When driving down from Abengourou, there is this one spire that sticks up and basically serves as my indicator of where to turn in Abidjan to go down to Plateau. For those who haven't had the thrill of driving in the Art Nouveau highway offramp designs of Côte d'Ivoire, let me tell you that when you see something like this spire, you remember it. If you don't, you're going to end up in Ghana before you can turn around and come back.
Anyways, for all my time in the country, I never actually managed to get up to this spire which is the top of a Catholic church. So, on my last day in the country, I set out to go visit it. This was definitely an interesting trek to set out on because while I'm sure there are easier ways to get to this church, I don't think that any of them don't involve driving the opposite directions at various point before you finally get there. Suffice to say, I'm glad that I went. While the exterior is a bit funked up from the climate, it's actually an extremely nice church with a design like no other I've seen and that I appreciated a great deal. If you're there, I'd recommend checking it out to show that yes, places of Christian worship don't have to look like the European church layout.
But, in the shot below that shows the spire, I realized that it sums up Abidjan quite well with the church looming above, lush greenery, laundry drying on said greenery (common in this district), the twisty roads, an old Mercedes on said roads, mobile network advertisements, skin lightening cream advertisements, and some guy in the middle of the shot because there's always some guy sitting in some random place. About the only thing missing would be the lagoon, which was actually a bit off the the right. Funny how one shot can show so much. A tip of my hat to Elia for getting it.
Across the street from my apartment, a guy was taking a break from his job two days ago. A woman came along, got in an argument with him, and stabbed him to death. Because I live in San Francisco, there will and has been media coverage of this, but it will soon be forgotten as the balance of coverage favors shots of the Golden Gate Bridge as opposed to the evils that lurk in the city although you can easily find them without really having to look all that hard.
As this event passes and this poor fellow is laid to rest, you won't see a continuous stream of photos showing the bad shades (prostitution, drug addicts, homeless) of a delightful town. It's the complete inverse with a shot like this one from Liberia. I have seen photos of children like this thousands of times before and they are something that I do not give thanks for today. That shot is not a good photo, but it is a shocking photo, if you haven't seen it before. All it does is to further the perception that most people in North America and Europe have of Africa.
Today is Thanksgiving in the US and as I grew up there, it's customary to state all that you are thankful for today. At this moment, in the context of this article, I am thankful for connectivity. I know it sounds like a strange thing to say, but it's a fact that while it allows for images and articles on Africa that continually portray it in a bad light to circulate, there is also the opportunity to see another side. We can turn the camera around 180 degrees and see what there is beyond the scope of what has been captured; the innovation, culture, history, food, music, and life that thrives in Africa. But most importantly, Africans can actually talk about Africa.
I am thankful for all who chose to take this path and show this when all of you know how much less resistance there is on the path that has you taking photos of children in the street to accomplish lord knows what at this point. Let us hope these efforts that move slowly now gain momentum with time. And in time, perhaps we will all be able to thankful that perceptions will have changed.
Now that I'm back home after a lengthy time away, I caught up on getting the photos I took while in Ghana, online. Often, we upload photos to our flickr account but these were uploaded to my personal site, where I generally upload trip photos. All of them are under the Ghana Gallery with the exception of photos from Maker Faire Africa which are all in the Maker Faire Africa set.
My photos from here are generally "okay" at best. There wasn't a lot of sun to add any dramatic shadows to subjects and I was just getting the hang of a borrowed lens. On top of all that, I was rather timid in how I approached taking photos as I didn't know what the generally attitude of people would be to my taking pictures. Turns out people don't mind and so the shots from when I got back to Accra were a good deal better.
It's an interesting town with a lot of history and a very, very compact city center that is flooded with markets. I suppose I was a bit overwhelmed, but I did manage to get off a few decent shots here, although they were mainly of market settings as that was where I spent more of my time. Again, the sunlight wasn't terribly complacent in getting off the best shots and so I feel like a great deal of them were flat.
I didn't really even mean for this gallery to happen, but I got a lift from Kumasi back to Accra and it's a pretty long ride. I ended up taking a lot of shots of the back of taxi windows where the often have funny messages, although usually they're religious in nature. But, a fun glimpse of driving around if one is interested in seeing the fun side of taxis. Florian writes more about the phenomena.
By far and away my best gallery from the trip. Cape Coast is quite picturesque with a decently long history as a town that you can easily see around you. The structures left over from the Colonial days along with the amount of color in the town lend to good photos. On top of that, there is typically a mist near the edge of the town from the ocean that creates interesting shots, especially when the sun breaks through later in the day.
On a side note, I learned that under no circumstances should you take a picture of the Mighty Victory hotel that is next to Fort Victoria. I did that and a woman who I assume was the owner came running out and yelled at me how it was private property and gave me a line about, "People don't like having their pictures taken here." Based on her accent, she sounded much more American than Ghanaian which would explain the whole "private property" and general asshole attitude that went counter to every single other Ghanaian I met on the trip. That in combination with the fact that two separate locals told me, "Mighty Victory? They are not kind people there." made me extremely happy to have not stayed there and I recommend for everyone else to avoid it no matter how much your taxi driver might try to push it on you.
I had a great time in Ghana, but unfortunately the photos don't showcase that as well as I'd like. I suppose it's because I've taken tens of thousands of photos and I'm getting really picky about how they turn out. It's also the case that I was in Ghana in what is considered "winter" there, so I didn't get as much sun as would have made better pictures. On the bright side, it was quite cool and enjoyable though, which given how badly I can overheat, was probably a good thing.
By no means do I call myself a professional photographer. I have sold very little of the photos that I have taken. Part of this is due to the fact that flickr has done an absolutely lovely job in cheapening photography as an art because everyone now believes that they are a photographer. Living in either San Francisco or Barcelona most of the year, I see this all the time. People walk around with a honkin' Digital SLR slung over one shoulder that has the lens on it that came with it, which is probably a piece of junk. These people get back home from their trips, look at their photos and are not terribly impressed. They then look at mine (see them if you like) and immediately ask me (if I know them of course), "Wow, you must have a really expensive camera!" Well, to some degree, yes. I have a Canon 30D body with about 30,000 photos on it and, five lenses I can attach to it. It all cost a bit to put together over time, but long before I started down the road to destitution in owning a "proper" camera, I had a number of point and shoot cameras. And in truth, the only thing I get out of having the DSLR is more color depth and greater options.
I bring this up as often people use trips to Kenya or Tanzania where they go on a Bush Safari as an excuse to go nuts with the camera purchasing, buying the best DSLR with massive 400mm telephoto lenses. Oh and let's not even talk about what a climb up Kilimanjaro needs in the way of new camera gear... Sure, all of that can definitely help out with taking good photos, but only if you know how to use it.
Last year, a friend of mine was mulling a new camera purchase and really, really wanted to get a low end DSLR like the Rebel XTi. Unlike most people, she actually asked me what I thought about that before she bought it and I told her that as a first camera, it's ridiculous. Get a really good point and shoot with a decent set of manual controls. This aspect is much more important than having the big camera hanging off your shoulder because you can be totally automatic, but then fiddle a bit to learn more about the art of photography. To prove this point, a recent article came out from a guy who went to Japan and shot most of the trip with a Canon PowerShot G9 instead of his Leica M8. The difference between the two is literally thousands of dollars and in the end, he found that the much cheaper Canon did nearly the same job as the much more expensive M8:
But seriously, who takes their M8 to Japan and ends up leaving it in the bag (or the hotel room) most of the time? The answer, it turns out, is me.With only eleven days in which to savour a first-taste of Japan, I chose to travel as light as possible. In my old universe, this meant the Leica M8 with a 28/35/50 Tri-Elmar. At the last minute, Michael suggested that I also take the new Canon G9 and put it through its paces as a travel camera. No harm, I thought, as it’ll be nice to have a point-and-shoot for ‘happy snaps’ along the way.
As the story unfolded, however, this solid, dependable little blob of consumer electronics became my constant companion, and the Leica a lonely bag-warmer. This is the tale of how my paradigm on ‘serious’ travel cameras changed.
And sometimes, the big giant DSLR is actually much more of a hindrance than anything else. It's nearly useless for me to take portraits with as people (and dogs) feel like they have a cannon pointed at them and don't act naturally. Also, when traveling to places like the Democractic Republic of Congo, a big camera is bad news as you can read there. Of course, a camera in general is a big problem as a stupid friend of mine once took a picture while driving of a guy in the street who he thought had died. This ultimately led him to being detained by the police for 12 hours because he had slowed down to take the picture and people thought he had hit the guy. It's in these situations where, the smaller your camera, the better, and good point and shoots are a godsend.
Whatever the case, I can't emphasize enough that the type of equipment you have is so incredibly secondary to the type of ability you wield in taking your photos. People who know what they're doing can get away with using a Box camera if that's all they have available. It's something to think about the next time Canon, Nikon, or Sony release their next DSLR bodies and your think that you absolutely need to have it to be taking good shots.
First off, any photographer, writer, musician, artist, or pizza delivery guy that goes by one name like Rankin does, is bound to be an ass and a bit out of touch with the "real" world. By "real" world, I mean the one in which people like you and I watch things called, "Real World" because our lives are so inordinately mundane. Now, these one named people love to do things to show that they do in fact "get it" and obviously Rankin has done such an event or I wouldn't be bothering to write about him.
Twiddling his thumbs in what I'm sure is a sunny, West End breakfast nook one day, Rankin apparently got the idea to go to DR Congo and photograph people living in Mugunga refugee camp. You can take a look at the photos. They're good photos as would be expected from a high end fashion photographer. The thought behind them was to shoot the subjects in a high fashion manner so that people could better relate to them. This is of course where the controversy started because this is asinine. They're human beings. We can relate to them no matter what. But such is the generally inept approach toward Africa. If you feel like reading more commentary, then take a look at: Uganda Scarlett Lion, Wronging Rights, and to a lesser extent Chis Blattman. These are all excellent blogs by the way, which are worth reading on a regular basis unless of course you don't like sarcasm, in which case, what the hell are you doing reading my blog?
In my mind, a better approach would have been for Rankin to "arm" locals in the area with cameras and help them to shoot what they see from their vantage. While the photos wouldn't be artistic at first, they would be honest. Rankin's work is not honest. It's a fabrication and when something is fabricated through a camera, I can't stand it. It's one of the few mediums we have that allows us a window on to another time or place that we don't immediately have access to. This is the point of it; all else is secondary. If we're to "understand the plight" of the people living in the Kivus, then we really need to actually see people living in region and know who they are. As it is, this seems like an anthropological documentation of a foreign species. It fails on all levels except getting Rankin press and making him feel like he did some good by being there for two weeks.
Officially, it's legal to take photos in DR Congo, although for professional purposes you are supposed to have a permit. Unofficially, it's a scorned practice.
This is the problem that I've been running in to while being here. If you want to take a shot, you need to be stealthy about it. Using point and shoots is advisable over hauling out the 30D with the 2.8 aperture lens on it that makes it looks like a gun.
If regular people see you taking a photo, they will get in your face about it. This can vary by region though. In the west, they are much more antagonistic than in the east, probably because the west has more people sitting on their asses with little to do but harass people.
The police are the worst of all. They won't let you off without a bribe. Friends of friends have actually been taken down the police station only to argue their way out of bribes though, as it is legal to take pictures. This is a practice that you just want to do for the purpose of being right as they'll detain you for for several hours before you get out of there. Passing off a dollar's worth of Francs will make life go a lot smoother if cops get in between your camera and a shot.
This attitude about taking photos dates back to the Mobutu times when it was absolutely forbidden to take pictures in what was then Zaire. As is the case with just about every aspect of modern society in DR Congo, these old habits are hell to kill off and thusly people get offended of your taking photos of things. Even if it's something as silly as taking a picture of an empty street, someone will get offended in the end if they see you, which can drive you crazy because it makes you think that they should focus more on fixing their streets than harassing a tourist with a camera.
So, here is the problem for me. I like to have photos to emphasize my blog posts, but for this series on DR Congo, the photos are going to be limited. Some will have them and some will not. I will have a nice selection of photos in the galleries once I get to posting them from Spain though.
It's a real shame that people are so assinine about this, as the country is beautifully colorful and the people vibrant and full of life despite their endless hardships that they've had to endure.
