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Jerome Marot

Well-known member
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Ironworks


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Pottery

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Brewery
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
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Ironworks


tumblr_ozb36kmpDY1wgz7vxo1_1280.jpg

Pottery

tumblr_ozb2yp7YLK1wgz7vxo1_1280.jpg

Brewery



I wish I was more skilled and experienced in recognizing tribal differences. I can say that I don't recognize Nigerian faces from Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani or Ibo. Perhaps these folk are from Benin, Ghana, Uganda or Tanzania or even Liberia. But we do see that this place is served by "Plan" which des fabulous work with girls at disadvantaged and at risk.

A lot of folk were traumatized by the kidnapping and massacres by Boko Haram. So Nigeria is not ruled out as I can imaging that there are numerous smaller ethnic groups that I did not meet.

I have mentally ruled out former French colonies or Haiti and probably that is reasonable.

I am disappointed that there is still insufficient spread of technology and comforts to this neighborhood.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hello Jerome,

I have followed your work for a long time. I know your are a talented observor both of what's around you and also from your avid appetite for self learning.


I like it when photography holds up a candle to ourselves and the planet over which we claim dominion.

I dont know why, but I expected that the riches of modernity might have already infiltrated even the smallest villages. Beangladesh I understand. Many places have pracitcally no resources except the fish to catch in the ocean. In Africa, however, the land is fertile, supports animal husbandry and diverse crops. There are abundant raw materials and industires were started half a century ago.

When I was there, in the West coast, Central Afrcia and South Africa and Mozambique, as it was then, there were a lot of villages still with tribal law, mud huts, bare breasted women and homes made of mud with one tap as running water as the only modern amenity.

When missionaries inoculated an area with their brand of the Trinity, it meant villagers could no longer marry accors religious boundaries created by competing Churches. Children wee educated just sufficiently to turn away from the values and authority of the elders and drifted to the towns to become clerks and many ended up as marginals left just to drink and odd jobs and crime. The girls to even at times, selling their bodies.

Still, over the years, I had hoped that the beneifts of secondart education and fine new universities would have changed the situation. Your pictures show me that I was somewhat delusional. This should not be.

These are good people you photograph. In what way could we have done better by them?

Asher
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Asher,
These are good people you photograph. In what way could we have done better by them?
We?

We, Doug and Asher?

We, America?

We, "Western" civilization?

We, industrialized society?

We, the World?

Not we: The government of that nation?

Best regards,

Doug
 

James Lemon

Well-known member
Hello Jerome,

I have followed your work for a long time. I know your are a talented observor both of what's around you and also from your avid appetite for self learning.


I like it when photography holds up a candle to ourselves and the planet over which we claim dominion.

I dont know why, but I expected that the riches of modernity might have already infiltrated even the smallest villages. Beangladesh I understand. Many places have pracitcally no resources except the fish to catch in the ocean. In Africa, however, the land is fertile, supports animal husbandry and diverse crops. There are abundant raw materials and industires were started half a century ago.

When I was there, in the West coast, Central Afrcia and South Africa and Mozambique, as it was then, there were a lot of villages still with tribal law, mud huts, bare breasted women and homes made of mud with one tap as running water as the only modern amenity.

When missionaries inoculated an area with their brand of the Trinity, it meant villagers could no longer marry accors religious boundaries created by competing Churches. Children wee educated just sufficiently to turn away from the values and authority of the elders and drifted to the towns to become clerks and many ended up as marginals left just to drink and odd jobs and crime. The girls to even at times, selling their bodies.

Still, over the years, I had hoped that the beneifts of secondart education and fine new universities would have changed the situation. Your pictures show me that I was somewhat delusional. This should not be.

These are good people you photograph. In what way could we have done better by them?

Asher

Asher

"When African nations achieved independence, many countries had a tiny fraction of the population with a high school degree, much less a university education.
The European powers left behind a deficient physical infrastructure. If you compare Africa’s railway system today with India’s railway system, built during the British colonial period. India has a full railway grid. This is because the single ruling power, Great Britain, built a unified infrastructure in part to facilitate the extraction of India’s natural resources, such as India’s cotton for use in England’s cotton mills. In Africa where there were more topographical and geographical conditions and many political divisions, the European colonial powers did not get together and construct a railway network. Each imperial power typically built its own rail from a port to a mine or plantation. The rail system left by colonial powers was not a grid but just individual lines running from ports to interior locations that were important to the colonial powers. The lack of an efficient railway system has been an enormous burden for Africa." (Jeffrey D. Sachs...The age of sustainable development)

Best, regards
James
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jerome,

I would love to know where these wonderful pictures were taken. I am impressed by the uniformity of the exposures, indoors or out doors the exposures are pretty well the same.

There must b a great story behind this. After all, one doesn't normally get the privilege of going into people's private species.

These are fascinating, unique and just open a tiny crack on people who we can see are social, happy but decidedly different in circumstances we take for granted.

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
I dont know why, but I expected that the riches of modernity might have already infiltrated even the smallest villages.

Well, it has. Many people there have smartphones.

I am impressed by the uniformity of the exposures, indoors or out doors the exposures are pretty well the same.

That is almost entirely down to the modern automatics of the camera, I would say. And one of the few advantages of an electronic viewfinder.

There must be a great story behind this.

Actually, for these 3 pictures, this was more the standard tourist package.
 
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