In 2017, my wife, Adele Brown, was invited to spend three weeks at an NGO in Gulu, Uganda, teaching critical thinking skills to blind high school-age students. I was asked along to document the organisation’s activities. I became fascinated by the town’s main market, where vendors sold goods such as used clothes, fruit and firewood.
I asked the Ugandan teachers how I might approach someone to take their portrait. They suggested I offer a modest “model fee” after seeking permission. One of the students – Emmanuel (Emma) – wanted to assist me.
We would visit the market together. When I saw a vendor I wanted to photograph, Emma would approach and seek their consent. Most agreed, but after returning home to New York, I looked at the results and was disappointed.
As with other well-intentioned projects, I thought that was the end of it. The images weren’t working because I felt the vendors were getting lost in their own environment – the backgrounds were too distracting. Adele and I were asked back to the NGO the following year, and this gave me the opportunity to resolve this issue.
My eureka moment came when I decided the backdrop I needed was mosquito-netting. This allowed the women to stand out from their working environment while still letting their surroundings come through. The netting also added the symbolism of malaria, one of Uganda’s biggest health problems.
My wife and I noticed that women seemed to be doing nearly all the work, and that became the theme of my project. Emma mentioned a quarry about 10 miles outside town. The women who worked there were breaking rocks all day, reducing them to gravel size and being paid for each jerrycan they filled.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
