

Telling unexpected stories

The Bangladesh surf girls

In 2014, Allison's incredible project about teenage girls who learnt to surf in Bangladesh was published all over the world, in magazines such as TIME and National Geographic. "It started as a small assignment for Getty to cover the surf scene in Cox's Bazar," she explains. "I spent three or four days there shooting the men at the surf club and their daily lives. However, some time later, I learned that one of the guys had taken the little beach girls (who sell snacks and souvenirs) under his wing and began teaching them how to surf and skateboard. I hadn't seen girls like this anywhere in South Asia – guys would harass them on the beach, and they would fight back. I was so amazed. At the time I was still fairly new to Bangladesh, but was quickly learning how strongly patriarchal the country is, so I thought to myself: 'Wow, girls surfing is an amazing story.'

"It turned into a long-term project for me and I started visiting them a couple of times a year. It became one of those stories where I decided that I couldn't just be an observer. So last year and the year before, when the girls on the beach weren't making enough money to eat or feed their families, I started a fundraiser website to help them get food each month."

It is generally considered inappropriate to become involved with your subjects when working as a photojournalist, but Allison is pragmatic. "I have affected the story, and I think the only thing I can do is be really upfront about that. I was a photojournalism purist for a long time, but it's easier said than done. You're a human first and once you see a starving person, you have to make a decision."

Helping vulnerable girls and women

As well as her long-term, emotionally intense project with the Bangladesh surf girls, Allison has enjoyed some rewarding one-off commissions. In 2016, a commission for Marie Claire magazine sent her to photograph the Veerni Institute, a private charity in Rajasthan, India, dedicated to helping girls in rural villages at risk of child marriage.

"The girls are given boarding, private tutors, healthy food to eat, and are sent to a fantastic private school," she says. "I Ioved covering that story because so often it's what's going wrong that is being talked about." Many of the girls who have passed through the boarding school have gone on to higher education, winning scholarships to fund their university studies.

Allison is now firmly embedded in South Asia and is zealously committed to her work there. "I've been really lucky the past few years to get assignments where an editor will email me and say, 'Can you go cover this story?' and in this region it's invariably something I care about.

"Recently, I've been fortunate enough to get a grant from an NGO that has enabled me to spend the past seven months working on a story about sex trafficking. It's the first time that I've had funding that has allowed me to cover a story in-depth and in my control for such a long period of time."

Bangladesh may be a small country, but Allison Joyce and her work will continue to make sure we keep paying attention to it and its people.