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8/3/2019 Kenya Photography
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Joshua Gale
11/23/11
Adv. Documentary Photography
In July of 2011, I was given the unique opportunity to, for one month, live with and document the lives of a Maasai tribe in
northern Kenya. The entirety of my experience was under the guidance of various representatives of the not for profit organization
Unto the Least of His. In particular, my job was to document the relief efforts that are being made in an attempt to control damage
done by a nearly year long drought. This drought has taken lives and has created hardships for communities in almost every aspect of
their lives. My experience, I soon figured out, would be unable to be reproduced in full via any camera equipment, not just mine, no
matter the caliber. I was sent on an impossible mission to constrain a culture to merely 2 dimensions and bring it home as if it could
be canned and tasted like an exquisite food.
Nonetheless, as time has progressed and artistic techniques have developed, artists have trained themselves in ways that are
meant to represent fragments of reality so that at least bits of that reality can be conveyed to the public. Some of those photographic
rules I made sure to break, while others I intentionally kept. My hope with my photographic documentation is that, even though
while there I felt as though I were in some epistemic anomaly, it is apparent to the viewer that I maintained control within myself and
was able to seize the opportunity to simplify a very distant place and different culture into a clean and precise photograph that anyone
can understand. When seen, the photographic dissemination of a struggling people is something anyone should be able to interpret.
As with many things, there are many severe dualities at play in the Kenyan culture. They are teased with a democratic
legislature that is corrupted by tribalism. Though Kenyans are a very eastern people, they have attempted to embrace western
technology and thus have created a paradigm very unique to themselves. The walls of their homes are made with water, sand, and
dung while the ceilings are made of scraps of plastic, sheet metal, and fabric. Kenya is a place where simple lives have become
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complicated and where tourists spend thousands of dollars to witness for just a short period of time the dying and materialistic poverty
of the Kenyan nation, while those people on display hardly ever get even a small fragment of that money. My photography is meant
to embrace these dualities while at the same time express the purity and desperation of the beautiful people I saw in their deepest time
of need. The 10 photographs enclosed here best represent various parts of the Kenya that I was able to experience.
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This is a photograph
of a Kenyan boma.
These bomas are
made of wood, mud,
and dried grass and
limbs. I pulled
down the saturation
in this photograph,
in order to express a
mood that one
might feel as they
approach this home.
The studs of the
home are several
vertical pieces of
wood that create a
linear patternand
because the edges of
the house are not
shown, the viewer
might feel as thoughthis house goes on
and on well beyond
what is seen here.
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The door offers a
place for the viewer
to rest his eyes.
This photograph was
taken with as wide an
aperture as possible.
The sharp focus on
the eyes of the child
and fly on his nose
are meant to catch the
viewers attention.
As with the previous
portrait, simplicity is
a brute part of the
strength of this
photograph.
The light falls softly
on his face from the
cloudy day and his
eyes look as though
they are made ofglass, with an
interesting reflection
of the photographer
in the center of them.
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This wide-angle
photograph was taken
atop one of thehighest points in
Kenya.
The cloud formation
that starts in the
center of the image
burst forward toward
the viewer while the
cliff juts out of the
left side of the image
and peers over the
bush underneath.
I softened the edges
just slightly to add a
soft tone to the image
that balances out the
magnanimous size of
the clouds andmountains with a
touch of serenity.
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Here are some
members of a
community that havevery recently received
a well. They began to
dance and sing
because we, the
Americans
responsible for the
well, came to visit.
I lowered my camera
toward the ground
and set my shutter
speed to be very fast
to capture the water
particles as they
splashed outward.
The positions of the 6
hands and one foot
juxtaposed against the
smile of the little boysface form together to
convey a very joyful
and playful attitude
a very appropriate
feeling considering
the situation.
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This is the structure of a
boma in progress. Iwanted to take a detail
of this structure to show
how complex a
structure this can be.
The grid of lines created
from each of the sticks
conveys this thought of
complexity.
The blurry background
adds to the continuity of
the photograph by
giving the viewer
something easy to rest
his eyes on and though
distinct, hard edges
cannot be recognized,
they reiterate the
direction and texture ofthe sticks in the
foreground
strengthening the
composition as a whole.
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The sign in the back left
mimics the position of
this ostrich crossing our
path. The distinct linespainted on the road dip
back beyond the ostrich
and add to the
awkwardness, yet
strength, of this photo.
In Kenya I felt as if I
were in another world,
one where even an
ostrich could appear
from the bushes and
walk in front of your
vehicle. The overall
yellow tone makes the
viewer feel in that same
surreal yet lethargic
mood.
The shape of theostrichs neck and legs
work together to show
movement and a certain
pace within the photo.
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The hard light coming
from under the hood
of the car and use of
an extended shutterare at the heart of this
photograph.
One night, on our way
home, our car broke
down near a bus stop.
Many of the Kenyans
who were waiting at
the bust stop came to
our aid. It was a
chaotic moment and I
wanted to capture the
rustle and bustle of it.
The strong lighting in
the center with intense
amount black at the
bottom creates some
very interestingsilhouettes.
The prominence of the
color red adds to the
immediacy of the
situation.
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