My job cannot be…

My friends, I’m not trying to be conceited or proud… but, I promise you, the job of a long-form documentary photojournalist does not suck.

I mean, there are places in the world that do suck. There are dark corners of this job even as this photo is taken. But then there are those days.

The house has no windows and the doors are far less than solid. Trees that have been growing for 3 or 4 decades grow through holes in the ceiling allowing the tops of the trees to reach the sky but the roots are practically inside… if the outside was ever not the inside, too. This time of the year, the trees are in full bloom with bright pink and white flowers that constantly rain into the house and dust across the floor with every slight puff of air off the sea. The puff only travels a few meters from the sea wall.

In fact, I will have fish for lunch today, and the fisherman is on his way. The red snapper is massive and still flopping on the rocks as it is killed and cleaned and placed on the grill.

These are the ridiculous parts of this job. To be told the stories – both great and horrific – of the most beautiful places on earth. A tourist comes as says, “Aww, that’s pretty” and snaps a photo to disappear into the annals of some hard drive somewhere letting the computer remember that place instead of them. And the cynical journalist might come and want to tell the stories of pain and strife that go on within the open walls of a beautiful place.

So, where do I stand? My friends take me here. They say, “I take you to this place and trust that you will not abuse the privilege.”

Maybe I over-think it, but does the responsibility of knowing so much of the story put you in a greater position to be sensitive to the situation? And to see the beauty in the dark, regardless of the amount of light.

Oh, my friends, I see this and I see the people, never separating them. It is not “these people” and “those people” and “my people”… saying somehow that there is a difference because of where we were born or the color of our skin.

Ignorance and a refusal to learn is of the highest order of stupidity and evil in the world. This is what I believe.

So, I seek. I want to find. My friend told me a Creole proverb:

“If there is something out there, we will find it. For man is no greater than God.”

Seek. Find. Know. Nothing is greater than this.

Stay tuned…
-Noah D.