Copyright Shane McMillan 2007
Camera: Minolta Z1
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter: 1/250
ISO: 200
White Balance: Cloudy
This picture was taken at the end of a long day at the edge of a national park in northern Ghana. Some friends and I had spent the morning hiking through the bush taking pictures of elephants and warthogs. By the time the sun was peaking it was too hot and we returned to our huts outside the park. We were exhausted, as were the batteries in my Nikon.
As it cooled down I grabbed my little backup camera and headed into town. Shooting in Africa proved to be an interesting thing. With my small camera I felt like a tourist, which I guess I was. With my professional camera I was nervous and I felt a bit more intrusive than I normally would. No matter where I went I stuck out a little as a white person, especially in little towns I got a lot of attention. Blending in, as I try to do here, isn't as easy when you are a novelty item.
Larabanga is one of those small towns. It sits in north central Ghana and is on the edge of one of the region's largest national parks. It is a village that is inundated with tourists and yet it is poor.
At the edge of town this young boy followed me for a while. In our guidebook there was a section about the mosque in Larabanga. It is in the town and after some walking we found it. We had to pay two dollars to walk down the street; the passage was blocked by a teen on an old bike and a elderly blind man in a reclining chair. Once we had paid we were allowed to pass. This young boy continued to follow me. I spoke to him, asked him questions, but he was sullen and didn't respond.
The mosque is old, one of the oldest buildings in the region, it is said to have been built in 1461. A man approached us as we neared the mosque and introduced himself as our tour guide. We weren't sure if that was included in the $2, but he insisted we follow him and he led us around, telling us the story of the town and the mosque.
At one point this boy stopped and watched our little group move around the building. I saw the diffused light softly lighting his face and the mosque behind him and I had to get a shot. He was silently watching the rest of the group walk away as I snapped a few shots. I spoke to him again, but still he was silent.
A few minutes later we were leaving the court in front of the mosque and this boy stayed there. He didn't wave, as most of the other kids in town would do, he simply stood there and watched us walk away, kicking up dust and parting herds of chickens that were foraging in the streets.
I don't know if I will ever go back to Larabanga. It was an amazing place, with an amazing story. Everyday the people there wake to the call of the muezzin doing his morning calls, fighting the sound to the evening in the bush that surrounds it. Then the roosters chime in. They go rekindle their fires and herd their goats out of the streets onto the fields around town. They live simply, not that life is simple for them. They live well, not that they are all doing well.
I still don't know his name. I haven't lived his life, but somehow I felt I knew the kid in this photo. He had a strength that overpowered his bloated stomach and his tired eyes. For him, life will not be easy. This photo isn't of a child dying in a famine, or of malaria, or AIDS, or any of that, but still, for him, life will most likely be hard. I think it is a beautiful snapshot from my trip, but in many ways it is much more than that to me. It captures something that I can't explain in words, something that is purely emotional. It is something I think you can only know when you experience it. At the very least, I hope it opens peoples’ eyes to the world and shows them that there is beauty in the good and the bad, in the sad and the happy and the silent.
– Shane McMillan
Copyright Tim Kupsick 2007
