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For a guy who makes his living with words, it’s my pictures that have been getting the notice lately.
Yesterday I received a copy of a book, Cooking in West Africa: A Colonial Guide. The primary cover photo is a picture of peppers in a woven basket that I took in April 2004 at a market in Abeokuta, Nigeria. This is the sixth photo of mine used in a public way in the past year or so. Last summer, another photograph, of the city of Abeokuta taken from the top of Olumo Rock, was used on the campaign web site for the now-president of Nigeria. That same photo, plus two more, can be found at Wikipedia’s listing about Abeokuta. On top of that, a picture of Bantu refugee children from Somalia was used in a program for a conference sponsored by the Scottish Refugee Council. If this keeps up, I’ll have to start charging real money!
For whatever reason, my African photos are among the top 10 viewed of all my pictorial work. All of these photos (and even more if you can believe it!) can be seen on my Flickr site.
Question:No matter how many stories I write about tragedies in which people die, such as murders and car accidents, I can’t seem to move past my nervousness at interviewing a victim’s family. It takes me a while to work up my nerve and once I get the family member on the phone or arrive at the house, I can’t concentrate. What can I do to stop the uneasiness? I don’t want family members to think that I’m some insensitive journalist. I feel I am invading their space while they’re grieving. – Too Sensitive? For the reply, check out the Chips Quinn Scholars website.
I, or at least one of my photographs, have received international recognition of sorts. A reporter with the Daily Trust in Nigeria contacted me today via e-mail to inquire if I knew that one of my photos was being used in a presidential campaign there. It’s on the home page for Umaru Yar’Adua, the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, and can be seen at www.yaraduagoodluck.com. It’s the photo in the bottom left corner. The PDP is the largest of about a half dozen political parties in the country. Because it occupies about 26 of the 36 governorships, the PDP candidate will probably win the April election. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see the liink to my Flickr site where the photo was found (click on i_level_news).How should I celebrate this momentous event?
