The World We Live In

This group of photographs is from four distinct places: the Chocó region of Colombia, the Puna de Atacama desert of Argentina, and the hills and coast of Morocco.  What unifies the images is that they are more about space, composition and design than many of my photographs, story and social commentary to some degree giving way to aesthetics.  Still, the portfolio is intended to provide a brief examination of how the natural world and the pervasive human influence on the landscape combine to form the visual backdrop of our existence.

A Missed Opportunity

The devoutly religious town of Lalibela, Ethiopia, where I encountered a group of young monks chanting, is indelibly etched into my psyche.  It is a place that echoes biblical times, with shawl-shrouded people kneeling to pray, and life precariously sustained through rudimentary farming.  Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage Centre and receiving a significant flow of tourism, Lalibela has retained its spiritual essence.

On Sundays, a multitude of devotees begin chanting at dawn; throngs of people (some having traveled for hours) overflowing from famous rock-hewn churches.  Market day is similarly impressive.  Country people spread out their agricultural products to sell and shepherd in herds of livestock.  With only the sparsely populated mountain ranges visible in all directions, it’s easy to imagine that little has changed in the course of the last few hundred years.

My natural inclination being to explore the countryside, I jumped at an invitation to accompany a vacationing UN employee on a day trip to a religious site a couple hours drive away by private 4x4.  The trip went well, with affable conversation throughout and an opportunity to visit a remote and beautiful church.  What struck me most, however, was passing villager after villager, some struggling to carry heavy loads across the empty landscape, in a Range Rover with perhaps five vacant seats.  Without a notion on the part of the dignitary to offer even the young or elderly a ride, we whizzed by all, leaving them nothing but a gust of dusty wind in the face.

 

Manolo

The woman on the right used to be the girlfriend of a good friend of mine - one of my original friends from La Yagüita, Manolo.  A warm and generous boy when I met him, Manolo developed a propensity to fight as he grew older.  While he had a reputation for coming to blows at a moments notice, I never heard of him using a weapon or leaving any of his opponents in critical condition - although details like that can be shockingly overlooked when stories are recounted in the barrio.  One day, Manolo charged a neighbor only to be met with the point of a knife.  He died in front of his house.

The women in the first image are Manolo’s family.  His mother is feeding a baby who, like the two other young women, is Manolo’s niece.  Unlike some of the other young men in the neighborhood who have died of violence, disease or accidents, Manolo did not have any children before being murdered.  I continue to think of Manolo more than a decade after his death, but sometimes it feels like he has vanished without a trace as he is rarely mentioned.  Undoubtedly, somewhere behind his mother’s troubled brow he is constantly present, though, as he is with me.

Time and Distance

Occasionally, when I am taking pictures, my sense of being an observer gives way to a feeling that I am not actually physically present at all.  It’s as if I’m watching myself from above - a kind of out-of-body experience.  This was one of those cases.  The street was quiet as I passed and saw Ramón through his open door, alone in front of the television.  In this shared moment of solitude I felt like I saw the whole story of his life,  a trajectory that despite auspicious periods ultimately led to a profound melancholy as societal and personal shortcomings prevented him from providing for his family.  I felt the night air while I listened to sounds and voices coming from the various dwellings, as people prepared for supper, argued or laughed.  Each person in their own world, with their own joys and struggles, futures unknown, unaware of my presence as I took note of theirs.  I thought of the earth underneath the pavement that I had walked on many years before when the street was a muddy mess.  I watched myself - a familiar oddity who had somehow become intertwined with those present - moving alone amongst people and reminiscences.  Many of the houses in the barrio were now different from the images etched into my memory from years gone by.  Some of my first friends were grown, others dead - all in some sense gone.  A young man nodded to me and wished me well as I rounded the corner to head home,  but even as I my body bid him farewell I felt my spirit watching from above.

Stillness

Many of my photographs are about transmitting a particular feeling, one that is difficult for me to describe with words.  It’s a feeling I have experienced many times while on the road, typically arising after at least a week of solo travel: a melancholy that is perhaps the precondition for a quiet appreciation of stillness and understated beauty.  Here are four images from three continents that attempt to convey this feeling.

A Disturbing Accusation

During a trip to Mozambique, I met a Frenchman who spent his time reveling in the Maputo nightlife with the local elite and dining out with other international travelers.  On the veranda of our budget hotel (bedbugs included in the more basic rooms), I told him of my discontent over a small ruckus that had occurred earlier that day.  

A neighborhood man in a low-income area had accused me of intending to use the pictures I was taking to fraudulently raise money for needy children, with the end goal of pocketing the funds for myself.  Given that I had already established a rapport with the group of people I was photographing, I was very sad to have a misguided accusation sully our friendly connection.  But the French reveler was unsympathetic.  He felt that the man was onto something; that somehow my including photography in my engagement with monetarily limited people was exploitative.

While people from the communities I have photographed have at most reacted negatively to  me a half-dozen times (including the incident described) over the course of 20 years and scores of situations, privileged individuals from the developed world seem to regularly want to question me.  I think the impulse comes from a good place: a discomfort with the inequality of the world.  However, I do find it ironic that the very people challenging me rarely choose to actually interact with those they rhetorically “defend.”  Nor do they generally trouble themselves with specifics - such as the fact that the vast majority of the people who appear in my images have given me explicit permission to photograph them.

I do believe there is abhorrent exploitation in the world; slave wages, unsafe working conditions, forced removal of people from their land to make room for extractive industry, taxes pocketed by corrupt politicians while the tax-payers go hungry, etc.  In all of these situations a clear loser and a clear beneficiary are easily identified.  While my desire to meet and share an experience with those whose lives are in most ways more challenging than my own, and to later articulate what I have seen through photography, may (rightly) cause some discomfort as a result of the visible embodiment of inequality, my efforts absolutely do not result in the suffering of one party and the financial enrichment of the other - and I reject completely the label of exploitation.

So here is an image of two children sitting at the edge of an area that floods regularly from the rain and the tide.  Before I took the picture, I spent some time chatting with the children’s families inside their home.  After I took the picture, we wandered through the community and shared beautiful moments of laughter as I came close to losing my balance on the precarious pathways.  I remember the experience well and with great fondness, and hope that all who were present do too.  

Peeking

I love this picture because I loved the experience.  I was on the outskirts of a livestock and produce market in Ethiopia, preparing to go home, when I saw two small figures popping their heads up and then hiding as I scanned the distant mountains through my viewfinder.  While I initially didn’t intend to include the girls in the photograph, they emerged just as I pressed the shutter.  After a few shots I put my camera down to wave hello but upon making direct eye-contact they ran off laughing down the hillside.

Transformations

This photograph, taken in Mozambique, is about transformations and continuity.  The young barefoot boys on the street are just beginning life, while the old man in dusty tatters holding a cane is on the other end of the spectrum.  Nonetheless, all three people exist on the same continuum; one can foresee the boys turning into the old man, and the the elder once having been similar to the youngsters.  At this particular moment, however, they all momentarily converge on a single corner, in front of aged and dilapidated buildings which are undergoing a transformation of their own.  

Blood, Death, and Subsistence

While traveling in other countries, I have found death to be much more apparent and clearly intertwined with daily life than it is in most parts of the United States.  Perhaps the most striking (and for me shocking) example of this is the public slaughter of livestock in the developing world - for ritual, meat, or both.

To see the severed head of a goat lying alongside its twitching body, with a crowd surrounding the cadaver and a line of live goats, bound and in a panic as they sense the violence that awaits them, is to wrestle with the question of what our bodies actually are and what they become once we no longer occupy them.  This question was, in fact, central to the beheading ritual I observed in Nepal; but I did note that the choice had been made to behead animals - not friends or offspring of the participants - to prompt the existential inquiry the sacrifice was designed to induce.

Similarly, the emphasis was again on human well-being when I witnessed a cow slaughtered and dismembered in Guatemala.  For whatever reason, despite having my camera in hand, I could not bring myself to record the killing.  Eyes bulging in fear, the small cow offered minimal resistance to being led into the cramped concrete enclosure where it was bound (legs pulled close to one another and head pulled to look backwards - almost parallel to body), tipped, and stabbed in the heart.  As the blood ran out of the cow’s body it let out an emotional bellow and its panic-filled eyes transformed into inanimate objects.  Almost every piece of the cow was carved up, from skin to meat to organs, leaving scarcely a morsel for the vultures awaiting a feeding.

When I was a child, I remember the sanguine stoicism toward life I observed in the country people I met in the highlands of México.  Surely they cut off many a chicken’s head during their existence.  Surely they also passed many a night with empty stomachs and heads full of uncertainty as to how their next meal would be produced.  Perhaps it was partly their intimacy with both subsistence and slaughter that brought about their equanimity.

Of Whips and Horses

A taxi driver I met in Santiago, Dominican Republic, told me a poignant story as we passed a scrawny horse trotting along with a carriage in tow.  

During better times, in the countryside where he lived just outside of town, he and his family had had a horse of their own.  His land provided sufficient space for the horse to be pastured, and the surrounding hills allowed for recreational rides on weekends.  The horse was much beloved by all, but particularly by his children.  

As fate would have it, their fortunes declined and, unable to purchase feed and veterinary care for the animal, he sold it to a man he believed would provide a good home.  A couple of years later, by chance, he spotted his former equine in the city.  Now thin, being forcibly driven forward by the whip of an unsympathetic coachman, it pulled a carriage with happy young lovers out for a promenade.  Heartbroken himself to see the state of his old companion, he never told his children what he had witnessed, but allowed them to believe that their four-legged friend was still in the country, enjoying the sun and grass.

This image was taken a world away - in Ethiopia - but the animal appears to be destined to a fate similar to that of the horse described.

Childhood

Here’s another series of children, drawn from Mozambique, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.  What I like about these images is that the activities they show are ubiquitous throughout poorer parts of the world… and some of the emotions visible universal to children in general.

In a tattered shirt, gazing into a tree to check for ripe mangos, one boy manifests his longing for the simple pleasure of a sweet fruit, while another boy is lost in fantasy with a makeshift cape around his shoulders.  A young girl shows the seriousness with which she takes the responsibilities she has been given when she looks down to check on an even younger sibling.  And the pictures of a boy pushing a wheel and another shooting his slingshot depict timeless activities that can even be seen in photographs taken generations ago right here in New York City.

In Search Of...

This guy was part of a group of young men that I met as they trained and sparred in a hardscrabble Guyanese factory town.  It was dripping hot and I admired the determination of the fighters as they jumped rope and exchanged blows in the bare-bones gym that gave home to their dreams.  The group as a whole was incredibly warm and welcoming to me.  Jokingly, they mentioned that perhaps I might use their photographs to find them foreign girlfriends.  Anyone interested?

Ships on the Beach

Not far from the bizarre hotel I previously wrote about in Beira, Mozambique, is another strange situation: Along the beach, outside of the frame of this photograph, is an array of old metal ships (I was standing on top of one when I clicked the shutter) that were placed strategically to block waves from damaging nearby residences in the event of a storm.  Notwithstanding the purpose of the defunct vessels, I observed men and boys (even some whose dwellings were in clear need of protection from the sea) daily with hacksaws cutting metal from the ships to sell as scrap - a clear example of the human tendency to choose immediate personal reward over the long-term well-being of a community.  At least in this case the pilferers were driven by a need for actual sustenance and many would bear the brunt of their own actions.  I don’t think the same can be said of those who profit from endangering humanity on a larger scale.

MountainofMaize_Ships.jpg

Model Village

My time in Guatemala was partly sombre.  Having been raised in the San Francisco Bay Area (where significant attention was paid to atrocities committed by U.S.-backed Guatemalan soldiers during the Central American nation’s civil war), I was aware of the violence that had occurred in locations I visited.  In one town, the quiet concrete plaza was well-documented as a site where numerous people were burned alive.  A tranquil hillside, the location of a mass grave where massacred guerrillas and townspeople lay heaped together.  

During the civil war, the innocuous-looking, concrete-block buildings shown in this photograph were part of a settlement known as a “Model Village” - inhabited by indigenous communities from the countryside, who sometimes sought refuge from the violence of the surrounding areas, but in other cases were rounded up by the military and compelled to relocate.  Despite the official explanation that the settlements were established to provide safety, supplies, and a means to integrate communities previously overlooked into modern society, the conditions of “Model Villages” were stark and exit was not an option.  

Years after the civil war ended and military oversight of this village was concluded, the physical structures remain in use - only the barbed-wire-fence has been removed from its perimeter.  And if one didn’t know the town’s history, it would be indistinguishable from innumerable other Latin American mountain communities.

Anyeli

One of the things that I admire about children in less financially prosperous communities is their competence.  From a very young age they are able to successfully handle many things that their counterparts from more affluent households wouldn’t begin to know how to approach: growing and harvesting crops, cooking, caring for younger siblings, shepherding livestock, selling fruits and vegetables in the market.  Yet mixed with my admiration for their abilities is a hope that these hard-working children will one day get their “fair share”.  

The particular girl in these photographs, Anyelica, handled her chores as a young child with great discipline and good humor.  She was deservedly proud to show me what she did to contribute to the well-being of her family as she worked diligently around her home.  From cleaning, to washing, to preparing food, she did it all.  As she grew older her life took a dramatic turn (resulting from an incredibly intelligent and committed aunt who found her way to Europe and strove to help her extended family, among others).

At age 17, Anyelica now lives in a nicely finished house with all the amenities, multiple bedrooms, a modern kitchen, trendy furniture, and a gated yard - in an entirely different neighborhood.  She spends her time studying or lounging on her pillowed bed, keeping up with her friends via chats on her i-pad.  Somewhat out of place when she visits her old neighborhood, I wonder how much she thinks about what her life might have been.

Of Dogs and Boars

 

It’s not only in the United States that human expansion has led to habitation of areas that were for a long time inhospitable.  Amidst this arid landscape in Morocco, not only are people present, but modern amenities (as well as timeless artistic traditions like weavings and dance performances) are available to tourists and locals alike.  Springing from the prosperity of the manicured touristed area, on the periphery of town are buildings like those shown here: block-like but air-conditioned - an eyesore in the expansiveness of the surroundings but a boon to their inhabitants.  As if bridging the divide between the constructed and the natural, in the second photograph a dog sits chained, gazing towards the nearby hills.

At dawn, while walking not more than 5 minutes from the area shown, a chorus of barking dogs caught my attention.  Looking to see what had caused the disturbance, I saw a dark, grizzled boar trotting briskly along with at least a half-dozen canines yapping and lunging at its heels.  At first I was surprised to see a wild animal so close to town, but undoubtedly boar lived in the region since well before the freshly painted buildings were built.  Loath to see the animal harassed, I tried shouting at the dogs and throwing some stones, but the group was too fast for me and disappeared over a hill.  By the time I reached the summit, dogs and boar alike were well off into the distance, the entire situation beyond my control.

Past and Future

For years, I’ve been attracted to the textures and time-worn character of architecture in decay, spaces (urban, suburban and rural) devoid of people, and previously used elements of the cityscape sitting idle.  Being in these areas can sometimes feel like I’m at once seeing time move backwards and forwards:  Backwards, as I imagine the places and buildings during their heyday; forwards, because of my sense of impending apocalypse and a belief that the empty streets or shells of buildings may foreshadow what’s on the horizon for society in general.

For the most part, I’ve paid little mind to the isolation and eeriness that surrounds the areas described, although at times I’ve suddenly become aware of the potential for danger.  In a dirt lot that spanned an entire block in Guadalajara, for example, as I was photographing the wasteland of broken bottles, trash, concrete blocks and twisted metal strewn between the 12-foot walls that enclosed the area, a man in tattered clothes suddenly emerged from behind some cardboard boxes about 100 feet away.  While tempted to approach and ask to take his photograph (as a representation of humanities existence in hostile surroundings), I realized that if he was addled by drugs or armed I would be open to attack and opted for retreat.  

Yet my intention is not to show the scenes I’ve photographed as completely stark.  Against the backdrops of lifeless human constructions, many images hold a kernel of hope.  Be it a a tuft of vegetation growing out of a derelict building, a bird perched on an antenna in an unglamorous downtown, or even people (rendered diminutive by their surroundings), nature’s resilience can be found.  Let us hope that will always be the case.

Yennifer

Here’s a diptych of Dario and his Granddaughter Yennifer.  When Yennifer was just a baby, she would sometimes spend a full hour sitting on Dario’s sofa, carefully spooning serving after serving of rice and beans into her mouth.  Triumphant at his ability (really his wife Martina’s) to provide such sustenance, Dario would scoop Yennifer up from her seat, toss her into the air, and speaking in baby-talk tell her she would become the most beautiful “cuero"* in the neighborhood.  Many of the neighbors were visibly perturbed by the statement (despite its semi-jocular delivery), knowing that profession to be far from unknown in the community.

Luckily, Yennifer grew up, first to be a very warm and friendly child who delighted in games and fruits and took good care of her younger brother, and now to be a teenager, who quietly spends time studying, at home with family, and reading the Bible.  At age 16, many of her friends have begun to have children and move in with their boyfriends, but Yennifer has opted to follow her mother’s (and my) advice and not rush into full-fledged adulthood.  I’m very proud of her but do worry about some of the older men that have taken an interest in her and the rumors that she has a taste for beer.

On a side note - I love the creepiness of the dolls that periodically surface and the fact that they are collected and valued despite their decrepitude and oddness.

*The term “cuero” (literally “leather” or “skin”) colloquially translates roughly to “hooker.”

Children

Children in general, but particularly in places like Latin America, have been a source of joy for me for many years.  During my own childhood, I reveled in the improvised games and raucous, multi-aged bands of playmates I encountered during trips abroad.  The ingenuity, imagination, and sheer energy of our activities were something I did not find in my middle-class community in the United States.  Later, during stints working on community service activities as a high school or college student, I found ways to continue to engage with children, attempting to bridle their energies when, for example, I was teaching them math - yet still finding humor in their antics, and myself, too, looking forward to break time when we’d play kick-ball or some other game of their design.  

As a photographer, I’ve spent a great deal of my energy on portraits and street scenes - focusing on children and their lives: young Buddhist monks training, street children wandering cities in groups, country children tending livestock or following their parents to join in chores, or children of the shanties making the best of the only world they know.  I’ve tried to communicate the personality, openness, and emotion of the individuals I’ve photographed as well as provide a glimpse into their realities.  In this series I share images of six children I’ve met during my travels.  Each is from a different place and background, yet somehow they are unified.  

There will be more series of children to follow.

Up the River

The Amazon River, as you surely know, is legendary.  It’s name alone conjures images of remote jungle and tribal people with little connection to modernity.  While there may be areas along its banks that fulfill such legend, much of the river serves as a major roadway, shared by, among others; small boats carrying villagers short distances, indigenous people fishing in canoes, huge barges bringing industrial supplies to cities*, luxury boats housing tourists on all inclusive nature expeditions, military patrols, and multilevel ferries transporting hundreds of passengers on grueling journeys that sometimes last for weeks.  

Unsurprisingly, carved out of the landscape in proximity to this “highway”, are communities of varying sizes and character.  The three photographs I am sharing are an attempt to articulate the grit and feel of some of the mid-sized towns or cities.  Without the glamour of an opera house or baroque architecture like the cities of Manaus or Belem, or the “exotic” feel of barely noticeable indigenous settlements where the few dozen inhabitants subsist on both potato chips and freshly caught fish, the areas I am depicting are without immediate beauty or intrigue.

Nonetheless, they are the backdrop for the lives of many, and as I explored I came to love the ramshackle-nature of the communities and the unusualness of the cast of characters and their dispirit activities.  During my explorations through markets, museums, and along public transportation routes, I got a sense of the area’s diversity.  I encountered an unexpected addition to a fish market when I noticed a dead monkey for sale - brought by canoe from further upriver - whose luminous white skin was being exposed as an indigenous man carefully used his machete to scrape off the fur.  There were people dressed as they imagined ancient Israelies dressed, with robes and rope belts, following a popular religion.  A white man sitting in an internet café appeared to be painted from head to foot with a black substance (extracted from a nut), in a manner consistent with traditional indigenous “tattooing’ - having apparently returned from a destination quite remote.  There were whispers of drugs and soldiers were stationed to guard the compound of a busted kingpin.  Indigenous people, far from their childhood communities, were sprawled in drug or alcohol induced catatonia at the ports.  Other indigenous people were living happily with their families and neighbors in houses built on stilts - enjoying electricity, access to medical care, food, and kinship.  Tourists and the town’s elite mixed in air conditioned cafés as they sipped cappuccinos and ate freshly baked pastries.

Depending on one’s perspective areas like the ones shown might be apocalyptic or flush with opportunity and riches… but for a traveling photographer, they were nothing short of unique.