Uganda Project

Rehaboth Village

2006-11-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

Benjamin’s sister Ola was playing on the porch of the house, which overlooks Jinja Village and the Nile River.
She put down her toys and looked at me as I photographed her brother. Since coming back from Africa, I often look at the reflection of myself in her eyes. What other things will she look at in her lifetime? What can I do to keep her eyes so bright and unafraid?

In the families being supported by AOET in Rehaboth Village, I witnessed a great deal of pride and care in the manner the home was maintained. This attitude clearly extended down to the smallest of children.

One of the programs of Aids Orphan Educational Trust is to provide vocational training and support to HIV positive mothers who have children in the program. This helps them to pay for their own treatment, gives them a skill to pass down to their children, and keeps the family together as long as possible.

AOET supports several schools, one of which is shown in the photo above. This young lady was named Hilde, and she seemed to be a favorite of visitors because she was so outgoing. A very bright child, she became withdrawn when I showed interest in other children as well. Hilde lost her parents when she was 3.

Phoebe lost her parents to AIDS 2 years ago. She and her brother live with their aunt and her children in 3 rooms of a building they rent from a local woman. Her aunt cannot afford to send either of them to school so Phoebe reads and teaches her brother as much as she can remember from her schooling. One of the other rooms in the building houses a church, in which Phoebe is the leader of the youth choir.
She sang the hymn “In the Meadows” for me .

Aids Orphan Education Trust

2006-08-13T19:06:00.000-04:00

Children of Ynyama Village
welcome home their friends from trip to USA
The first NGO (non governmental organization) I worked with in Jinja, Uganda was the Aids Orphan Educational Trust, or AOET. Begun by Sam Tushabe in response to the need for supporting the school requirements of children orphaned by the Aids epidemic in East Africa. In addition to running a school, the NGO also is active in running a clinic for Aids patients, placement of Aids orphans in Ugandan families, rescue efforts to assist families in the war torn north, and micro-enterprise training for Aids widows, many of which were HIV positive. They are a very well run, christian based organization that are facing the many challenges in Ugandan society with faith, vision.
Rehoboth Primary School :

Primary Level 3
Rehoboth Primary School

Joseph Twoli, Child Welfare Coordinator
Describing new school location

Rehoboth Community:
AOET has purchased several acres on a hillside overlooking Jinja and the Nile River.
They place orphans and families there, and help them to become self sufficient.
They currently have 6 houses built, and are planning more houses, and a community including school.
The families involved are chosen based on their potential and willingness to take care of these fine homes.

Clinic

In order to support the families, AOET has developed its own clinic facilities, focussing on Aids testing, counseling, treatment, and community education on health concerns.

The clinic staff performs a skit about Aids transmission for the community

Widow Empowerment:

In order to support the families of their children, AOET provides instruction to widows and mothers in computers, sewing and weaving. Many of the women are HIV positive themselves. This enables women to :
a.help pay for their own treatment
b. pass on skills to their children
c. keep their family together as long as possible

In conclusion:

AOET is a well run, visionary program that addresses several important aspects of the orphan problem. It seeks to keep families together, and works hard to assist children in staying in school. They currently have lost funding for the new school half way through, and are looking for additional help to finish the school which will provide education for hundreds of orphans of Aids affected families.
For more information, please see their web site:
AOET

Life and death at the source...

2006-08-11T04:51:00.000-04:00

Angel, night commuter child

Charity for Peace Camp
Gulu, Uganda

It is 4:30 AM, but my body seems to insist that it is the slothful hour of 11:30 AM,eastern Africa time, and refuses to go back to sleep. I am sorry this is the first posting in quite a while, but dependable, uploadable internet access proved quite unattainable. Let me somehow try to begin to explain the last several weeks in a few words and images. Let this serve as an introduction.

I have heard it said that the value placed on life in parts of Africa is very low.
This certainly explains the driving on the "highways" in Uganda. In fact 3 days after I travelled the same road, 30 people were killed when a taxi bus slammed into a truck when it was on the wrong side of the road, avoiding other slower moving cars and the inevitable craters in the surface of the road. (story)
Yet at the same time, I met people willing to sacrifice as they make room in their house for one more orphan. One more war widow. One more HIV positive AIDS widow.
I met a very bright young woman trained as a tailor, who abandoned her schooling to take care of her 5 siblings when, at the age of 8, she witnessed the slaughter of her parents.
I met thousands of children who walk miles barefoot to study advanced mathematics in a dirt floor schoolhouse, who desire to be doctors, nurses, engineers, artists, if they can just find the money to pay their school fees.
What is one to make of all of this?
I took photographs.

Catherine Primary School,
Kangulumira , Uganda

Sunday Morning Night Commuters
Charity for Peace Camp
Gulu, Uganda

Family working in the quarry
Acholi quarter,
Kampala, Uganda

Former Child Soldier,
Charity for Peace Camp
Gulu, Uganda

On Human Suffering (the photographer and the subject continued)

2006-07-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

photo: Rest Home, Virginia, 1983

The human story has been filled with many recurring themes; civilization, war, life, death, cruelty and compassion. Yet one of the most constant themes in this story is the persistance of human suffering. In this far from perfect world, what are we to do about those less fortunate than ourselves?
In Matthew 25, Jesus Christ was asked about the end of time:

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Yet in Mark 14, he also states:

7The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want.

From this I understand that Christ teaches that the poor, and with them suffering of mankind, will never be completely eradicated, as long as we are on this earth. Yet, it is incumbent on us to do what we can to assist those less fortunate and in need. As we do, we acknowledge that we are all in the same family of man, and it is a recognition that the material blessings we have are not all that they seem to be. Rather, it is our relationships to each other that are the real blessings.

Man,Men Virginia 1983

So how can mere photos address the needs of the poor, and help to ease such suffering?
If you wish to see, one only need to look at the images of Eugene Smith in Minamata, Louis Hine in Breaker Boys, or Sebastiao Salgado in his Serra Paleda mine images. Here you will see images full of compassion, and images that have moved the world to correct wrongs to groups of peoples. Humans are a visual being, and we respond strongly to imagery. For better or for worse. Just ask anyone involved in campaign advertising.
At this point, I will abandon my intention to only show my own images on this page to include one photo.

By Stuart Franklin of Magnum Photo, this one image gave hope to millions of Chinese that change was possible in the face of overwhelming odds.

If you wish to see more, an excellent book and web site is "100 photographs that have changed the world."

Photographer and subject

2006-07-19T22:10:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching an excellent TV show on PBS: American Masters: Artists create images of Marilyn Monroe. Seems like a good time to take a look at the relationship of the photographer and the subject. The objects on both side of the camera's lens, and the way they relate to each other.
In Bill Jay and David Hurn's book "On being a photographer", Bill is discussing what it takes to be a photographer:

Many people are interested in photography in some nebulous way; they might be interested in the seemingly glamorous jobs of top fashion or war photographers; or in the acquisition and appreciation of beautiful, functional machines, the cameras...
...but these interests, no matter how personally enjoyable they might be never lead to the person becoming a photographer. The reason is that photography is only a tool, a vehicle, for expressing or transmitting a passion in something else. (emphasis mine)

As someone who has spent 25 years teaching photography in one way or another, this is quite a statement. Yes, it is true that I have seen many students much more in love with the idea of being a photographer than in photographing. Yet, it is hard for me to accept such a hard line, that the photograph is only there to suggest something else.

This seems to bring to mind the phrase "Art for art's sake", or in this instance "the photograph for the photograph's sake". Does the image laid down in silver, or pigment etc. by necessity relate to another object, or can it be enjoyed purely as mark on surface?
The photograph has always had a strange relationship to reality. No drawing could ever be submitted as legal proof, yet the photograph has a long history of providing documentation of something that has happened or existed. Yet anyone who has worked in a darkroom knows the secrets of changing that supposed reality. Just look at the work of Jerry Uelsmann or Scott Mutter if you doubt me.

It is interesting that with the increased control over the image available in digital imaging, this percepting of "true photography as unmanipulated reality" persists. Why is it that when the audience discovers that the photographer has eliminated telephone wires in the sky of a beautiful landscape, we feel somehow slightly "cheated"? Does the audience similarily begrudge the graphite artist his eraser?
Oh wellllllllll........... enough about that. If anyone is interested in thinking about the nature of photography and artifice, here is a good link on photonet: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CvSh

What I really wanted to talk about was that word "passion." ... "a passion in something else"
How does the photographer transmit the feelings he/she has for the subject into images ?

I am about to embark on what will be, for me, a huge undertaking: travel to a continent I have never been to before, interject myself into people's lives whom I have never met, much less been a part of their culture.

How can I avoid being what Thatcher Cook so accurately called in a discussion I had with him, an "humanitarian tourist?" The idea of being a casual observer of human suffering, just to add strong pictures to my portfolio, is troubling.

Working with Thatcher Cook

2006-07-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

Back home now, finishing preparations for leaving in about 10 days.
The workshop was truly amazing, thanks in large part to Thatcher Cook, photographer and instructor extraordinaire.
The name of the workshop was "poetic storytelling"

What is poetry? And how is should it be understood?
How does one develop a personal voice?
How can a photograph be like a bottle of champagne?
A bottle of champagne shaken violently?

Hey, if you want answers to those questions, you take the workshop....

Here are a few last images of the workshop in Maine, at the amusement park in Old Orchard Beach and saying goodbye.

Well, enough about that. On to Uganda.

Preparation, mainely

2006-07-06T16:04:00.000-04:00

Thursday afternoon .... have a second before the class goes to another carnival.... this time in Old Orchard Beach. We have been covering a lot of the state, trying to find places and events that capture the essence of the culture of Maine. A hometown parade for july 4th, small carnivals, an amateur night race on a small 1/3 mile track in Bangor and, of course, the requisite morning of foggy coastline landscape shooting. Yesterday we pulled a 22 hour day, from shooting at "Caponigro rocks" at 5 AM , lecture and critique in the afternoon, and a trip to Bangor for the car race. It has been great. And exhausting. Just what I wanted and needed.
Been working on getting closer to subjects. And pushing the idea. And using multiple light sources. And using the edges. And And And.

Faces of Poverty

2006-06-29T08:26:00.000-04:00

Many people who know my work may be surprised at this project. In the past, I have done a lot of different types of photography, including portraiture, modeling portfolios and experimental. However, most of my favorite work seemed to deal with the minimalist or "spiritual" landscape, along the lines of photographer Minor White. I like playing with the flatness of the photograph, as the camera abstracts the three dimensions of life into the simple tones and shapes on the surface of the image. To put it simply, I like the fomal aspects of the photograph.
In the summer of 05, I recieved an email telling about a photo exhibit called "The faces of Poverty in Virginia", sponsored by the Virginia Poverty Law Center in Richmond . I had never entered anything like this, but was intrigued by the challenge to enter a show that was to be published into a book and become a travelling exhibit touring the state. It was probably a little bit of cockiness also, as I had just won "best in show" at several regional exhibits in the area, and I wanted to see how far this trend would take me.
I only had a week before the deadline, but the challenge intrigued me, so I began. An idea that had always tempted me was to do an essay on storefront churches. There are a number of them in this area, primarily in poorer neighborhoods of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk. I was interested, I think, in this idea because of what I percieved as the juxtaposition of hope and hopelessness.
Through this work, I became acquainted with an incredibly passionate and hard working women, Pastor Mary Jones, pastor of "The Church of Holy Deliverance" in Downtown Norfolk. She, among many other things, offers food bank distribution to the people of this area.

I sent in 10 images, and 4 were selected for the exhibit, The Faces of Poverty in Virginia. No awards, but in the show. I was thrilled to be a part of a project like this, that would attempt to assist the invisible people in this area in their search for a better life.

The funny thing about this all, as I was looking at the exhibit during the opening at Richmond, I was struck by 2 things ... one, I was in a pretty good show here. The second thing was that I saw something in my work I did not like... a somewhat cold, dispassionate perspective. It was as if I were observing, but not participating in the life of these people. That bothered me. And I set out to change it, if I could.

Uganda

2006-05-31T21:00:00.000-04:00

Just a little about the place Winston Churchill called "the Pearl of Africa". A better and more complete discussion is available at Wikipedia and Lonely Planet, where I scored these maps.

Uganda is a country in east central Africa, crossing the equator and home to several of the most beautiful places on earth. It contains the famed source of Nile River that Stanley and Livingston unsuccessfully searched for, finally found by Speke in 1862.
It is also one of the last refuges of the mountain gorilla, made famous by the movie Gorillas in the Mist, a story about biologist Dian Fossey.

Uganda is a very poor country, still reeling from effects of the atrocities of the Amin era, a land torn apart from tribal warfare and mistrust. It has a very high instance of AIDS (4.2%), a high percentage of orphaned children and 35% of the population live below the poverty line.

Uganda is also a country of very friendly, hard working people who are trying desparately to rise above the conditions they find themselves in. Since the election of President Musaveni, conditions are beginning to improve. However, particularily in the north, there is a great deal of strife, mostly because of the conflict between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army of Joseph Kony.

A note about Photographs

2006-05-24T23:18:00.000-04:00

(image: Caution, New Growth ©vfrailing06)
Since this is a blog about photography, I am determining at the outset to post only images from my own camera and eye. I will provide links to some of the many amazing photographers that have inspired me in this task, but to avoid confusion, if it is in the body of the page, its from me.
Vic

Getting serious

2006-05-24T21:24:00.000-04:00

Well, although it has been a while since I started this, a lot has happened. Plane tickets, passport, first round of innoculations, and other things. But this is not about me. It is about a country, about a people, about a desperate need, and about (I hope) art.

This adventure starts in November, 2005. In preparing to submit a proposal for a fellowship from SURDNA, a philanthopic foundation in NYC which, among other things, is dedicated to supporting specialized art schools that serve the public sector. My initial proposal involved participating in a workshop sponsored by the Maine Photographic Workshops. This workshop would be working with Stephen Shames and Thatcher Cook, both amazing internationally known photographers, documenting work with NGO's in Uganda. Unfortunately, no date was posted for this workshop at the time, yet it so captured my imagination and passion that I submitted this as a proposal, and was accepted as a finalist.

This bring us to late January 2006, about 1.5 weeks before the final 25 page proposal was due to SURDNA. Here is an exerpt from this proposal:

Prologue:
Why my proposal has changed:
My initial proposal centered on a photographic workshop in Uganda, offered by the Maine Photographic Workshops. At the time of my proposal, no dates were offered, and I assumed it would be in the summer, as most of their workshops are. However, after contacting the MPW administration and instructors several times, I was able to find out that the date for the Uganda workshop this year would not be until late October. This created several issues; first, my director at the Governor’s School was not happy about my being gone for 2 ½ weeks during the school year (I am also chair for the visual arts department). Yet, I was willing to fight for what I saw as an unbelievable opportunity for both my students and myself to experience the life of the artist reaching out into new areas. However, in an email from Kimberly Bartosik, I found out that the date also conflicted with the gathering of fellows planned in New York City later this year. That seemed more damaging to my proposal. So I began the process of rethinking my plans.
As I explored various alternatives, that is all they seemed… alternatives. I cannot tell you how ignited my passions were for creating images that truly searched for meaning and power. The location and people of Uganda provided, it seemed to me, an ideal combination of people in desperate need for compassion, yet also possessing an overwhelming desire to improve their position in life. I could not put out of my mind the images of young people struggling to learn in one room schoolhouses while wondering also where to sleep safely that night and how to find food for the next day. Because of this, I decided to continue looking at Uganda as a location, and rebuild the workshop part to create an experience that works better in the available time frame I have.
I have contacted as many resources as I could find. I have begun to register for an extremely highly regarded workshop entitled “Truth With a Camera.” I have sent out emails to the instructors of the Maine Photographic Workshop, first, to see if they would be willing to work one on one or to at least provide contacts. I am communicating with several photographers I have discovered on the Internet who have worked in Uganda and Rwanda, and plan to be there this summer about a possible collaboration. I am also planning on contacting the organization Doctors Without Borders to see if there is a network there I can tap into.
In short, I have tried to keep the strength of my original proposal by organizing a network of contacts and instructors /mentors / collaborators to ensure my experience is one that will sharpen and renew my artistic life and my work with students.

Well, I was awarded the grant.
Now it is time to get scared.

Uganda Project

2006-04-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my first attempt at this. This page will, if everything goes approximately right, keep a journal of a trip of a middle aged moderately talented artist to Uganda, to experience and document the efforts of World Health Organizations.
I believe this is an important story, and it is my intention to portray it as my personal interpretation of a world wide issue.