Photography

Echi
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From 2 years ago..

I don't remember where I took this series of photographs but I do remember some of the insights. During the course of my relatively short photographic journey, I've come across these groups of people from time to time and in various places as well. The government labels them as IP or indigenous people and are similar to the aborigines of Australia, for example. Frankly, I'm not sure why there's a need for labels as we all live in the same country but I suppose they are able to get some sort of support from the government for being natives of a particular place.

What is interesting about these folks at least from my view is their concept of self and time. An NGO (non govt org) rep that I met years ago who works with these folks tell me that their sense of time is quite different. The ones that he interviewed, he asked how far was their village (up in the mountains) from where they were. The IP guy just answered, "near" and "just around that mountain". Later on said NGO rep upon embarking on a trip to visit their village realized that what was meant by "near" was actually 2 weeks of walking and climbing to get to their place!

I was reminded of that conversation when I visited this community 2 years ago. My friend remarked that he was astounded that they did not have anything on their walls that would mark the passage of time or for that matter, a record of their memories. They don't have photographs of themselves. No calendars. Nothing. They had clothes lying around, stuff for the kitchen but no picture frames. I should have asked them about how they viewed time, come to think of it. My friend did ask about photographs and that they never had any. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of not having these things that we take for granted.. things like photographs. Without these markers, I thought how would one view oneself in what would seem like living in some sort of suspended animation. What kind of memories do they retain of themselves. Do they remember how they looked like when they were 5, 10 years younger, or when they were still kids. Lots of questions.

This particular person probably realized what was happening and asked for a solo and also a family photo which we took and gave several prints to their coordinator a few weeks later.

If you're wondering about the look, the photographs were taken with a Japanese lens, MS Optics, shot wide open at f/2.0.

Thanks for looking.

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