"With all the laughter spent..."

While the women were still a distance from town, I started to gather our team - breaking away from the gang of women to seek a background for what would be a formal portrait while they still have their loads on their backs. A half mile away, the town offered what seemed to be few choices until a washed out, soft aqua blue green wall caught my eye. As it happens out here, things can unwind quickly so I motioned for my driver to pull around the back of the building to be ready as the women arrive to town, asking him to see if we can get an OK from the owner of the hotel to use the wall.

All of this came together in the next 10 minutes as cases of equipment were thrown from the back of the truck to the ground in the yet still swirling dirt from the lurching land cruiser. Time wasn’t on our side today but with the location selected we started to instinctually set up the film camera system, decide about lighting and the myriad of details that go into making an image…all of which was the easy part. It’s the style of image that I needed to come to grips with and in quick order before the women arrived – assuming that the last thing they’d want to do is stand around in the noon day sun with 50lbs of wood on their back.

With time tightening, there was an old metal framed bed conveniently placed here for us I’m sure and so I pushed it out of the way to serve as our camera cart to get the gear off the ground and also to try and keep an eye on little fingers attracted to bright gleaming metal things as some 50 people began to literally surround my station as if to watch the circus that’s come to town. Well it didn’t take long for us to realize that while we were sorting out an exposure and pulling a Polaroid that well…the women all went home. Without pause, I asked the driver to see if they’d graciously come back as I needed their help one final time that day. Soon the women started to shuffle through the crowd, lumbering and sweating, their backs beginning to protest under the heavy loads they've carried back from the desert and now they stand and circle around me in silence...the smiles the songs and the laughter are all gone now, with heads bowed down they wait for me...