Hear/Say

Last night, I dreamt that my mom sent me to a camp that taught horseback riding and encouraged digging through chicken shit.

Back to blogging though… documentary photographers are amazing! While their pictures speak for those glorious moments, those momentous seconds, where their camera has captured something inexplicably emotive– like these dogs ripping apart the last fox of the hunting season– most of their time is probably spent patiently waiting, positioning themselves and thinking three steps ahead. While fashion photography is fierce in the ability to carefully compose a beautiful picture, documentary photographs have another level of revealing beauty that is in front of us.

Abbie Trayler Smith has traveled all over the world, completing risky assignments for The Daily Telegraph in Malawi, Darfur, and Ethiopia. She was presented with Young Photographer of the Year at the Picture Editors Guild Award by then Prime Minister Tony Blaire in 2002. She retired from photojournalism in 2006 to pursue projects of her own passion.

And one of my favorites in the hunting reel:

The captain of the hunt! Meticulously checking his nails the “girly” way. It brings out such character, I think…

On to more serious stories, the impact of the tsunami:

…and the poverty of Mali, where the average annual salary is $1500 US dollars…

CLICK for her website HERE.

I’ve always wanted to talk to an accomplished photojournalist on how their work changes their view/perspective on life, or the purpose of life. They’ve seen so many hardships come and go; but their lifestyle is probably a rush– imagine photographing some customary traditional celebration after seeing people die and struggle through everyday life. Does it confuse them? Enrage them? Depress them?

Kevin Carter, for example, of the infamous Sudanese baby with the vulture:

Winning the Pulitzer, the highest award for photojournalism, might have been part of the problem– controversy over the snapped shot and its cruel implications is still discussed in journalism classes today. He killed himself in 1994 by carbon monoxide poisoning, and left a desperate note:

“I am depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…I have gone to join Ken [recently deceased colleague Ken Oosterbroek] if I am that lucky.”^[7]

If the photograph above instantly evokes a sense of guilt, responsibility, compassion, and inner turmoil with the reality that it presents in contrast to the reality we live in, imagine how the person taking the photograph must struggle. I don’t believe anyone who isn’t used to these dire conditions would have no compassion for the baby girl in the photo; in fact, perhaps it is compassion that moves a person to capture this moment, and confront the world with its darker side.

Graceee