Impressionistic photography: Laura El-Tantawy's WaterAid commission

How do you photograph a feeling? An obvious answer might be that you take a picture of someone who is gripped by that feeling, focusing on the details of their facial expressions and body language – the creases by their eyes when they smile, the tension in their clasped hands. But this isn't always the most ethical – or the most effective – approach. "When you're photographing sensitive issues, you don't want to take a picture of someone crying, because it's intrusive and maybe, in that moment, you'd rather be consoling them than picking up your camera," says documentary photographer and Canon Ambassador Laura El-Tantawy. "Then how do you bring that moment they shared with you into an image in another way?"

For Laura, "photography is about intimacy," and her 2023 series for WaterAid and the Wimbledon Foundation, Carrying Life: Motherhood and Water in Malawi, is not short on emotion. International NGO WaterAid commissioned her to make a series of images of women and babies in Malawi's Ntchisi district, an area affected by poor sanitation, lack of hygiene and inadequate access to clean water. WaterAid has a track record of working with photographers who have a strong visual approach, previously commissioning Ethiopian photographer and artist Aïda Muluneh to create a project about water scarcity and the impact it has on women in Africa.

Laura's still images and videos – first displayed in an outdoor exhibition on lightboxes and digital screens on the banks of the River Thames in London to celebrate International Women's Day 2023 – observe the situation in poetic ways. Her portraits of women, taken in low light with her Canon EOS R5, are delicately lit, some almost entirely hidden in darkness except for pockets of light subtly illuminating faces and bodies in profile. In other shots, she focuses on rows of brightly coloured buckets or turns her lens to the landscape. Using a variety of techniques including soft focus and intentional motion blur, she creates images so impressionistic that some are almost abstract – far from the traditional conventions of observational documentary.

For Laura, storytelling isn't simply about representing a situation in the most straightforward way, but about portraying an emotional experience. "That's where it begins and ends for me," she says. "I'm also photographing my own sense of vulnerability, in a way. It's quite complex."

Laura has spent almost two decades fine-tuning this approach. After graduating with a degree in journalism and political science from the University of Georgia, USA, she began her career as a regional news photographer. It was only when she moved to Egypt, her parents' homeland, that she began to develop a visual language that she felt was more authentic to the situations she was photographing than a conventional documentary approach. It took time to refine and gain confidence in her own style through long-term self-initiated projects including In the Shadow of the Pyramids (2005-14), The Veil (2008-2012) and An Immortal River (2013-present).

"I think being consistent and not really having to produce work for particular clients, but taking pictures for myself, allowed me the freedom to explore," she says. "And from there I began to feel that this is how I perceive the world and how I react to visuals."

In Malawi, WaterAid had pre-selected women for case studies, and Laura sat for a long time with these women while NGO staff interviewed them, accompanied by a psychologist who intervened to pause the interview or steer it in a different direction if necessary. This was something Laura believes was extremely beneficial, because some of the women had experienced profound trauma – seeing grandchildren die, for example.

"It is important that I hear them speak first," she explains. "I don't want to just arrive and say, 'Okay, let me take your picture.' That's too jarring, too intrusive. We don't want to harm anybody through this documentation."

Those interviews informed the images that Laura would then take. "To provide clean water for their households, these women have to walk at least three or four kilometres every single journey," she says. "And they might do that journey three times a day." Even so, talking to her subjects and making a connection with them, what she picked up on was not a sense of struggle but one of community and empowerment.

In the past, photography and video for NGOs was accused of dehumanising subjects by portraying their suffering in extreme or insensitive ways that presented them as helpless victims. Laura is conscious that there is a risk, too, in creating beautiful images like hers. "When you have a strong visual aesthetic, there is always a concern that people see the colours, the movement, the light, but don't see anything beyond that, because these things are very seductive," she says. "It is a dangerous territory. And it's really important to understand that the aesthetics in my images can potentially take over."

It is a continual process of negotiation to make sure the story isn't lost. "Written narratives are also really important in the work that I do because they contextualise," she adds. "With the WaterAid commission, that was the words of the women themselves, talking about their experiences."

By showing less in each frame, Laura felt she could say more. "I would choose certain moments that really stood out for me," she explains. "So I would see these little drops of water that would splash on women's hands when they were pumping water into their buckets or trickle down their foreheads when they carried the buckets. And these little details for me became very interesting."

Alongside these close-ups of droplets of water on women's faces are others showing the surface of water, the texture providing a visual echo between the two. The shadows of foliage reflected in a water bucket don't spell out the whole story, but they combine with other images to build a mood. In these instances, Laura's Canon RF 85mm F2 MACRO IS STM lens proved its worth, delivering pin-sharp clarity when required.

The past decade has seen a widening of what is considered documentary photography, with more photographers doing "personal work," says Laura, although she believes all photography is personal. "You're seeing more of a photographer's own voice in their images," she says.

Many photographers would like to find more work with non-profit organisations, and Laura has advice on how to work for an NGO for anyone trying to break into this world.

First, "know what you have to offer to that NGO. Are you the right person to be doing that commission? Does it fit within your wider explorations and journey within photography?"

Next, do your research and get to know the NGO you're approaching. "Understand the general practices of that NGO," says Laura. "How do they function on the ground? What kind of guidelines do they have? Their responsibility is to a wider audience, including their project clients and people who might fund the projects. That adds an extra layer for you."

Finally, it's vital to communicate well in all your dealings with the organisation. "Be honest in your conversations," Laura urges. "If you're uncomfortable about something or if you have a suggestion about something, speak up. And make sure everything is written down so you can go back to it."