Africa is not a photo-op

One thing that has been on my mind for the past few weeks is the nature of our humanitarian/missional attempts internationally. I am trying very hard not to be judgmental, but I tend to notice that the vast majority of trips that are made are done with well-intentioned and good-hearted, but fundamentally colonialistic assumptions.
This is despite the fact that I could cop-out and argue anything -I- do, professionally speaking, would be "exempt" from that; this is completely untrue. I completely disagree with the notion of being the "celebrity Canadian doc" that's parachuted in and put on display for a few weeks, without effecting any long-term usefulness or change.
To explain: much international (or, heck, cross-town) travel done for the 'betterment of mankind' tends to be the Westerner/Western NGO deciding unilaterally what would be best for said developing nation/homeless people/drug addicts/other socio-economic/racial group. The Westerner goes, with much love and good intent, does whatever THEY felt like doing, and then returns, with great photo-ops and stories about the "good" that they've done, without taking into consideration long-term effects or effectiveness of said travel, or whether it was actually what "they" wanted in the first place. This is no more than a repeated oppression by the colonizer, deciding what works best for the poor/marginalized/the 'other', without any consideration to what the colonized would do.
One story that has been driving me nuts has been hearing about one project where an individual is taking a bunch of cameras to some HIV orphans in Africa, having them take photographs for two weeks, displaying their photographs for a 'show' at the end of the two weeks, and then taking back all the photographs back to the West, in order to display them further to other Westerners.
To me, this is a travesty! What long-term benefit would it be for the children to NOT have their photos, that they took, with them? What will these children do with cameras for which they have no batteries, film, developing materials or a darkroom? Is it simply a benefit of the Westerner who gets to keep all these photos for show? Why is no one asking the hard (and potentially, very offensive) questions about what the value of projects are?