Nyani Quarmyne's Blog

“‘Flying Witch’ Crashes on Cliff”

2011-10-16T10:31:00.000Z

“‘Flying Witch’ Crashes on Cliff”, screamed the front page of The Chronicle, one of Ghana’s most influential newspapers, on 8 September 2011. As the paper tells it, an elderly woman was found naked in the middle of a military compound, and when questioned said she had been flying with a number of fellow witches “when she came crashing to the ground.” The soldiers who found her apparently “laid her by the roadside” and reported the matter to the police, who promptly refused to have anything to do with the matter. Eventually Red Cross personnel provided her with basic care, and took her to two police stations, a psychiatric hospital and a clinic, all of which refused to provide any assistance to a weak and bruised woman in her eighties, presumably because they wanted nothing to do with a ‘witch’. Weeks later we find out, not surprisingly, that she is just a much-loved grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s who had simply lost her way.

I’d been wanting to shoot a piece on women accused of witchcraft for some time after hearing about Ghana’s ‘witch camps’ and then seeing Yaba Badoe’s documentary, Witches of Gambaga. An assignment for the UK's The Herald magazine finally allowed me to do just that.

The belief in witchcraft is widespread and deeply, deeply rooted in Ghana, and the notion that a person has been cursed or bewitched is used to explain all manner of unfortunate occurrences. One could possibly explain this away by saying that Ghana remains a place where many people are not well-enough educated to understand the causes of illnesses and disease, and so misfortunes are explained in terms of good versus evil and the workings of the supernatural. But even amongst the elite – well-off, well-travelled people with university educations and urbane, modern lives – even amongst people who understand how someone fell ill and died, witchcraft might be cited as the reason why.

Tales abound – flying witches, people who can turn into animals, fireflies that are really witches hunting at night, the man who was cursed and started shitting flies, the woman who was seen here and in Amsterdam at the same time – all told with a passionate seriousness and a fervent insistence that “It’s true! I’m telling you, it really happened!”

If it were simply that people believed, the matter could just be dismissed a quaint anachronism. But the expression of that belief is anything but quaint, with accused witches frequently being treated in a manner reminiscent of medieval Europe in the days of the Malleus Maleficarum, that infamous 15th century inquisitor’s handbook for the identification, gruesome torture and extermination of ‘witches’.

Consider the death last year of 72 year-old Ama Hemmah, who was found inside a neighbour’s home, accused of being a witch, and set ablaze by a mob that included a Christian pastor.

Consider Zenabu Bogi, whose fingers were placed in the jaws of an animal trap to force her to admit to her supposed evildoings.

Consider Asana Mabian, whose brother-in-law fell sick, and then dreamed that she was chasing him. He accused her of having cursed him, and with the assistance of other family members held her down and dripped molten plastic all over her bare breasts and pregnant belly to extract a confession. All the while her screaming children looked on.

Consider the absurdity of the test that a woman must pass to determine her ‘guilt’ or ‘innocence’: A chicken’s throat is cut, and the bird is thrown to the ground flailing in its death throes. If it comes to rest on its front or its side, the woman is a witch; if it dies on its back she may go free.

And note that I referred to the test that a woman must pass – almost all of those accused of witchcraft are women, with elderly widows disproportionately represented. In the country’s north in particular, where ‘witch camps’ – part sanctuary, part prison – exist, witchcraft cannot be separated from the patriarchal societal constructs that are in many ways disadvantageous to women. As women cannot own property, once widowed they often have nowhere to go – the house was their husband’s, and if they are no longer seen as useful or cannot be married off to their husband’s brother they are often unwanted. It appears that an accusation of witchcraft is sometimes a convenient way to get rid them. Jealousy between wives in a polygamous marriage is another common cause of spurious accusations, often with dire consequences for the accused.

Women who manage to acquire property or some measure of independence are also sometimes a target: For example, in the course of shooting these photographs I was told of a woman who managed to acquire a small herd of cattle, in itself no mean feat. As she could not own property, and feared she would have no recourse if a man took her cattle, she entrusted the herd to her brother. After the herd had grown, she decided she wanted to sell some of her cattle, and went to retrieve them from her brother. He decided he wanted to keep the cows, and so accused her of being a witch.

I have even heard it said, by a man regarded by many to be an ‘authority’ on the matter, that both men and women can be witches, but while men may use their powers for good or evil, women may only do evil.

In addition to having the surreal experience of being invited into a hut one morning, hearing noises in the darkness, and turning to find a woman giving birth on the floor, this was a mind-bending and heart-rending story to shoot. Yet people criticise me sometimes for putting pictures like these into the world, accusing me of portraying Ghana as backward at a time when the country is struggling to take her place amongst modern, middle-income nations. Well, as far as I’m concerned, torturing little old ladies is backward, and I’m not afraid to say so.

The Other Accra

2011-05-16T17:21:00.003Z

(Click to view larger.)

Accra, like most African cities, is a place of extremes. If you can afford it, you can live in a gated community of faux-European mansions with manicured lawns; you can shop in an upmarket air-conditioned supermarket and commute to a shiny high-rise in your Porsche Cayenne. At the other end of the scale are squatters in shacks, the ubiquitous stinking open gutters, people hustling to get by. There is poverty here, and having worked in rough neighbourhoods, in ‘zongos’, in far-flung villages I thought I had seen it. But I was unprepared for Old Fadama.

Perched on the banks of the Korle Lagoon (which has the ignominious distinction of being one of the most polluted water bodies on planet Earth), Old Fadama does not appear on any map. Yet it is home to some 80,000 Ghanaians, most of whom hail from the woefully underdeveloped north of the country, having migrated south in search of work or to escape past famine and ethnic violence.

The stereotypical perception of Old Fadama is of a hotbed of crime, violence, drugs and prostitution – hence the biblical moniker ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ that is often seen in the press. The name is consistent, too, with the common attitude that the residents are outsiders, backward ‘strangers’ to be looked down upon. The reality, of course, is that yes, they have their troubles with crime and violence, as does any place where people live in grinding poverty. But far outweighing that is the sense of a community of ordinary people who have the same dreams and desires as any of us; who tend their small businesses, who seek to provide for their families, who manage to emerge pristine from the windowless one-room shack they share with 11 other people and set off for work.

As I understand it, the Government’s position is that the settlement is in a (largely destroyed) ecologically sensitive, flood-prone area and that the residents must be relocated. However, whenever successive governments have raised the spectre of relocation there has been an outcry from residents, who feel that plans for their resettlement have not been adequately thought through, and that there is insufficient clarity on how the relocation of those 80,000 people would be executed or funded. Fearful of losing the votes of the northern half of the country, the Government backs down. However, as the Government considers the community to be an illegal settlement, it will not legitimise it with the provision of services and infrastructure. And so the result is a kind of political inertia within which 80,000 people continue to live in the almost total absence of the most basic amenities.

I had the opportunity to see Old Fadama for myself while shooting an assignment on life inside Accra’s slums. A selection of the resulting images will be exhibited at the Alliance Française d’Accra alongside Sarah Preston’s photographic work on the resilience of urban women. Open from the middle of this week through to the end of May, I hope the show will provide a glimpse of an Accra that many of us choose not to see.

Exhibition Opening: 6:30pm, Wednesday 18 May 2011 (Admission is free)
Exhibition Dates: 18th – 31st May 2011
Venue: Alliance Française d’Accra, Liberation Link, Airport Residential Area, Accra, Ghana. (Behind Opeibea House.)
Enquiries: +233 30 277 3134/ com@afaccra.com

In addition, there will be a panel discussion at 4:00pm on Wednesday 18 May 2011 featuring women from the communities pictured.

How to Load a Truck

2011-03-24T14:09:00.001Z

(Click image to view larger.)

When loading your truck, try to cram as much as possible into a single load. This will demonstrate your efficiency and will save time and petrol. Spare no thought for the load-carrying capacity of the vehicle, its size or its longevity. Bonus points: Use a very small truck to carry a very big load.
Try to use boxes of as many different shapes and sizes as possible, as this turns the otherwise menial and mundane task of loading the truck into a fun and interesting challenge. If you wish, you can try and fit the boxes together as best you can. Bonus points: Do not try to fit the boxes together in a logical way – simply lash them together any way you can, as randomly-fitted boxes add to the likelihood that one will fall off and strike a pedestrian or cyclist, for which you will score extra points.
Use as little rope as possible. Don’t even think about a cargo net. This demonstrates your daring, as it shows that you do not care if anything falls off your truck and injures anyone who might be rash enough to want to use the road at a time when you are ferrying your load. It will also mean that you have spare rope to fix your truck when it breaks down because you have overloaded it. Bonus points: Place some items in such a manner that they are not secured by anything at all. If you really want to demonstrate your panache, do this on a rough road in a crowded place.
Try to arrange your load so that it is unbalanced and leans to one side of the truck. This shows that you can think outside the square, and will also demonstrate what a good driver you are if you are able to drive your unbalanced vehicle in a straight line. Bonus points: Do this at speed on a windy day.
Do not concern yourself with the long line of traffic that will build up behind you as you travel to your destination. Most people like to spend time in traffic on a hot day, and many will gladly remain behind you by choice, so that they can admire your stylish load. Bonus points: Break down.

Feminists of Afrika on International Women’s Day

2011-03-08T21:41:00.001Z

Aïssatou Cissé, Senegal. (Click image to visit photo gallery.)

I had the memorable experience late last year of spending a week in the company of 200 amazing women at a beachside resort hotel in Dakar, Senegal. No, it’s not what you think – I was there on behalf of the African Women’s Development Fund to document the 2010 African Feminist Forum, a gathering of iconic personalities in the Feminist movement from across the continent, brought together in solidarity to share their knowledge and experiences.

Many of the forum sessions and the women who led and participated in them were thought-provoking, inspiring and touching in equal measure, and there were many times when I wished I were there as a participant rather than a photographer, especially as a man in a context that, for better or worse, often excludes those of my gender.

One of my tasks during this incredibly full-on week was to shoot a series of portraits of inspiring African feminists for an upcoming book to be published by African Women’s Development Fund. I figure today, International Women’s Day, is a pretty good day to give you a sneak preview!

New Website

2011-02-13T13:10:00.000Z

Check out my new website.

As long-time readers will have noticed as they arrived at this post, there have been a few changes around here - my new website is up! The new site offers a simpler and cleaner browsing experience, and clients will be pleased to know that I can now offer a number of more streamlined online proofing and image delivery options. Online ordering will be back up and running shortly. Stay tuned...

Ghana - Mental Health

2011-01-09T18:05:00.005Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

In Ghana, people living with mental illness and epilepsy* have it pretty tough.

To my knowledge, in this country of 24 million people, there are only four public psychiatrists. The three psychiatric institutions in the country are overcrowded, woefully underfunded, and they are all located in the south of the country, meaning that for many people there is simply no access to appropriate treatment. Psychotropic medications are theoretically available free from the government, but people I met in the course of shooting these images spoke of inconsistencies and shortages in supplies, and cited the unavailability of modern, more effective drugs. In some ways it's a moot point, as many sufferers have no access to a qualified practitioner to make a diagnosis and write a prescription. Civil Society Organisations such as BasicNeeds, with whom these images were shot, are making valiant efforts to fill the breach through outreach work, but they can only do so much given the scale of the problem.

To compound the situation, mental illness and epilepsy in Ghana are cloaked in misconceptions, misinformation, and deep-rooted beliefs in witchcraft, sorcery and demonic possession. As a result, clinical treatment may not be the first recourse even if it is available – the problem may simply not be seen in those terms.

Between lack of access to treatment and lack of awareness of its possibilities, those who are unwell often find themselves subjected to incredibly inhumane treatment at the hands of people who either believe they are doing the right thing, or who simply don’t know any better.

* Epilepsy, of course, is a neurological disorder not a mental illness. However, because it is widely misunderstood here, those afflicted by it share many of the problems faced by sufferers of mental illness.

Update: Several people have contacted me to ask how they can help. If you would like to make a difference, contact:

Peter Yaro, Country Programme Manager
BasicNeeds Ghana
peter.yaro@basicneeds.org
Tel: +233 37 202 3566
Mob: +233 24 457 2733

You can also make a donation online at http://www.basicneeds.org/donate/ If you do make a donation online, send Peter Yaro an email and let him know.

The Warrior

2011-01-07T16:49:00.002Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

A ceremonial warrior at the Odwira Festival at Dunkwa-on-Offin in the Central Region of Ghana. Held in the latter part of the year, the festival commemorates the day the golden stool at the heart of the Denkyira Kingdom is believed to have descended from the heavens.

The Dipo-Yo

2011-01-04T10:00:00.030Z

The Dipo-Yo (An adolescent girl undergoing Dipo. Click image to visit photo gallery.)

More than simply a process of initiation into womanhood, the Dipo puberty rites are traditionally the means through which adolescent Krobo girls learned what their society expects of them as women as they are readied for marriage. Over a period of a year or more, girls learned about everything from household chores to relationships and parenthood, under the tutelage of older women. Beyond this, the process was also a way of reinforcing cultural values and identity, and inculcating social mores pertaining to premarital sex and promiscuity.

Dipo has long been under increasing pressure from modernisation – churches declare it a pagan ritual to be shunned by the faithful; girls go to school to receive a Euro-centric education; they spend less time at home, where even the nature of family is changing. Dipo has largely been ‘outsourced’ to fetish priestesses who perform the rites for a fee in fast-track mass ceremonies, rather than it taking place in the home over a long period of time under the guidance of older female relatives.

To my eyes, Dipo seems to be becoming merely a certificate of marriageability and virginity. Girls as young as four years old can now be seen undergoing Dipo – to get it out of the way before baptism. What can, or should, a four-year old learn about the ways of womanhood?

Yet in spite of all this, women who conceive without having undergone Dipo are banished even today. This is why one hears of preachers denouncing Dipo in the pulpit, but then quietly sending their daughters to the Dipo shrine.

In some ways I think Dipo is an allegory for many of the tensions that exist between the old and the new in Ghana: Can it be modernised? Should it be modernised? What would that mean – is it simply to remove nudity from the process (as many feel should be done), or is there a way to retain the essence of the tradition in a modern context? Should it be thrown out because it is “un-Chrisitian”, even if the values that underpin it are sound?

(Proceeds from the sale of prints go to supporting a group that cares for AIDS orphans in the area where these photographs were taken.)

Knight Fever

2010-12-09T11:03:00.010Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

I had fun shooting the International Players' pantomime, Knight Fever, over their run of three shows last week. An annual event in its 19th year, the panto brings together a cast and crew of all ages in an event that raises funds for charity, and gives the audience a good laugh along the way. In fact, it was something of a double bill, as watching the kids in the audience get riled up about the baddies' dastardly deeds was almost as much fun as the show itself. Looking forward to the next one!

Fundraiser for Vision of Hope

2010-11-23T00:13:00.001Z

I know those of those of you in Perth, Western Australia, are *desperate* to get your hands on some of my work, and here’s your chance! ;-)

I’m participating in a fund fundraising exhibition for Vision of Hope, an NGO focused on improving the lives of homeless girls in Zambia.

Poverty, unemployment and HIV/ AIDS, which has orphaned 600 000 children in Zambia alone, have driven at least 75,000 children into Zambia’s streets. Vision of Hope seeks to empower homeless girls in particular with the life skills, education and income-earning opportunities to lead a better life. In addition, the organisation endeavours to address the root causes of ‘streetism’, and to provide a range of support services to vulnerable girls.

The exhibition opens with a cocktail party and evening entertainment on Friday 26th November from 5:30pm - 9:00pm at Turner Galleries, 470 William St, Northbridge, and then will be open from 11:00am – 5:00pm through the weekend. Tickets to the opening are available online. If you’d like to know more you can also email Gry (GryStene at yahoo.com.au) or call 0414 322 215.

There will be works on display by South African painter and photographer, Priscilla Geldenhuys; Kenyan/ Tanzanian painter, Simon Muchiri; Ghanaian painter, Kwabena Danso; Australian painter, Alia Leadabrand; South African Painter, Monika Hackl; and of course yours truly.

Even if you’ve already done all your Christmas shopping, go along and support a good cause!

Presidential Laundry

2010-08-27T22:14:00.007Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

Why is it that Africans take such pride in the fact that a distant son of the continent has risen to lead a nation far away?

Is it because we don’t find our own leaders worthy of the hopes we place on Obama’s shoulders? Do we wear this shirt because the dream of seeing one of our own leaders’ faces hung up to dry somewhere far across the world seems so far-fetched that we never bothered to make the shirt?

Or is it because we aspire to ‘be like them’, over there across the sea, and Obama’s achievement is the ultimate personification of our own dreams?

Perhaps he reminds us of long-lost slave brothers, stolen away and finally made good? Or do we just get a kick out of seeing a Black Man in a white house?

I suppose I should have found the owner of the t-shirt and asked him.

Man with a Gun

2010-08-11T19:14:00.003Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

A ceremonial warrior carrying a musket, his fingers blackened by gunpowder, strides past a crowd gathered on the banks of the Volta River during Ada's Asafotu-Fiam Festival, which commemorates the defeat of Ashanti invaders in times past.

Firebreather

2010-08-05T13:09:00.001Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

Hunting for Gold

2010-07-28T20:40:00.009Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

Aurora Photos: This Just In...

2010-07-15T13:15:00.003Z

I'm an Aurora Photos contributor, and just had one of my favourite football images featured on their new blog. Check it out here: http://news.auroraphotos.com/category/this-just-in/ The blog's well worth subscribing to - Aurora's photographers produce some incredible images.

Five million dollars? You must be joking - I stole twice that much last week!

2010-07-14T18:34:00.019Z

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has again been unable to find a suitable candidate for the Ibrahim Prize. Sponsored by Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese tycoon who made his fortune in the British telecommunications industry, the prize offers five million dollars to an African leader who demonstrates principled government during his/her term in office, and then leaves office democratically at the end of that term. In addition to the five million dollars, which is paid over a ten year period, the recipient receives a further $200 000 per annum for life. So, half a million dollars a year for 10 years, and then 200 grand a year for life thereafter. Not bad money by my reckoning. So why are there no candidates?

The problem, according to a recent editorial I saw, is that those African leaders who are, shall we say... materially motivated, make so much from their, er... supplementary income-generating activities that five million and 200 grand a year for life is a laughable proposition - "Five million dollars? Over 10 years? You must be joking! I stole twice that much last week!" Hmm. An interesting situation. It makes sense, I suppose. After all, why would one voluntarily leave a position with such incomparable 'earning' potential?

Democratic movements, popular uprisings and even civil wars haven't proven particularly effective at shifting the buggers, so following the Ibrahim Prize's approach of incentivising autocratically inclined African leaders to a) behave and b) leave office when asked, what worthwhile incentives could one possibly offer to entice dictators to step aside for the greater good of all (or at the very least to let someone else have a go)? Perhaps we could designate some uninhabited, mineral-rich part of the continent Despotlandia, ship all the dic's off there and leave them to loot and pillage in their own little playpen? No, that wouldn't work - no people to intimidate, extort and torture... Maybe we could have the Dictatorship World Championships - quickest one to amass a billion dollars and GET OUT and leave everyone in peace wins a free island somewhere warm and sunny. Second and third places get private jets and a castle in the south of France. Hmm... But then everyone would want to have a go at being a dictator. Oh, and they already have their castles... I know - perhaps we could levy a Tyrant Tax on the citizens of African countries, the revenue from which goes into the pockets of dictatorial rulers in return for their living in seclusion and allowing the rule of law to prevail beyond the bounds of their palatial accommodations. But hang on, isn't that already where many Africans' taxes go? At least the the rule of law bit would be new...

Any other suggestions out there? Surely we can come up with something!

What did they teach you at school?

2010-06-12T15:35:00.012Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

I went to the bank the other day, and the teller had to pull out a calculator to subtract Ghc 323 from Ghc 330. And at the pool, the gate attendant needed a calculator to work out (3 x 7) + 4. OK, maybe the pool guy hasn’t had much education – let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. But surely you don’t become a bank teller, and count money all day, without having been to school. Which begs the question, what did they teach you at school?

I’ve seen literacy figures for Ghana quoted at 65%, but I don’t believe it. I’ve stopped being surprised when people can’t write their names, or spell the name of the town they live in. I’ve taken to carrying an ink pad so I can get thumb prints rather than signatures.

But then, when you see what often passes for a school here it’s not hard to imagine that people might ‘graduate’ without being able to read and write, add and subtract. Putting aside the woeful physical condition of some of the schools I’ve seen, what I found most striking is the almost complete absence of books. In a primary school I visited last week I saw a total of three books in the entire school, and each one was in the hands of a teacher. There wasn’t even any provision for books –not a bookshelf or a cupboard to be seen.

What’s the solution? I don’t know. Obviously, as they say in Zimbabwe, “it’s problem of gov’ment.” But successive gov’ments have clearly not held up their end on a number of fronts, education among them, so what’s to do? (I know, I know – there is the school feeding program; enrollment is rising, etc, etc. But if we can’t even teach basic subtraction to the kids that we already have in school, how can we possibly cope with even more of them?) Are we to depend on Civil Society Organisations to step into the breach? Beg more donors for more money?

Nana Kofi Acquah suggested in a recent blog post that “all young successful Africans should volunteer as teachers in deprived schools one week, every year.” I support the sentiment but I don’t think it’s the answer – we need adequately-resourced, qualified, dedicated teachers, not more lay people than we already have. But perhaps if more people got involved then home-grown, grassroots solutions would begin to emerge. It certainly couldn’t make the situation any worse, could it?

The photo above reminded me of an illiterate fisherman I met in a coastal village: Fishing is not what it used to be and there is no future in it for his children. He said going to school to get an education was the only hope for them. From what I’ve seen, at present at least, there’s not much hope in that either.

The Jester

2010-06-10T15:49:00.007Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

A jester playing for tips at a bus station in Ghana.

Obruni, are you white?

2010-06-09T11:43:00.009Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

This little girl danced around me in circles singing, “Obruni (white person), are you white?” She was completely stumped when I said, “Well, that depends – are you black?”

It’s funny being an ‘obruni’ in Ghana after years of being ‘black’ in North America and Australia. We love to have boxes to put people in, don’t we? Same boxes, different labels.

Jamestown Fishermen

2010-04-30T14:14:00.004Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

Fishermen tend their nets in Accra's Jamestown Harbour after returning from sea .

What Happens in the Meantime?

2010-04-28T00:37:00.018Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

I wanted to capture the effect of climate change on this little Ghanaian village, which now floods for lengthy periods of the year when tides are high. At the time I shot, the flooding was not at its worst (that happens in August), and peak water levels only occurred at night which made capturing the scene, and particularly its human element, something of a photographic challenge. I was there with my family and a good friend, and with our guides we explored by torchlight, traipsing around in the muck. And then I saw this little family making their way home along a flooded thoroughfare.

I’d seen the village in the daytime on a previous visit. It’s a poor community, made up of people who are essentially living in a swamp as they have been forced out of the original site of their village as it progressively washes away. There is no sanitation, and in a desperate attempt to create habitable ground upon which to build their huts they are using garbage as landfill to reclaim swampland for settlement. As you walk around the edges of the village the ground is springy, as there is nothing but a thin layer of dirt over a bed of plastic bags, bottles and other trash to support your weight.

So when the water comes in and the village floods, you can imagine how unpleasant it is – swampy water, garbage, excrement. And people wading through it, barefoot, towards their homes. The friend who accompanied us went off his food for days after we left.

My initial reaction was, How can people allow themselves to live like this? As a father, with my own daughter nearby, I thought, Couldn’t they find a few blocks or planks to create makeshift elevated pathways so their children don’t have to wade through filth? Couldn’t they fill a few sandbags? As we departed we were implored to “tell the Government to come and help us”, and I thought, Why should I bother to help people won’t even help themselves? The attitude in the village seemed such a stark contrast to others I’d seen in the area, where even though people didn’t have much there was clearly pride in their environs, and I saw residents pitching in to tackle similar problems.

As I tried to understand how things could come to this I discussed the village with people who know the area far better than I do, and the situation became much more complex. The villagers had moved from their original homes because they were being washed away. But the land they moved to, adjoining the original village, had apparently been bought by wealthy developers who intend to build luxury chalets. The villagers believed the land had been illegitimately sold in the first place, but when they attempted to create structures of any permanence the developers came in and forcefully demolished them. The dispute is ongoing. Garbage, it seems, is both a means of reclamation and a de facto passive resistance, likely with little understanding of the environmental implications of creating a landfill site in the middle of a river delta. The government has apparently proposed a location to resettle the village, but they have ties to their traditional home, and the proposed site is far from water and they are fishing people.

The end result is a kind of inertia, within which people wade through filth whenever the tide is high. It made me contemplate just how complex issues like climate change are when you examine them at a human level. International protocols for emission control, carbon trading schemes, the search for greener technologies, conferences in faraway places... These are all very well, but what happens to little villages like this one, and countless others like it, in the meantime?

Going Organic

2010-04-07T17:35:00.009Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

Tetteh Asallah is a young Ghanaian farmer near Ada, Ghana, who is participating in a program that is encouraging the use of organic manure instead of commercial fertilizers. This has the double benefits of providing livestock producers with an additional income stream, and allowing growers to use natural, locally produced products that are of longer term value than an annual application of fertilizer.

Fertilizer choice aside, what I personally found most striking was the that people are able to coax healthy crops of maize, okra, tomatoes, onions and watermelons from the sandy coastal soils.

SANZA one

2010-04-05T23:04:00.010Z

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Aspiring musician, Michael "SANZA one" Sanza on a street in Jamestown, Accra.

The Future has Arrived, and it Doesn't Look Good

2010-03-16T09:40:00.015Z

(Click image to visit photo gallery.)

As someone who had never really been directly confronted with its reality, I tended to think about climate change in the abstract to a certain extent - yes, it's bad; yes, on an intellectual level I understand that it's happening; yes, we need to do something about it; yes, I try to make ethical decisions and live in an environmentally conscious way without straying too far from my comfort zone... Sure, I've read about islands in the South Pacific that are threatened by rising sea levels; I've seen documentaries on polar bears drowning as their habitat melts. So I agree that it's a bad thing over a beer with friends, and buy products from companies that plough revenues into global warming initiatives. It's cosy in my comfort zone.

Truth is, I've been guilty of viewing climate change as something of an impending reality, rather than an incontrovertible, immediate reality, and I know I'm not alone in this.

But then last week I went out to shoot a collection of images on the impacts of climate change on the coastal area around Ada, Ghana, ahead of a visit to Radio Ada by board members of ONE, some of their high-profile guests, and the CEO of Care International. And let me tell you, climate change is not an impending problem - the future has arrived, and it doesn't look good.

At Grace With Chance

2010-03-01T08:07:00.009Z

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Late last year I had the pleasure of meeting Cape Breton photographer, Carol Kennedy. She's a veritable institution on the island, and was kind enough to invite me round to her studio, where we spent a lovely fall afternoon chatting about photography over a cup of coffee. (It really was gorgeous day - I shot this on the way home.) She said something to me that day that stuck in my mind: as photographers, she said, "we have to be at grace with chance."

It's a wavy line sometimes, the one between vision, ability and technical expertise on one hand, and the luck of capturing a fleeting moment on the other. Whether it comes in the form of the flicker of an irreproducible expression, or a momentary shaft of sunlight piercing obdurate cloud cover, sometimes it's a stroke of sheer luck that elevates a beautifully conceived and flawlessly executed image from 'nice' to 'fantastic'.

I thought about this during a run of incredibly bad luck while shooting on a location I wrote about a while ago. It rained and rained on the morning of the shoot, so we didn't get the dawn shots we wanted. The truck that was hired to haul gear didn't show up, meaning we couldn't take all the gear. So when the generator died on location, taking the lights down with it, we didn't have the backup unit to hand. We quickly negotiated to draw power from a nearby home, but just as we finished rigging up the connection the entire neighbourhood suffered a power outage. Meanwhile, wonderful dancer, Cecilia, (above) was taken ill and had to be rushed back to the city, nixing our plans for sunset shots as well.

As we set about making the most of our bad luck, I thought about what Carol had said. Luck goes both ways, and being "at grace with chance" means being ready to make the most of the good as well as the bad.

At the end of the day, we got shots that work. But I still have a sunset image in my mind that I'll have to go back for one of these days...