Shutter and strangers
Notes from your shy photographer.
A strange dark-skinned lady, black braids falling close to her waist, short and slender body frame, her fingers are probably fidgeting. Her dark eyes swiftly scanning each face, to somehow guess which person is more likely to say yes to a photo. And when she approaches you, chances are, she’s going to stumble in her words. She might snap her fingers in the middle of the conversation, trying to remember the Swahili word for “Consent.” Oh! it’s “Ridhaa,” there she got it. And finally she’ll warmly smile at you with a glint in her eye that seems to scream “please say yes,” as she waits to hear your answer. She’ll treat it as if it’s a divine assignment when you let her press that shutter right in front of your face. And even if you won’t let her, she’ll respect your decision and maybe go cry in the bathroom later at night, but that’s not for us to worry about. She signed up for this, let her learn that for someone to let themselves be seen and captured in their true light, it gotta be earned trust.
I can tell you that 3 people who didn’t know me trusted me with their portraits, and it felt like bearing the weight of a halo around my head. They let themselves be witnessed by my eyes and my camera, and believed just maybe, I could be a mirror to freeze a smile they didn’t know they had, and a mirror to show a reflection of them that still was as beautiful as heaven without even having to involve a smile. Of course I still confused my shutter speeds and f-stops, but oh how beautiful the time and space when the photographer fumbles through their settings, and the subject’s eyes fall on and off the lens. It can be a deep and meaningful exchange, when you let yourself be seen, and trust a person closing one eye and looking into a hole with the other, to paint you in your true light.
My first week into photography, and guess what, just as much as I am inspired and excited, I have found myself disappointed. I thought this was going to be easy, it’s not. Talking to strangers? Crouching to get a worm’s eye view in the middle of Posta, Dar es Salaam? Be the only one standing and pacing around in a hall filled with people sitting down on their chairs? I mean, the introvert in me is in shock and denial. Am I even considering Sports Photography, un huh?. Yah, leave it for football games to influence your career paths. This isn’t easy, but the love for it makes it worth it.
If you saw me last year in my photojournalism class before starting this photography program, half the time you’d find me confused. As Mr. Irigo stood in front of class writing with a blue marker pen on a white board about shutter speeds and apertures, with no real camera to hold and practice what he said, it sometimes felt like I invaded an astronauts class and was staring at numbers of a formula to fly out of space. But God saved me a spot in another class this year, and no, it’s not flying out of space formulas. An extremely dedicated and talented mentor to tutor me, a camera to experiment with, countless beautiful faces and places and things to capture. What more do I need?
My mentor tells me that you’ll see the fruits of photography when you “put in the work.” And that you “don’t need to do ‘one’ thing for the rest of your life.” You can always have a taste of different things and see how each shapes your life. So this is what we are tasting right now. Whether it means only dusting off my camera on Christmas days with my family saying “Ndizziiii,” or something I will carry to work each day and it be paying my bills, light will find me whichever road I take.