environmental portrait

image

Primary schoolteacher, Namalu, Uganda

At that moment, in that encounter, what is there for the photographer to do more than respect the space needed for the subject to feel ready… contextualized by their surroundings. appearing authentically self-actualized and comported at the moment their gaze finds the lens and our own gaze (the viewer of the resulting image). 

image

Borana girl with grandmother. Sololo, Kenya

Then we tend to read all kinds of narratives into the image based on prior knowledge. So it’s a lot to ask of someone when that moment occurs, and while it’s often a furtive moment (taken away in silver halide crystals), there are times it pulls at the heartstrings as you wish you could be sure you were conveying the gratitude you felt for the privilege of being allowed to render the fossilized image…

image

Karimojong family, Uganda

At the same time, they are just “snaps” to the vernacular crowd, which is everyone else, including some in this group portrait…

FLASHBACK: Street kids of Nairobi… A young boy was recently being interviewed by Undugu social workers. His only possession seemed to be an old burlap sack. When asked why he wouldn’t put the sack down as they talked, the boy replied warily, “This is not a sack. It is my father and my mother, my house, my car, my farm and my daily bread. I can’t steal without it.”

Combined excerpts from two separate articles, originally published in Kenya in Executive Magazine, January 1993, and Survival, Spring 1994.

image
image
image

Being at the forefront of street children-related work in Kenya, it is sometimes necessary for the Undugu Society to assume the role of advocate. This is especially true when cases arise where it is obvious that the rights of the children, as espoused in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, have been violated. One such case occurred when government authorities decided to close down a rescue center at Kariokor Market, one of the busiest sections of Nairobi. An extremely harsh crackdown left several boys incarcerated among adults- - a direct contradiction of the statutes related to child protection in Kenya. The boys were hounded and even physically assaulted during their ordeal. While it is true that many of these boys were not model citizens in any sense of the word, they are citizens, and human beings, nonetheless. And though we wish in all good conscience to be able to report that this incident was an isolated case of overzealousness by a few officials, we are sorry that our pursuit of the truth in such matters does not allow such a softening statement to be made. To the contrary, such occurrences are so commonplace that to report them regularly would entail the hiring of a full-time investigative reporter, to be assigned solely to the juvenile courthouse, the approved and remand school systems, and the police stations citywide. Reprinted here is the editorial column from the March 1994 edition of Flash, the in-house quarterly newsletter of Undugu.

In the April –June, 1993 issue of Flash, our editorial outlined the work being done by the Child Law Project, whose proposed Children’s Act seeks to refine and consolidate the often conflicting and unclear legislation pertaining to child protection. We noted then that Attorney General Amos Wako has said that this act should become law sometime during this session of Parliament.

image
image
image

To date, this has not yet been done, thus the Children and Young Persons Acts, Chapter 141 (last revised in 1972) remains the definitive legislation on cases specifically dealing with juveniles and others, including street children. In light of the recent developments involving the boys from Kariokor, it is instructive to note the following sections of this act, and we would ask the proper authorities to pause and consider whether the rights of these children are in any way being violated:

CAP 141, Section 23: (1) If any person who has the custody, charge or care of any child or juvenile-

(a) Willfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons or exposes him, or causes or permits him to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned or exposed, in any manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to healthy shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both such fine and such imprisonment…

image

CAP 141, Section 5: Arrangements shall be made for preventing persons under sixteen years of age while detained in a police station, or while being conveyed to or from any court from associating with adults charged with or convicted of any offence other than an offence with which a person under sixteen years of age is jointly charged or convicted…

CAP 141, Section 14: Every court in dealing with a person under eighteen years of age who is brought before it shall have regard to his welfare and shall, in a proper case, take steps for removing him from undesirable surroundings and for securing that proper provision be made for his maintenance, education and training.

image

In the first two instances (Section 23 &6), readers of our special report in this issue (the closing of the Kariokor Rescue Centre) will not have to stretch their imaginations too far to acknowledge the possibility of violations against our children by the very agencies entrusted to protect them. With regard to Section 14, a recent visit to the Juvenile Remand Home in Kabete, (one of 10 such home throughout the republic) revealed a situation so shocking and depressing in its scope, that it is hard to imagine how the courts assigned to deal with these children would be able to abide by that law.

image

Built to hold 80-100 children, Kabete’s population fluctuates from 200-300 and has in recent months reached as high as 500. With manager Bakala Wambani lamenting a near total lack of funding from the government, the children held at Kabete have no salt or milk in their diets. Many appear to be malnourished, a worse condition than we find them when living on the streets. Scabies is rampant, as there are precious few medicines to treat this or any other illnesses. There are only two qualified social workers, with ten other staff members handing various responsibilities. Even with probation officers sent periodically from the Children’s Department to help follow-up the vagrancy cases (which constitute the majority), processing is slow. It is not uncommon for a child picked up on a street corner to end up spending more than a month waiting for some decision to be made on his future. In the meantime, those categorized as needing protection and care (P &C) are mixed together with those officially determined to require protection and discipline (P&D). The result—hardcore cases end up influencing and often spoiling the more innocent children. In December last year, the government released 17m shillings from the Treasury, to go towards the “repatriation” of children to their home regions. Already dozens of children have been shipped to police station in places such as Kakamega and Mombasa.

image

This may stem the flow of children to the streets temporarily, but realistically it is like trying to empty a sinking canoe with a spoon. Long-term solutions are needed. Just as Undugu Society needs funding to maintain our programs, so the relevant government ministries need to allocate sufficient funds to improve the quality of services at the remand home and approved schools. It was pointed out to us that there was once a “ State Maintenance Fund,” which was used to finance the education of needy children. There were even cases of children being sponsored clear up to university level. Reviving this would be a major step in the right direction.

image

Without such efforts of good faith, and until policeman and others in positions of authority learn to treat street children as human beings, not whipping boys, the chances are the system will continue to further harden, rather than help, society’s most unfortunate souls.


image
image
image

Representation and ownership; the delicate case of W. Eugene Smith’s Tomoko image

image

“Even the most compassionate photojournalism is under pressure to satisfy simultaneously two sorts of experiences: those arising from our largely surrealist way of looking at all photographs, and those created by our belief that some photographs give real and important information about the world. The photographs that W. Eugene Smith took in the late 1960s in Minamata … move us because they document a suffering which arouses our indignation—and distance us because they are superb photographs of Agony, conforming to surrealist standards of beauty.”

                                                                                    * Susan Sontag

You will be told we must continuously show these images as a reminder of what must never happen again! These arguments, I believe, are specious when looked at without the filter of the mass media. The classic Aristotelian notion of tragedy, which calls for the dramatic presentation of  “ … incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions,” seemed prescient in the age of photographic representation. Yet while such photographs may arouse pity, fear or anger, it is hard to imagine what cathartic value the perpetual viewing of, to put things crudely, a dead or dying body might have, regardless of it’s historical or political significance. 

To this end, Sontag has also written:

“To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them … after repeated exposure to images it also becomes less real … The sense of taboo which makes us indignant and sorrowful is not much sturdier than the sense of taboo that regulates the definition of what is obscene. The vast photographic catalogue of misery and injustice throughout the world has given everyone a certain familiarity with atrocity, making the horrible seem ordinary …” 

Outside the realm of censorship, however exercised, photojournalists, documentarians and defenders of the genre have historically shown little restraint or reflection in the use of more “important” images. Actions against this deeply ingrained sense of representational duty are rare, if not blasphemous.

In 1998, pundits were aghast when Aileen Mioko Smith, the widow of master photo-essayist W. Eugene Smith, heeded the pleas of the Uemura family to bar all future use of one of Smith’s most enduring images, “Tomoko is Bathed by Her Mother.”  The photograph, a classic example of Smith’s unabashedly Romantic sensibility, with trademark high-contrast printing to further enhance the chiaroscuro lighting, had been taken in 1971 as part of an essay on the effects of mercury poisoning in the Japanese fishing industry. The photographs published in Life magazine, and in the book entitled “Minamata,” came to symbolize the plight of the families afflicted with birth defects and other illnesses. Notwithstanding concerns expressed by purists that Smith had engaged in some decidedly questionable journalistic ethics by staging the image in the most dramatic light that could be found, the photograph is held up as a shining example of humanitarian documentary work, nearly as impressive symbolically as it is narratively.

The Uemura family eventually prevailed in the first Minamata Disease trial against the Chisso Corporation, but a few years later Tomoko, only twenty-one years old, passed away. In an emotional letter written in 1998, Tomoko’s father outlines how the famous photograph has, over the years since their daughter’s death, become a crucible, outliving it’s original usefulness:

“ … we were faced with an increasing number of demands for interviews. Believing that it would aid the struggle for the eradication of pollution, we agreed … as a result rumors began to circulate … `They must be making a huge amount of money from all the publicity’ … I do not think that anybody outside our family can begin to imagine how unbearable these persistent rumors made our daily lives … in 1977 we were contacted by a French television company who were planning to produce a program entitled `One Hundred Photographs of the Twentieth Century,’ and they said it was vital for them to use … Eugene Smith’s `Tomoko.’” I did not want to take part in this program so I turned them down … I wanted Tomoko to rest in peace and this feeling welled up in me steadily.”4

In response, Smith, who had worked with her husband on the Minamata project, and had been intimate with the Uemura family, agreed. In a letter to the media, she wrote:

“Generally, the copyright of a photograph belongs to the person who took it, but I think that it is important to respect the subject’s rights and feelings. Therefore, I … promised that I would not newly exhibit or publish the photo in question. In addition I will be grateful if any museums who already own or are displaying the work would take the above into consideration …”5

Aperture magazine, widely respected as among the most excellent arbiters of important photography, dutifully published a response that brushed aside copyright concerns. Instead,  it served to chastise Aileen Mioko Smith for giving away what was not hers, violating a trust rendered sacred forged by an unconditional, long-held sense of protective ownership.  Never! Imagine the precedent! Aristotle himself might’ve appreciate the manner in which the removal of the photographs from public view would provide those most personally affected with the catharsis necessary to complete the dramatization of the tragedy, but it was not to be…

Eugene and Aileen Smith’s Photograph of Tomoko and My Family

by Yoshio Uemura

Tomoko was born on June 13, 1956. A few days after her birth, Tomoko began to exhibit trembling fits. She cried every day and we were unable to leave her side. We thought this strange and took her to various hospitals in Minamata City, but none of them were able to say what was wrong with her. She was later suspected to be suffering from cerebral palsy. However there was really no treatment for her but to give injections to her tiny, thin body.

It was not until November of 1962 that Tomoko was recognized as suffering from congenital Minamata Disease. At this time she already had three younger sisters. On December 26th of that year another sister was born and by 1969 she had a total of six siblings. Despite having so many children, looking after Tomoko took a lot of our time. A single meal would take about two hours for her to eat and so just feeding her would occupy more than five or six hours every day.

The first Minamata Disease lawsuit began in June 1969 and went through forty-nine hearings before the proceedings were concluded with the final judgment being handed down on March 20, 1973. During this period, people from all over the country offered their support and among them were Eugene and Aileen Smith, who had rented a house near ours in Detsuki from Tadaaki Mizoguchi and were photographing the families of the victims of the disease.

Among the many photographs they took, there was one of my wife Yoshiko holding Tomoko in the bath. Yoshiko told me that Tomoko had let her body lie straight without trying to curl up. To be honest, we had thought that the photograph would only take a brief moment so we had agreed to the shoot without giving the matter a second thought. I was told that Tomoko seemed exhausted when she got out of the bath.

The photograph went on to become world-famous and as a result we were faced with an increasing number of demands for interviews. Believing that it would aid the struggle for the eradication of pollution, we agreed to the interviews and photographs and the organizations that were working on our behalf used the photograph of Tomoko frequently in their activities. However, as a result, rumors began to circulate in the neighborhood and among other people around us. “They must be making a huge amount of money from all that publicity.” This was untrue. It had never entered our minds to profit from the photograph of Tomoko. We never dreamt that a photograph like that could be commercial.

The truth is that we did not benefit financially at all from the photograph. I do not think that anybody outside our family can begin to imagine how unbearable these persistent rumors made our daily lives. Sometimes we had to face the flashes and hot lights of television interviews, and although she could not speak herself, I am sure that in her heart Tomoko felt that because of her, we –her father, mother, sisters, and brother– were having to go through such pain. As her father, I found the thought that this concern existed in the corner of her mind extremely unpleasant. Several years before she died, she began going to the hospital many times and each time she came home she was smaller than when she went in. She never smiled any more and seemed to become progressively weaker.

Despite this, Tomoko still had a strong will to live and she was treasured by everybody in the family. I regret so much that I could do nothing to soften her pain…the fevers from colds, the suffering, the only slight relief she could get from the injections and medication. The treatments probably provided but slight relief for her. I have now come to believe that the sole thing that sustained Tomoko was her parents and siblings, her family’s love gave her reason for living, and perhaps enabled her to survive as long as she did.

I am sure that it must have pained Tomoko not to be able to express her gratitude to those who helped her come as far as she did, but I think it was the absolute love and affection my wife offered her that made her life worth living. The industry as well as the national and regional government sent us and untold others to the bottom of hell. And the whole lot of them neglected to save lives but instead bailed out the company. And the company that caused thousands to fall victim now survives as though it has never committed any sin.

The court case was concluded, but victory has no value to the deceased and the seriously ill. And even if the government were to apologize officially, this would do nothing in the slightest to relieve the symptoms of the victims. Tomoko died on December 5, 1977. She was 21 years old. All we could do was to hold vigil before Tomoko who had departed us in silence. I could not hear the words of those that paid homage to her in the funeral procession. Their words could not enter my ears. In blank stupor, Tomoko departed to heaven ahead of her parents, leaving behind her sisters and brother…

In 1997 we were contacted by a French television company named CAPA who were planning to produce a program entitled, “One Hundred Photographs of the Twentieth Century” and they said that it was vital for them to use “the picture that captured the environmental problems of Minamata, Eugene Smith’s ‘Tomoko’.”

I did not want to take part in the program so I turned them down. I know what television interviews involve and also, many of the organizations that are working on our behalf are using the photograph in various media, many of them in places we do not know about. I realize that this is necessary for numerous reasons, but I wanted Tomoko to rest in peace and this feeling welled up in me steadily.

Hearing the way I felt, Aileen came all the way from Kyoto to visit me on June 7th last year and she promised to revert all rights of decision to the picture of Tomoko to my wife and I. We later received this promise in writing and a copy of it appears on the following page [below]. I and my family are filled with gratitude from the bottom of our hearts toward Aileen. I thank her deeply for this wonderful gift to Tomoko. I feel that Tomoko is now finally resting in eternal peace. I ask all of you for your support and understanding.

His letter ended:

1. I,  Aileen Smith, return the photograph entitled “Tomoko is Bathed by her Mother” to Mr. and Mrs. Uemura.

2. This means that the right of decision concerning the use of this photograph reverts to Mr. and Mrs. Uemura.

3. In the future, when any requests are made to me concerning this photograph, I will explain the following (see separate sheet) and refuse use of this photograph.

October 30, 1998

Aileen Mioko Smith

Regarding the Photograph, “Tomoko is Bathed by her Mother”

by Aileen Mioko Smith

The photograph entitled “Tomoko is bathed by her Mother” was taken in December 1971 by Eugene and Aileen Smith. At the time, Tomoko was a plaintiff in the first Minamata Disease trial and was suing the Chisso Corporation for damages. Her parents wanted society to know about their daughter and therefore agreed to the taking and publishing of the photograph.

Since 1972, this photograph has been published in Life magazine, a book of photographs entitled “Minamata” (1975 in English, 1980 in Japanese) etc., causing a huge response, and became a symbol of Minamata Disease.

The plaintiffs won their case in March of 1973 but sadly, Tomoko died in December 1977 at the tender age of twenty-one. Despite this, however, the photograph continued to be used as a symbol of Minamata Disease in books and exhibitions, leaving a strong impression on a large number of people. I later heard that this resulted in a certain amount of conflict within the minds of her family, who wanted to see the end of the kind of pollution that caused the problems, while at the same time wished to let Tomoko rest in peace.

Generally, the copyright of a photograph belongs to the person who took it, but the subject also has rights and I think that it is important to respect the subject’s rights and feelings. Therefore, I went to see the Uemura family on June 7, 1998 and promised that I would not newly exhibit or publish the photograph in question.

For the above reasons, the photograph entitled “Tomoko is bathed by her Mother” will not be used for any new publications. In addition I will be grateful if any museums etc. who already own or are displaying the work would take the above into consideration when exhibiting etc. the photograph in the future.

October 30, 1998

Aileen Mioko Smith (Copyright Holder)

Represent

image

Mike Wish, Los Angeles, 2006

“… Marx asserted, ‘They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.’ His doubled sense of representation is a political practice; someone must speak for, stand in for, perform as, the inchoate and unformed group—not yet a class because it cannot represent itself, yet surely a class because it can be represented—to and for itself and others. If representation is crucial to class formation and expression, then class, like gender, is performative …”

                                            * Paula Rabinowitz, They Must Be Represented

None of us…

65-year-old women (or men) shouldn’t have to sit on the ground like this. Days like today, you feel the weight of the struggle our friends go through, and get down over the reality of how slow, or non-existent, change seems. “One of us” feels more like “none of us.” Lynda is still largely laid up with her rib injury, working on some new pieces, excited about the possibility that she will be able to show, and possibly even sell, some work, and is more determined than ever to get the hell out her dead-end existence and into a small apartment somehow…. Like her friends Rebecca and Rachel, she’s now hoping that Friday will bring good news when she goes to apply for an HUD apartment. 

image
image
image
image

Three questions

In preparation for an exhibition on homelessness currently in the planning stages at the Museum of Social Justice in Los Angeles, I was asked three very simple and direct questions, which challenged me to define the motivations and expectations of the One of Us project:

1.     Is there one thing, or one experience that tangibly crystalized the dedication that drives you to pursue this project with such ferocity? Or is there a significant experience you can point to that initiated your motivation to provoke change in how homelessness is treated in Los Angeles?

Homelessness in Los Angeles is a humanitarian crisis that can’t be ignored. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recently characterized it as the defining issue of the time, and better late than never, it is good to find so much activity and mobilization going on now. I’m personally motivated by a sense of outrage over the passive-aggressive way much of society deals with the homeless population, and alarm at the way the problem has been allowed to fester and grow. The relationships, trust and even friendships I’ve established with an odd fraternity of homeless individuals (and activists) in my own community has only reinforced and illuminated these beliefs.

image

Photographs and words can only interpret and represent, and in actuality there are already more than enough dramatic photographs of deprivation and suffering, and enough anecdotal information and demographics to convince the powers-that-be to do the needful. The media, myself included, have been complicit in this. With the notable exception of the few instances where photographs, reportage and even Art have had a direct, measurable effect on its subjects, the ubiquity of coverage has only added to an overwhelming sense of intractability and despair, perpetrating harmful stereotypes and further serving to objectify the homeless as some homogeneous societal woe.

What harm can there be in listening to and learning from those who are actually living this nightmare on a daily basis? The concept of soliciting the personal stories and portraits that became One of Us arose out of a longstanding collaboration with Wade Trimmer, director of the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission. Wade encouraged me to pursue our common interest in “humanizing” the homeless, a phrase that on its face seems redundant and offensive because it infers that each person encountered in this work is not unquestionably and obviously quite human already. So we want to remind the public of this simple fact of humanity; the motivation for this approach lies in the desire to change the conversation surrounding homelessness, to bring it back to a human level, to perhaps nudge anyone who encounters the material to feel more inclined to enact real, sustainable solutions.


2.     If you were to ask the participants of “One of Us” what the most important message we need to convey would be, what do you think they would say?

The conversations we recorded with more than 40 individuals provide a wide variety of answers to that question. Taken collectively, they present a pretty comprehensive catalog of the causes of homelessness and the many obstacles that make it such a difficult situation to rise above. At the risk of overusing another cliché, in the context of “giving voice to the voiceless” as a path toward human autonomy and dignity, the most important messages I heard were connected with the longing for understanding and empathy from the general public and law enforcement. 

image
image

Each person’s story touches on this in some way, whether it is boyish, twenty-something Jesse who dreams of becoming a doctor or nurse while currently living in his car in the parking lot of the Walmart store he works in, or Nancy, an elderly Southern debutante whose safe world was turned upside down after being victimized by real estate fraud. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how many stories are told, how many “likes” their images collect on social media, or any of that. They just need affordable housing.

3.     What is your favorite image and why?

There’s a big distinction between the studio-lit portraits made in locations where the people were for the most part comfortable and knew they were in a safe place among friends and allies (possibly having just eaten a warm breakfast and used the portable shower unit), and those taken out in the streets and encampments. While I’m gratified that so many of the close-up portraits reveal a sense of common humanity that transcends their economic or living conditions, my favorite picture is often one I have just recently taken, portraying both personal and symbolic meanings. 

image

Right now an image I feel conveys some measure of universal hope, if not redemption, is that of Gracie holding up the tiny portrait of a baby girl recently born to her street-mate Emmy. The baby was the only survivor of twins, and Gracie was noticeably proud to have been anointed her “honorary grandmother.” As tragic as the circumstances surrounding the child’s birth may be, and as uncertain as the future is now for Gracie, Emmy and the rest of the people in this one camp—a microcosm of homelessness in Los Angeles—there is still the desire to sustain a sense of familial belonging.

Dislodged

image

How much trouble can one life endure in just 66 years? The joys, the meaningful pleasures, the temporary reprieves from the sameness of living out of doors, these can’t take root when you are suddenly forced to abandon your base camp on the sidewalk next to the 7-11, and follow police orders to clear out in 30 minutes or else… so it was this morning when Gracie suddenly came chugging around the corner into Craig and Lynda’s encampment, pushing a loaded shopping cart in an agitated state. Lynda was sound asleep (so it seemed when I dropped bag of nail polish, this one donated by a student). Craig, thinking with his heart first, quickly said yes when Gracie indicated she needed to move everything into their space, like pronto

image
image

Things did get a little testy when Craig arrived on his bike to help with the move. After a minute of watching her pull back tarps and stuff items into milk crates and carts, he let Gracie know that she would have to take a quick inventory and thin out her belongings, if mainly to avoid upsetting the apartment building dwellers in the cul de sac, who were giving tacit approval to the presence of the little makeshift duplex. (Earlier, while discussing which local stores had the cheapest groceries, Craig told me he was planning to go behind the chain link fence and tidy up the strewn rubbish)

As Gracie sorted fretfully, a guy in a small pick-up stopped to offer three full McDonald’s breakfasts he had somehow inherited, and just around that same time another group of Good Samaritans came over to offer us more food, and were directed over to Terry and Amy’s side. Craig and Mike ate lustily but it was all lost on poor Gracie who now had to wrack her brains and shift into full survival mode again… 

A few hours later her blond ponytail was seen bobbing along the sidewalk under the freeway bridge. “Turns out it was a false alarm,” she said into the car window, without sheepishness and still a little beside herself, before continuing along on the way to pick up her clothes at the corner laundromat.

Empowerment

valencialauren:

By Lauren Valencia

Strong resilient women participated in a self-defense class to better understand techniques for protecting themselves and fighting back when the time is crucial. Laura Rathbone hosted a self-defense class with defense instructor and senior black belt Michelle at North Valley Caring Services on Sunday, March 26th.

Rathbone is very involved in the community and helping people in need. She works tremendously with the homeless community and says too many people are misinformed about the homeless community. She pointed out that over 25% of the homeless are working and that many people couldn’t come to this event because they were working at the time. Rathbone mentioned that she feels it is important for everyone to take a self-defense class.

image
image

“I hope you learn something today that will make you more confident,” said defense instructor Michelle.

image

Michelle expressed the gratitude she feels from being able to impact women who come from different walks of life. She spoke on her childhood of abuse and has overtime learned to accept herself.

image
image

“One thing we have in common is that we are strong,” said Michelle. “We are silent, but deadly. We don’t quit!”

image
image

Michelle said it is important to always be prepared to defend yourself because you never know when you could get hit. You must always be ready.

image
image
image

Michelle shows the women different techniques in different situations of being attacked.

image

Rathbone asks Michelle for tips on how to react if one gets attacked while sleeping on the ground. 

She also points out how crucial the “metal box” is. It is a guard with our arms that must be put to use in any situation in which one is being attacked.

image
image

“You must move quickly in all situations” said Michelle. “You must stay close. When you decide to go in, you have to get back out quickly.”

When fighting back, Michelle says it is important to allow your strike to go further than just hitting someone. To act as though you are aiming for something beyond them so your hits and swings are much more powerful.

image
image

“There is a lot of wavelength movement,” said Michelle. “That is used as a particular point of power release for a strike.”

image

Michelle teaches the women how to react when being attacked by a weapon and the different hand techniques one can use.

image
image

“I love being a woman and what we stand for,” said Michelle. “I think we have forgotten who we are. I love the idea of being able to express who we are because we are powerful.”

image

Michelle says it is important to learn how to forgive ourselves when things happen to us. We need to learn to not blame ourselves and let things go.  

image
image

“As we learn to love and accept ourselves we are able to love and accept others” said Michelle.

Michelle says to silence all the voices because through this silence comes the physical power one has within.

image

“You are capable of anything!” said Michelle.

I don’t re-blog the work of others very often, but this photo story by Lauren Valencia, done as part of our Documentary Photojournalism project on homelessness, is worth sharing.

“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”

* Don McCullin

image
image

Heart

image
image
image
image
image
image
image