every picture tells a story, don't it?

I took a lot of photos on this last trip to the field. It was the first time I seriously started to consider composition, framing and light. Most of the photos I took were for work; we want to have a collection of images to use for reports and newsletters, showing our participants proudly holding record books or packets of tea. While I was taking the photos, I always imagined displaying them all at once, a relentless deluge of faces/colors/struggles. 

It is a remarkable experience, to take a photo of someone who has never seen their picture before.  Digital cameras have revolutionized the act, making it possible to instantly show someone what your camera sees.  I came to really appreciate the routine: we would finish the interview, I would ask if it was ok to take a photo, I would dig out my camera and the interviewee would jump up and run off to her house, or would shriek to some neighbor/friend/child to bring her beads.
Every woman I've ever met in northern Kenya wears a stunning mass of beads around her neck. My favorites are the plain strings of one color, stacked on top of one another ten or twenty rows high. I also love ones with keys, pendants, bottle caps or shells woven in, the juxtaposition of ordinary objects with these grand ornaments.
Before I started taking pictures, I thought these beads were fantastic, but I couldn't believe women wore them all the time. As someone who tends not to delight in dressing up, I found it hard to imagine wearing such finery to carry water and milk goats. Then I realized that these were only the everyday beads. The serious stuff came out only for special occasions and was even more outrageous than I could imagine. Women were weighed down by incredible helixes, beaded Kenyan flags, layers upon layers that obscured the endless beads below.
Taking a photo was no longer just pressing a button. I had to do justice to these precise and calculated displays. Women sometimes took five minutes, changing their clothes, arranging their beads, finding their children and standing still, all for something that took only an instant.

I'm happy with my images, but I wish I could have recorded what happened after I took them, when I turned the camera around and showed it to the eagerly waiting faces. The surprise, the laughter, the delight, the shock, the pride...the sound. Again and again, women made the same exclamation, a combination of wonder (at actually seeing yourself), disappointment (that you don't look quite like you thought you did) and glee at the complete insanity of the whole situation. There was a moment, where my hand was holding the camera, where it would be held by everyone else's too, clamoring to get a glance, that sound rolling from woman to woman as they each in turn saw themselves.
For the first time, I also took a few photos of the omnipresent kids, sometimes fifteen or twenty deep, hanging around the outskirts of our interviews until an adult got frustrated, picked up a rock, acacia branch, dried goat poop or whatever else was lying around and sent them scattering, squealing with laughter.
More than anything else, I wish I had a picture of these guys seeing their picture. You'll just have to trust me, it was incredible.