There is something amazing about the idea of seeing and meeting people whose existence was not quite imaginable to you outside the exotic portrayals of National Geographic. Today I was walking around with my camera. Sometimes I snap photos because I see something that captures an experience I am having and I want the photo to hold onto that memory for me. Sometimes I snap a photo because I want to better understand a life that seems foreign to me. Sometimes I snap a photo to share an experience with others. Sometimes I snap a photo just to anchor myself. There are myriad of reasons to take photos.The photos I am sharing today are photos of people whom I do not know. Yet, because I am here, the photo speaks to me about the people.
This beautiful woman was mopping the floor in the Department of Psychology building. I asked her if I could take her photo. She replied, "Why?" I stumbled a bit over words having expected her to just say either yes or no. I said something about trying to take photos of different kinds of work.. She agreed and then posed, quite deliberatively, for the photo. I love the way she is not exactly smiling and yet you can feel the smile under the skin of her lips and face. I imagine I have met her before, but I don't have a memory of it.
This is a lady called Monica. I had met her the previous day. She is in the small garden in front of the house where I am staying. This evening, she was harvesting ground nuts for supper. She doesn't know that ground nuts area favorite of mine. She didn't mind me taking her picture, but she also was not that interested in what it meant for me to take it. Unlike the other photos you will see where people were posing for the camera.
This fella is a bank ATM machine security. I usually walk past him on the path to the Department of Psychology. He has smiled and waved at me before. Today he saw me with my camera and he asked me to take his picture. Can you see the smile under his serious face?
Many women and girls carry baskets and food stuff on their heads. This youngster was selling ears of corn. She looks a bit skeptical of me, but who can blame her? I saw her sell on ear of corn to an older lady sitting on the side of the street with her wares for sale. I don't know if I will see this young lady again.
We never know whose paths we will cross and what their effect on us will be. Vice Versa.
As an American, how would it feel if someone from another country asked you if she could take a photo of you? I am trying to find the role my camera plays hanging on a lanyard off my wrist, waiting for its story to be told. What stories do these photos inspire for you?
Photos - some say are the window into the soul of a person. Photos hold more than memories - they also hold emotions, connections, and a way of being in the world. Thinking of photos recalls for me a paper a friend wrote many years ago on silence, the in between space. Photos hold that in between space - between living and dead, between connection and not connected, between being and not being, between knowing and not knowing. Photos are placeholders in life. Looking at the photos you posted I am reminded that people are people no matter what culture or part of the world they are from. We go through all the necessary motions required of us in life - be it mopping a floor, guarding an ATM, or picking nuts - they are necessary acts of daily living. Yet, in doing those acts it connects us to others in some tangential way. I want to sit a while with each person to find out what is behind the "smile"- what is your life story, how did get where you are today, why do you do what you do, what goals do you have -- the questions are endless. But in some way the recognition through wanting to take their photos brought some form of significance to what they were doing. Dr. Helen
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dr. Helen! I love that you get what I am doing.
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