As we drove through South Africa into Swaziland at first I was so excited because I was seeing homes built with sticks, clay huts, houses held together with tin roofs or no roofs at all, with fabric blowing in the wind to cover the windows a litlle, “artistic looking homes.” I felt like we had finally made it to where we were going, after about 90 hours of traveling from Atlanta, Georgia. But as we drove, I started losing the same excitement that I had about seeing all these things. I loved being there and driving through Swaziland and seeing all the nature, but the culture shock that I was going through was nothing like I had thought it was supposed to be. Seeing all these conditions didn’t shock me, I was expecting them. It all started when I saw the first clay circular hut with a clothes line in front of it (the typical picture you may think of when you think of Africa). To us it is so beautiful, but we forget about the beautiful people living their everyday lives in it. What I did at first and what others were doing is what took me back. Everyone pulled out their phones, cameras, go pros, and video things, and as I looked through the bus on the inside, then looked at all the people we were passing on the outside, and even our bus driver, my heart kinda broke. We always want to capture that truck FULL of people riding in bed or the dude walking down a road in the middle of nowhere carrying a really long tree stem trunk thing all by himself. I started feeling really uncomfortable holding my phone up to the window passing people and communities that I knew nothing about. Yes, to us this is pretty and artistic, but for these people they don’t think about how artistic they will look when mending or building their homes. I think we forget that there are people that live their everyday lives in these conditions, and we will only be there for about three weeks. As we take pictures of the homes and communities that we don’t know, we take away the personal value that the people living there have. I didn’t get a big culture shock in the ways I was thinking people typically get it, I was more overwhelmed with something that I had never really thought about or fully experienced for myself. Not knowing the individuals that we were passing took away the desire for me to want to take the pictures.
I am not a photographer, the main reason I take pictures and really enjoy them is because it’s the best way for me to remember things. One picture can take me back to a whole day. I was torn because I wanted to take pictures but in that moment it felt to uncomfortable for me to take them. I pretty much came to a conclusion to challenge myself to be as intentional as I can when taking pictures with kids, families, homes, or communities. Pictures are not bad, I love them, but I love them even more when I know a story behind them. Something I learned within the first 15 minutes of my morning in Nosoko, Swaziland was that every moment here is a picture perfect moment, so much is always going on if you look around. Kids do the most random things that you just want to capture so you don’t forget, but again, all it is is kids living their life, and choosing not to live mine through a lens.
