In many cultures, people believe that when you take someone's picture you take away their souls. As a photojournalist, I am aware of that. From my early photography career I was also concerned about the dignity of the individuals that I photographed. It was, and always will be, important for me that I did not take away someone's dignity in my pictures. In 1979, while covering the plight of the boat people who were fleeing Vietnam, I decided not to take a picture of a young girl who was washed ashore and had been tortured and raped by the Thai pirates in the ocean a few days earlier. I found a home for her. That was more important than photographing her. At the time, I was criticized by most of my colleagues and peers that I will never make a good photojournalist. I am probably not a noteworthy photojournalist, but I have always believed that I am a human being first and only after that, a photojournalist.

In 1984, while I was in the Wollo province of Ethiopia covering the draught, a mother ran towards me with her baby wrapped in cloth and begged me to hold her child in my hands. She asked me if I would do that and save her from the disgrace of having to have her last child die in her hands. I did so, and later—after the child had died—the mother left me with her dead child to take care of the burial.

I once saw a woman on the pavement outside a hospital in Ethiopia. Her clothing had come off and she had just delivered a baby—the umbilical chord was still attached. Ethiopian women are very modest people and they do not even show their legs. My reaction was to cover the woman, and so I did. Just then a TV crew, who had seen this sight and had gone to their jeep to get their gear to photograph this woman, arrived and saw that her clothes were on her and they demanded to know if I had done that. I said "Yes." The cameraman demanded that I take her clothes off the way they were before so they could film her. I wouldn't do it and he almost punched me. Luckily, the driver who had brought me there came to my rescue.

My 20 years of photojournalism for the United Nations took me to several countries to cover wars and refugee problems. In 1994, after my coverage of Sarajevo, I was asked to go to Rwanda. I visited a camp for "unaccompanied children" in Goma, Zaire. They had fled their homes in Rwanda and had taken temporary asylum across the border in Zaire. I met a young orphan boy named "Innocent." He explained in detail how he had lost both his parents who were killed by machetes. He also kept reminding me that I looked so much like his father. When I was leaving the camp he came closer to me and said, "If you ever come back to this part of the world, please come and visit me." I was fighting my tears, and we barely left the camp when we saw a pile of dead bodies by the roadside. A truck approached and two men got out to use shovels to throw the bodies into the back of the truck. I knelt down and made two pictures. I said a little prayer and put away my camera. The last body they threw in the truck was a strong man's body. He was partially clothed. What bothered me most was the way these dead bodies were treated. With no importance, as a matter of fact, they were removed like dust. Later that same day I witnessed a TV crew that was so excited about the coverage they were getting. I heard the cameraman yell to his producer of the "great, incredible, fantastic" shot that he had lined up. I ran to see what he had in his viewfinder: the camera was set up in a low angle and was trained on a row of bodies on the roadside.

My trip back to the U.S. was very painful with such remembrances of the various things I had witnessed. I had seen similar sights and incidences earlier in my career, but somehow this time it weighed heavily on me and I had a feeling that I would not able to shrug this one off and get back to my routine. Sure enough, almost a week later, I was in my New York office one morning and I just could not function. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I could hardly hold myself together. I had a nervous breakdown and was given leave from my job for almost three months while I recovered. It took seeing the incredible beauty of a butterfly that was sitting on a sunflower in my neighbor's backyard to finally bring me back to photography and the camera that I had packed away for three months.

GALLERY 1 (People of the World)
GALLERY 2 (Exotic Lands)

Equipment:

Olympus E System
Link 1 • Link2

Lexar Media

Sponsors:
Media Street
Lowepro

Contact: john[AT]johnisaac.com
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