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Posted on 22/03/20 2:07:42 PM

DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
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Some old black and white portraits and a chance meeting.

With enforced house arrest I have been sorting boxes of old photographs and I came across these. So I have scanned a few because they represent a past that, within our lifetimes, is disappearing. I took these photographs over fifty years ago when I was just twenty four years old.

In 1967 I was commissioned to shoot a film for UNICEF in Senegal. We spent two weeks living and filming in a very remote mud and thatched hut village on the river Senegal. (Today Google shows it to have been developed into a rather unattractive small cement block township.)

Here I am shooting by firelight:

Back then we were the first white men seen in the village for almost fifteen years. Children and teenagers had never seen anything like us before. Wherever we went we were followed by children and youngsters. It was like being the pied piper. Obviously older inhabitants who had been outside were more aware.

For all its very basic nature the village had some surprising sophistications. Among these was its goldsmiths. The women were for the most part adorned with gold jewellery. It was a mark of a man's prestige, in a very macho society, to adorn his woman as splendidly as possible.

These women were so splendid I wanted to photograph them but knew that I needed to proceed with caution. The men ruled the roost and so I approached the village council and asked to be allowed to put a request to them. I asked for their permission to photograph them, the men, as important people in the village and, as an extra, to photograph their wives and and daughters too. I offered, in exchange, a gift of medicines for their very basic clinic.

Somewhat to my surprise the men agreed. They said something to the women and suddenly all the wives and daughters disappeared!

So I started by photographing the men and then, one by one, the women returned dressed in their finest outfits and adorned with their jewellery!

Men and women both, knew what a camera was and what it did. Some of them even had photos taken on rare trips into town. The men can be seen to sit in a manner that conveys their status clearly and deliberately.

The women on the other hand had never developed any camera consciousness in the way we have in the west. They simply sat down in front of me and composed themselves to be photographed without even the tiniest trace or hint of self consciousness or posing.

Before or since, I have never in my life experienced sitters like them! You couldn't wish for better. The photographs are lovely not because of the photographer but because of the subjects.

The last two photos show a tiny piece of the village and the river. I am particularly fond of the canoe photograph. It's shape, and that of the oars, perfectly reflect the shape of an African shield and spears. To me it is very symbolic photo that exudes Africa. I would love to claim credit for this but truthfully that aspect was entirely serendipitous and unplanned!

There is another story attached to this.

To get my visa for Senegal I had to travel to Paris as there was no embassy in London. As I was standing in line at the visa desk an older man approached me. I was wearing an old 1942 Leica IIB on a string around my neck. I saw that he had an equally battered old Leica himself and we began to talk. He never introduced himself by name - it was just a conversation between two fellow photographers. We talked about how difficult it is to avoid the presence of the photographer affecting the subject and whether photographs could be truly 'authentic'.

As we neared the end of the line he told me he had a book coming out and asked me for my address so he could send me a copy. We said goodbye and I more or less forgot about it until a couple of months later a package arrived!

It is just as well he was so modest and never introduced himself by name. Not only am I rather shy by nature but I was just twenty five at the time and would have been absolutely tongue tied in the presence of one of my greatest heroes! As it was we enjoyed an exchange that would have otherwise have been unthinkable.

A very charming and gracious man.

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Posted on 22/03/20 6:31:50 PM

michael sinclair
Off-Topic Opportunist
Posts: 1864

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