How we see poverty in Africa

An engineer who's working on a water sanitation team in Malawai felt a disconnect between his real-life experiences and the images we see of Africa, so he decided to start a project, which is still ongoing:

I am taking two photos of the same person; one photo with the typical symbols of poverty (dejected look, ripped clothes, etc.), and another of this person looking their very finest, to show how an image can be carefully constructed to present the same person in very different ways. I want to bring to light some of the different assumptions we make about a person, especially when we see an image of “poverty” from rural Africa.

Here's the beginning of the experiment (via).