Dominique Catton
Yaounde, Cameroon
International photographer, videographer and multimedia artist based in Yaoundé, Cameroon. My work includes freelance assignments as content creator and visual communications strategist with NGOs and UN agencies worldwide; photography and video teaching in renowned institutions and event organisation and fundraising for art foundations in Europe and North America.
- Arts
- Breaking news
- Crisis
- Editorial
- Environment
- Interior
- Portrait
- Video capture
- Video editing
Maternal health in Cameroon
Dominique Catton
This reportage was commissioned by UNICEF Cameroon and was shot in different villages of the Central Region in 2017.
Improving reproductive, maternal , newborn and child health is significant challenge in Cameroon. Cameroon's maternal mortality ratio is among the highest in the world (782 per 100,000 live births and its newborn mortality ratio (31 per 1000 live births ) and child mortality ratio (122 per 1000 live births ) are above the average for Sub Saharan Africa as a whole. Access to basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care services remains very limited and mostly of poor quality in most parts of the country due to lack of essential supplies, infrastructure and skilled health personnel, along with increasing cost of providing care.
Thirteen stolen smiles
Dominique Catton
Thirteen Stolen Smiles is a story raising awareness of child marriage. Photographed in Eastern Cameroon in 2016, it looks at the experience of four young girls (Elisabeth, Mirabelle, Mariam and Delphine) married or promised for marriage at the age of 13.
In addition to its focus on an issue of social concern, the series blends portraiture with details of features or pieces of fabric, as if to create a proximity between the photographed young girls and the viewer. It also presents multiple interpretations of home from indoor spaces to desolate ruins left in the village, almost as a metaphor for a life’s journey poised between loss, of innocence, of one’s freedom, and the resilience of those teen mothers now carers of even younger lives