Stand & Deliver

Mursi tribe, Mago n.p. Southern Ethiopia. I would be grateful for your views

and reviews VF

Hello Cezary:

This is a very affective photo! Shock! Excellent documentary work. Thank you for sharing it. Without your commitment and talent, we would not understand.

Regards, John

....... the dreaded AK47, prolific throughout Africa. Yes, this is a "shock" image and unfortunately "the way of life" for so many. A fine documentary image........... speaks for itself.

Regards

There's so much of this shot that shocks.  From the self mutilazation to the AK47 to the baby on the hip.  It shocks and provokes thought, it make me greatful to have been born into the circumstances that I have.

I'm speechless - How did she find a nice laminate lower fore end in Ethiopia?

Excellent image BTW.  Thanks for sharing.

A unique image indeed.

Having seen many times how the Arabs took care of their AK's, I can only imagine what shape that thing is in. I would be afraid to fire that thing, for fear it would come apart. I'll bet it has not been cleaned or oiled in years.

This is an excellent image that shows the harsh life of this man. The photo captures both the warrior (holding his gun with one hand) and the father (protecting his son with the other hand).

I like both their smiles, think the cropped version needs more of the environment. 

Stunning!

Excellent reportage shot!

Dear Friends,

Thank You All for your precious and thoughtful comments, I am happy that this photo stirrs up a bit :)

Sebastian: It is SHE not HE... ;)

It is a shocking picture of the mother and her child that shuts your mouth and opens the eyes and minds in awe... Thank you, Cezary.

Good document. Good image. Regards.

Great image, very well done.  It is disturbing to see what the world is coming too.

Unique picture, you have cepted the expression of both extraordinarily. Good job.

Dear Cesary,

This photo and some others I have seen recently on PN from Mursi women and men in Ethiopia leave me with some quite disturbing thoughts.

Under what kind of circumstances are these photos taken? How real are they or to what extent do they show a fake reality? To what extent becomes the fake situation a new livelihood reality for the photographed cultures? What does the photographer know about this tribe and its culture? How do I deal with similar situations in my own photography?

Your photo compelled me to find out more about the Mursi culture and I found this most interesting article:

http://www.mursi.org/pdf/lip-plates.pdf

This is not a personal comment on your behavior but with this comment I would like to provide some food for thoughts for all of us who take photos in vanishing cultures and cultures in transition.

Karl

Dear Karl, and anyone who wants to find out about circumstances:

To meet Mursi you need to go to Mago N.P. they are seldom seen outside of that area. Once you are here, you can see them along dirt road, doing their daily jobs. When we arrived to the village we had to make a deal with the Chief, with a help of a local guide, who knows their language and customs. After paying 100Birr/person and some gifts, we were allowed to visit the village. After pretending for 20 minutes that I am not interested in taking photos, I waited for a sign from a local guide to do so. I was angry at him because I have already missed terrific shots. I could not wait anyway, because I was surrounded by tightening circle of people who were poking me with fingers, pinching, pushing and murmuring: Boto...boto... some of women with plates in lips. They charge 2 Birr per photo, times number of person on a picture, times number of clicks. They want to view a picture to count, and they can hear and count very well. My wife played a role of walking ATM machine and local guide did the negotiations. I was not so keen on taking that kind of photos and I also used a second camera with telephoto, to pick some characters in the background in more natural situations. This is how I shot this particular girl, she was rushing at me hoping to be a perfect model, she must have grabbed her husbands gun, I guess...

For sure Mursi do have sense of humour also about themselves and they know how be attractive for strangers (you will see on next photos.)

Now you can judge for yourself, to what extent it is fake reality. Anyway even  fake reality is also reality. You cannot be there unnoticed and you can't just mingle in the crowd :)

It is not wise to visit Mursi in the afternoon, cause men are usually drunk (been given some cash in the morning) and they fancy to do some shooting...

Luckily they are short of precious ammo, and they don't want to waste it on tourists, while they can fight back a stolen cow from neighbour tribe - Bodi for instance, or hunt an animal. 

In my opinion our (westerners) encounters with Omo Valley tribes paradoxically push them to sustain and reinforce their culture, once they realized it is worth something...

It seems to me that, as long as the mass tourism does not reach them (no roads) the whole issue is in sane proportions.

After all, all those tribes appear to be very happy how they are (much happier then we are) and they are definitely not interested in being like us. 

Thank You for reading it, perhaps I wrote too much...

CF

Another beautiful and very strong documentary photo!Compliments for the whole foulder full of interesting and beautiful images..