The Informal Portrait: Ghanaian Deaf-Mute Woman

Deaf-Mute Ghanaian Woman

Olympus OM, 85mm f2 Zuiko lens, Fujichrome RDP 100 film

 

Although I've photographed a wide variety of subjects in my career, from studio work with complex lighting setups to landscapes, the human face remains my favorite subject. I love to make informal portraits of people wherever I go. As I wrote in an article in Rangefinder Magazine some years ago: 

"As a photojournalist and producer creating magazine features and audio-visual programs to help religious and humanitarian agencies communicate their mission, I'm always looking for opportunities to make portraits.  Strong photographs of people add power to the message I want to communicate, because people are interested in people.  That's why we call it "human interest."  When someone from another culture is portrayed in all of his or her humanity, dignity, and individuality, both the subject and those who view the photograph are served.  As the great Edward Steichen, creator of the landmark "Family of Man" exhibit said, "The function of photography is to explain man to man." 

Photography bypasses the logical centers of the brain and communicates directly to the heart.  When the subject is someone from another culture, an incisive portrait can arouse in the viewer a deep awareness that this also is a person, a member of my species.  Different from me, yes, but part of my family.  Nearly 50 years have passed, but I still remember the first time a photograph connected with me in this way.  It was an Emil Schultheiss portrait of an African girl in the old Modern Photography magazine.  Her face plastered with ceremonial paint, she peeked at the camera from the corners of her eyes.  I looked into her soul and was hooked for good." 

In 1989 the World Missions Department of the Church of God sent me to three African countries to make photographs and research script material for several audio-visual productions. The countries were Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. I also spent two nights in Kenya as I flew from Nigeria to Zambia and back again.

In Ghana, I traveled around quite a bit of the country with the church's national overseer (equivalent to a bishop). One evening we found ourselves visiting a family of church members living in the border zone adjoining Togo. (I would have liked to go into Togo, but wasn't sure my visa would allow me to leave Ghana and return, so I didn't try.)

We had supper, cooked in a big pot over an open fire, with the church family. A woman came by as we were eating; a deaf-mute lady who allowed me to make her photograph. My aim, as always, was not to show some poor woman in worn and ragged clothes, but to portray a person of dignity and worth,. 

The blue cast is courtesy of the post-sunset light, the so-called "blue hour." 

Blog Note: Please forgive the irregular timing of my posts. The wi-fi service here at the campground varies from terrible to non-existent; however I'm working on a solution and hope to have it in place tomorrow. (Hat-tip to fellow blogger Dave Hileman. 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone