Sports and Documentary Photographer Phil Bowen

vocational training for the karamajong – soroti uganda

admin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:21:00 +0000

Here’s a change of direction after spending a few days in remote northern Uganda. Part of the EU Peacebuilding Program is geared towards providing access to alternative livelihoods besides farming and pastorism in drought conditions. This vocational school in Soroti includes students who come from Karamoja.

Carpentry, building construction, welding and driving education were all taught there, among other things.

It being a hands-on school, I definitely made a point to get some images of hands at work. Otherwise, it was a pretty quick in-and-out – I was happy with what I got in the short time I was there.

confiscated karamajong AK-47s – kaabong uganda

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:01:00 +0000

A lot of my documentary work, intentionally or not, tends to be pretty on-the-fly. It’s just the reality of NGO field work in Uganda – the best laid plans invariably get tossed out and you tend to do what’s available now. The shot of the recovered Karamajong weapons was not one of those cases. We knew we wanted photos of them, we knew it would be difficult to get the access, we planned and made phone calls, and it all came together.

Apparently, the Army is much more accessible than in years past. Our driver was shaking his head in surprise mentioning how we never would have been allowed on an Army base, let alone with cameras, let alone having them retrieve weapons from the cache to display for us.

For the book we chose a straight-on view of the AK-47s lined up against the mud wall. It fit well panoramic across the spread. I like this image for the focus of the beads on the stock.

land, people, cows – karamoja uganda

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:24:00 +0000

karamajong boys in kotido uganda

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:14:00 +0000

ok, so now we’re getting in to the thick of things. due to the realities of ugandan field work, our day didn’t really get started until around 6pm. finally out and about, i wanted some landscape photos and there was a rock, so i climbed it.

beautiful landscape and sky, clouds and sun to set it off just right. these four kids saw me from afar and joined me on the rock. they were happy as could be and just what i needed after a somewhat frustrating day.

i decided to take their photos wide angle since the setting was so great. i didn’t need a long lens or wide aperature to get rid of distracting backgrouds.

back down to the manyattas below, we found a ceremony going on. everyone jumping, singing and dancing. our guy said that it could be to signify the beginning of harvest. it was chaos even before we showed up, and then insert a white guy with two cameras…

this one had the most body decoration i’d seen yet so i wanted a pic. it was a big challenge to isolate him in a photo because there were 100+ people around, most of whom were crowding to try and get in front of the camera.

horizons in moroto – karamoja uganda

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:58:00 +0000

seed distribution in nakapiripirit district – karamoja region uganda

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:24:00 +0000

more documentary photography for save the children in uganda, here in nakapiripirit district, the southern part of the karamoja region.

distributing seeds for planting – sorghum, beans, and g-nuts (ground nuts, peanuts). the idea is to promote alternative ways to make an income and get food. too much violence surrounding cattle keeping.

in just about every situation my favorite lens is my 16-35mm wide angle zoom. and here we have examples of it at both ends of the zoom. i bet >95% of my photos with this lens are at 16mm or 35mm, nothing in between. i tend to view a scene and decide if i want a wide angle or a more normal view, go that direction with the lens, and then move around to compose.

zoom lenses have a bit of a disadvantage to prime lenses of similar focal length in that all the extra mechanics and lens groups that go in to the zoom lens make it slower in terms of light gathering and also degrade the image quality, especially as you move away from the center of the image.

the current lens i covet is the 35mm f/1.4. the image quality of that lens is a lot better than my zoom lens at 35mm, and it’s much better in low light, too. but i always want the option of a wide view and that means i’d have to be carrying two cameras. there’s always trade-offs. but that techie, problem-solving aspect of photography is one of the things i like about it so much.

sunrise in moroto – karamoja region uganda

admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:18:00 +0000

arriving at six thirtysomething in the am at the kraal to photo the karamajong children attending classes and taking care of their cattle. chasing the light so i could get exactly this kind of backdrop for the children wrapped in their colorful blankets…

…except when it happened we were in the army detach, following protocol by alerting the UPDF to our presence. sigh.

so i jumped out of the car anyway and got a couple photos though generally the army frowns on cameras in their midst.

the thornbush fence of the kraal is the dark stripe on the horizon below the mountain. the sky really did look like this, too. it was pretty amazing.

karamajong children receive schooling – moroto, uganda

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:34:00 +0000

below is a series of images from my recent trip to the karamoja region of uganda. the karamajong are nomadic pastoralists, meaning they keep cattle and are constantly on the move looking for food and water for their livestock. raiding cattle has always been a way of life for the karamajong, a practice that turned increasingly deadly with the introduction of firearms. a guns for development program has netted some 30,000 weapons, certainly helping peace in the region.

cattle are now kept in protected kraals, large pens fenced with thorns situated next to ugandan army detaches. the army protects the cattle from raiders overnight and at 9am each morning they allow the herders, mostly children, in to milk their livestock and move out to graze.

a peacebuilding program called ABEK (alternative basic education for karamoja) provides education for the children at the kraals. children begin arriving well before sun-up, receive an hour of instruction and then are allowed into the kraal to take care of their cows. the soldiers are trained in peacebuilding to promote positive relationships between the army and the children.

cattle in the kraal

children arriving for ABEK

a soldier hands out chalk to the children for lessons

a UPDF soldier holding a puppy speaks with children

children sing and dance following their classes

a UPDF soldier queues up the students following their lessons

freedom! the children are finally let go to milk and tend to their cattle

a karamajong boy milks his cow into a plastic pitcher

milking straight into the hand…

…and tasting the results!

moving off to find food and water for the day

family in their home – gulu district, uganda

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:32:00 +0000

more portraits inside a windowless home! with all the practice lately, i feel like i can do this with one hand tied behind my back.

however, this one initially gave me some fits because i couldn’t get enough light. this was the house where bounce flash went to die. i went manual at full power and the walls and ceiling just sucked up the light. so i found a large white ethiopian serving dish and had linda stand in the doorway holding it where i could bounce some light.

shooting in RAW and noise ninja sure help when you’re way underexposed, too.

martha

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:29:00 +0000

documenting some of the work that CAFWA, Community Action Fund for Women in Africa, is doing in northern uganda.

here, martha is standing in the middle of her home, some years ago destroyed by the LRA. she herself was twice abducted and twice escaped from the LRA.

earlier in the day, in the IDP camp, i asked her to show me the graves of some of her family. she went to six graves in three different sites. i thought she didn’t get that i wanted to see her family members’ graves and instead she was just showing me random graves. no, she understood – then showed me seven more.

“the north” kind of gets stereotyped here. i sort of think of it as a place that college interns go to say they’ve been there. now that it’s safe. like you can get a gulu merit badge or something.

but now that i’ve been here, it’s pretty sobering. some crazy shit went down here. recently. and you don’t know about it. i think martha’s story applies to a lot (most) of the people up here.

but at least we have 24 hour reporting on a flu that has a WHO-confirmed death toll around the same number as martha’s family.