Soul thieves
What I'd call 'the American traveler photographer mystic' is a strain of photography particularly infectious (to me) and seems to have become a process, originating in Evans, where the face of America is redefined each time someone photographs it in a new way.
'Ordinary' America, in this tradition, appears, largely, to be the subject matter, whether by direct portrait, mundane streets or odd suburban paraphernalia. Ironically the audience, generally speaking could not be further from this apparent 'common' world, yet it is amongst this audience and through its media where the identity of America is actually defined and reflected visually.
Photo by Stephen Shore, from Uncommon Places - Houk Gallery
If they (our folk outside the photographic sphere) get to see these works at all, would they not be looking at themselves and their pictured environment with perplexity rather than recognition? I suspect, too, that they would be too busy living their ordinariness to waste time on a photograph. Perhaps they won't even be aware, 20 years from the shutter's moment of truth, that via a gradual cultural osmosis, photography will have given them a new face and called it America.
Because cultures don't really model themselves on the photographic image; they develop instead along their own lines of traditions and norms, we may find the public visual map of America, widely differing from its actuality and that the pictorial definition is far more about the photographer (and his following) than the subject and their identity, however noble or ideal the pursuit.
Was America ever like Stephen Shore's vision, if so is it still that way? For those of us that aren't in that world we may really think it is, if we don't carefully notice that the dates say 1973-1979, or when at some point we are shown a differing image by a new generation of photographers.
We've tired long ago of the oft repeated 'superstitious' fear claiming that the camera steals one's soul. Perhaps though, it's really true, well in so far as it substitutes it with a select fake?
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 15 October 2007 - 5:06pm.Fatal impact
The following story was bought to my awareness by Blaine Harden's book, Africa - Dispatches from a fragile continent, and appears to be corroborated by many other bits and bobs of info, reports and research articles, that I've found dotted over the net. The story remains one of the classic examples of do-gooders, with the best of intentions, messing up. I've included what few images of my own, taken on the spot, Kalekol, Lake Turkana, Kenya. You should also click on the satellite image thumb below for an awesome view of this desert lake.
The oil rich Norwegians, being a seafaring nation and rather good at fishing, were asked by the Kenyan Government to help the Turkana turn a virtually unexploited fish resource into hard cash. Lake Turkana is a ecologists paradise, with 47 species of fish, seven being endemic, but the Norwegians were interested mainly in the Nile Tilapia, a fish that breeds in the shallows of Ferguson's Gulf by the ton.
Once the Norwegian International Development Agency (NORAD), had completed the appropriate investigations and plans, the Turkana Fishermen's Cooperative (TFCS, 1965) in Kalekol was called into action to begin the first commercial fishing scheme on the lake by enticing more pastoral Turkana with promising incentives. They were encouraged to take up donated fishing nets and boats and taught the best modern way to fish. A research vessel, transported all the way from Norway to Mombasa was hauled overland to Ferguson's gulf.
Then came the road , an all weather road, connecting the main highways of Kenya with Lodwar, the nearest town to Kalakol on the lakes shore. By the early 80's NORAD had also completed their crowning achievement, a Ksh30 million fish processing factory to assist the TFCS.
As many as 20,000 fishermen were employed by the early 1980s, including a large component of migrants from shores of Lake Victoria who came to partake of the boom. But the refrigeration unit didn't last long, a couple of days in fact before it was closed down. Bringing the temperature down from 100 degrees required far more expense in diesel generated electricity than frozen fish fillets could bring in return, and far more clean water was required than was available (Lake Turkana is extremely brackish, drinking it is like drinking soapy bath water).
Then came the drought that was already causing hunger on a mass scale in Ethiopia. The Omo river fed by the now failed rains of the catchment area in Ethiopian highlands, reduced its input dramatically. The Ferguson gulf shallows promptly dried up, the shore receded 2km away and the fish moved to deeper waters or moved elsewhere to better breeding grounds. Out of practical reach without more mechanisation, further proper storage facilities and yet more revenue to compensate for the increased difficulties! In 1986 the processing plant was shut down completely and has not been used since.
Fishing had enforced a settled way of life. Those who couldn't leave to resume their pastoral existence were stuck without a renewable resource. Their livestock had grazed the land in the reachable vicinity to the roots while trees had been chopped down for firewood. They were left little alternative but to accept food aid or scrape by on fish which traditionally was a last resort anyway and considered the livlihood of a failure. When I went to Kalekol in the 90's they were selling trinkets made from fish bone to a trickle of tourists passing through to view the 'traditional' Turkana village.
In the review of their failures, NORAD belatedly discovered in the records at Lodwar, evidence that this was not the first time the bay had dried up. But more importantly, the Turkana, who had never actually been asked in the first place, revealed that their interest in cows (like the Masai they believe all cows of the earth to be their own) was a well founded, tried and tested, survival adaptation, finely tuned to the whims of spotty rainfall and regular drought. Already the best solution to a crap situation.
Besides the fact that Turkana livestock are extremely hardy, the Norwegians learned, further, that cows link family (dowry being the most basic of example) to family, clan to clan, that in time of drought they might shift their herds away from affected areas, to relatives in less affected areas, responding to the whim of the rainfall, thereby watering down the risk. Mobility in harsh environments is key, any semi desert region will show just that, and Turkana cows are a highly efficient way of extracting available energy and storing it.
And so this ambitions plan to pull the Turkana out of their misery, was a flop. Planning and organisation and an insurmountable number of consultations and Nordic knowhow, all went to nothing before two very basic and crucial facts, that the lake dries up and Turkana live for their cows (literally).
This legacy continues too, with irrigation schemes and their unconsidered effects. I also discovered that a new plant, Prosopis juliflora was introduced and now there are many negative reports, one being that the bush is over running Northen Kenya and causing causing teeth problems among livestock that eat it, ie their teeth are falling out (see: Mwangi, Esther & Brent Swallow, June 2005, Invasion of Prosopis juliflora and local livelihoods: Case study from the lake Baringo area of Kenya. ICRAF Working Paper - no. 3. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre). Again, the Turkana have their own way of managing trees, as revealed by this study. Finally, as of 2003 NORAD has been funding the Turkana Livestock Development Program (PDF) the main input being vetinary services, I'd really like to investigate this one.
Judging by the sheer number of research papers and complex reports spouting out of Africa, many of them turning over the same old ground, it is hardly surprising that more harm is being done than good.
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Notes: I have tried in the post above, short and webloggy as it's meant to be, to cross check facts from as many sources available to me, but with my limited access and time there are questions that I cannot answer. Consider this a work in progress which I'll add to over time, after all this is just one piece of a long story.
Finally as a point of interest, while digging through all the info I have, I came across this snippet from a letter (RTF file) which appears to have been written to send to the Human right commission and posted on a minority right group website.. Demands include include:
"The natural resources that exist in the district have not yet been exploited. (There are mineral water sources at Elliye springs, precious stone such as gypsum in Napusmor and green garnet in Horiu, including Lake Turkana's fishing grounds). A Norwegian fishing venture was abandoned in the 1980s due to political disagreements between the Kenya and Norway and the government to date has not done anything about the structures that were put in place by the Norwegian government."
The political disagreement bit is true, but not the primary reason why the plant was closed, I believe the Kenyan government felt Norwegian aid was in fact aiding the opposition and the Government wanted all cash through them and only them. But the desire to have the fish factory thing restarted is ludicrous.
Other notes: The water level of the lake has been dropping steadily for some years: a decline of 10m was recorded between 1975 and 1993, primarily due to reduced inflow from the Omo River in Ethiopia due to irrigation and drought upstream
However, following the El Nino rains in the Ethiopian Highlands in the last two years, the Ferguson's Gulf - a protected cove to the North-west of the lake has again filled up and fish catches have suddenly increased, making the lake the main source of fish in the country. (1999 Nation). No sign of the processing plant coming alive.
Other great sources:
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 11 October 2007 - 10:21pm."Projects are frequently based on the assumption that Western ideas and behaviors form appropriate models for the pastoral situation or that what pastoralists say they do ("ideal behavior') and what they have been observed to do ('ideal behavior') are accurate representations of the pastoral system."