 |
I've created images for development and relief throughout East Africa for nearly 11 seasons now, applying my advertising skills and cultural insight for good, in producing images that will help support programs, to help them keep going and to help keep the money coming in which enables extremely important work to continue. It's a simple reality that without funding it all grinds to a halt which is particularly frustrating to me, it's personal...given that I meet a myriad of human conditions face to face, in tough places and at times I wish that..."if only they could see what I see"...they would be a foot soldier for life in trying to be part of the solution.
However, this project...The Paradigm Project...is very different from any that I've worked on.
Before I left the states on this latest journey, a series of discussions took place on just how to make this new body of work more effective, more strategic and yet equally intimate and to effectively give it a "signature" look and feel to the photography. Different in so many ways, it still came to life like so much of my work...through hard work and by being sensitive to the images playing out in front of me. A very well known photojournalist friend of mine instructed me long ago to "shoot from my gut"...that this will yield my best work...and he was right. It all took shape that hot afternoon in the back lot of a tumble down local hotel whose owner was serving “fresh goat meat and rice” to desert travelers while a usually unseen and typically humble group of Gabbra women...became part of…became partners with me...in raising awareness to the struggles of women in East Africa’s Kenya.
Straight, pure, devoid of manipulation, Richard Avedon’s timeless work in the "American West" project provided a degree of inspiration to me for which I'm grateful. It provided a role model if you will and helped me think through the best way to bring images of these women to life. On reflection this wasn’t the end of our journey…it was simply the beginning...
In what seemed like ages we were finished. In working through all of the women I noticed that the two youngest were missing and had gone home to eat. Due to their ages, I weighed bothering them for a brief moment yet in the end I sent part of our team to see if they’d return…if we carried their wood loads for them. A few minutes had passed before the Land Cruiser came around the corner with the two girls sitting in the front seat, wood stacked high on the roof rack with neighbors and strangers helping them with their wooden burdens, placing them once again on their backs. I was thankful for their helping us but the best way for me to show my appreciation was to get the images over as quickly as I could. They each stood in front of me…hot, tired and anxious…looking expectant and seeking direction on what to do. However, I deliberately gave them very little direction and although there was a language barrier they quickly seemed to settle into their own distinct look. I played my part and recorded the moments given to me.
As quickly as we started it was over, with everyone coming over to see the instant images of the young girls, passing "old school" Polaroids from hand to hand with all of them suspended and for that one brief moment they forgot about being thirsty or hungry. They laughed out loud together as if they were watching some kind of comedy show that they all understood and well…maybe that’s exactly what they witnessed that day. Regardless, all of the “actors” on both sides of the camera seemed to have enjoyed their moment on stage that day…
Pressure was on and I felt it…literally…sweating enough to cause salt crystals to form at my eyelids. I worked instinctually with the film driven camera system which is so odd these days with everything being digital yet it felt so familiar in my hands after so many years of depending on it and it wasn’t any different today. It came to life even though it was covered with a fine layer of red Kenyan dust with it’s motors emitting a squeal and a whine in trying to keep up with my demands with Polaroid flying everywhere, with directions and names being shouted out - assuming someone was writing it all down while I quietly watched one fragile yet enduring spirit after another take their place in front of me.
Humble with no words spoken and their mouths tightly clenched not really knowing what I expected of them or really what I was doing. They shifted their weight to and fro until I offered up a Polaroid for them to see themselves and like Alice in Wonderland they came alive, realizing that they may have never seen themselves before and never had any attention paid to them like this and for this they stood without complaint…wanting to be part of something bigger than themselves.
Not very different from downtown USA anywhere really.
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...
The long dirt track back to Torbi was perfect for a few stoic images of women walking alone in such a vast landscape and so I gathered this ad hoc group together and started to walk with them back to town. Again, working the scenes in front of me, trying very hard not to slow their pace as they were now under a heavy load. However, I found it refreshing that they still had the energy to have a laugh with one another about God only knows what although I assumed that much of it was at my expense, on second thought...I know it was at my expense.
Staying close together they slowly began to sing what could only be a work song with their newly added extra weight swinging back and forth across their backs like pack animals. Their rough hands bleeding at the knuckles from hard contact with unyielding wood…their dark brown skin freshly scratched and etched from wrist to shoulder all the while holding onto rope and the odd yellow plastic container which holds a small measure of cocoa brown colored water to drink on their way back to town. Yet through all of this they sing loud and pure of heart with little indication that they’re hurt or even feel pain anymore. All such emotion is lost in the abyss of communal toil where phrases such as “All for One and One for All” prove to be just lost western words in some movie somewhere.
In this desert wasteland, admittedly home to many of Kenya's proudest nomadic tribes...you'd find little comfort in the pain they feel each and every day from not having enough food to eat or water wells that have run dry. And if the relentless suffering from the elements isn't enough for you then the threat of getting caught in the crossfire of tribal blood feuds - the unending quest for revenge, surely must be. So the sorrows of life come fast, thrown at these desert dwellers by an unfair world and yet maybe the songs sung by the women this day contain wisps of hope that maybe together…together…if only for just one moment we can get through anything...if we just stick together.
The women soon scattered around the high desert and so I divided our photographic coverage up with me going one way and Scott going the other. Without a doubt the women were working hard although it became apparent that they had much smaller loads to carry, much smaller pieces of wood in size and weight to gather and a much shorter distance to walk back home by virtue of their desolated outpost. No city or freeway to navigate nor free roaming elephants to worry about.
Soon they started to bundle the wood, providing me with graphic details of the materials they use such as the heavy ropes and crude axes…Their scarred hands with bejeweled fingers tying and twisting lengths of hemp to secure the load before lifting it to their shoulders. With the muffled groans of people enduring physical labor filling the air, I’m aware to not overspend my welcome. Instead I try to work at the edges quickly without engaging them to try and balance the needs of the project with the need to stay out of the way....not to push them too hard. I’m skilled at making the best images possible at a particular moment yet to be culturally sensitive and constantly aware. I need to know when to lift my camera, when to watch and when to walk away…all while constantly assessing the composition to capture images that mean something…images which aren’t disposable…
I shoot at the edges without my subject paying too much attention to me…knowing I’m there but accepting me in their midst. And when it feels right…feels right…is right…I place myself in their personal space which is where you begin to find the heart of a strong composition. This type of photography is quick yet needs to be accurate. You need to know when to cut and leave so you don’t over work the scene or the subject. I’m not a photojournalist like some of my esteemed colleagues nor am I covering hard news. So I have the luxury of being sensitive to my subject’s needs or they simply, as they do without any hesitation, utter a few unknown words, turn and walk away. You literally have zero control. So to get any image, let alone a good one, can be extremely trying. The celebrated “decisive moment” type of image when elements come together like old friends on a country road are rare and at times just appear out of the blue…almost like gifts from on high…which means you have to remain “dialed in” to your subject
