An intent to share

Ive often asked myself whyI so enjoy photography and why I do it in the first place. I make images with certain ideas and view points that are mine which I want to share. The images are subjective and I assume, sometimes wrongly that people will have the same experience and understanding of my image as I do. I want them to see and feel the same things I experienced but their views, like mine are subjective and depending on their backgrounds and experiences of the world, people see their own image, every single time.

When I shoot an image I choose what to include or exclude in the frame. I choose the light and exposure...all to project onto that paper what I see or want to see. This personal view of the world through an image is my photography.

It nice when you get someone close to where you stand when it comes to your aesthetics and all the intentions, motivations and reasons you shot the image for in the first place. To get someone to see and feel what you have created. Sharing what you hold dear, sharing your truth.

So, Id like to share some images that might not be that visually stunning in themselves but the process of creating them and the experiences that led to them being taken meant a great deal to me.

Plastic marks the spot.

We had a budget and a very expensive helicopter service deep in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. I had been contracted to shoot a film on the initiation rites of the Bena tribe. First, we had to find the Bena tribe and a local translator and guide had already sent word to clear a helicopter-landing site for us and mark the site with flags. We had the approximate coordinates for the landing but it still covered several square kilometers of forest. In PNG fuel is very expensive and air and canoe travel is the only way to get to various parts of the island nation.

I hate helicopters simply because they make me feel like I’ve just eaten several plates of pani puri with a dash of dysentery and cholera for flavor. Cruising through incredibly beautiful sun shaft lit valleys and above dark and mist filled Jurassic type forests didn’t do it for me, even greener in the face.


Cockatoos’ wheeled about above the forest and incredible vistas stretched in all directions. Untouched rain forest. We tried for 2 days to find the landing spot. On the last attempt, and almost out of money we saw the flag through an opening in the mists. One bloody tiny plastic packet. We landed and the local tribesman smiled. He had been waiting by the "flag" for 3 days.


I took a picture of the flag. We met the locals.




The shoot was hard, it rained all the time and I got myself a staph infection on my legs. We slept in a leaf shelter and a leaky tent. I rolled down a hillside and got hurt. I heard stories of downed American airmen during the Second World War who had died in their planes, stuck a hundred feet up in the canopy. I imagined the pilots, some wounded, spending their last agonizing hours in the trees, suspended, little creatures going about their daily lives all around and on them. One pilot had written on paper, reminisced a very old man. They had found him with this long letter on his chest and as they recall they used the paper to roll tobacco and smoked it. Just going about their daily lives. The Bena bena tribes people knew the locations of some of the plane wrecks but we did not have the time to trek to them. Somewhere in the mists hung airplanes from the trees.


We shot the initiation rite. It involved getting shot in the tongue with a bow and arrow. I can’t find the slides right now. I’ll post them when I do. I ran out of cigarettes and smoked local tobacco wrapped in the pages of a bible that gave me a headache. I watched little creature walk across the top of my tent. Wounds on my legs oozed. It rained some more.



The tribe had a feast and shared their wealth with us. Pork was a delicacy enjoyed only rarely and the pigs were like their pets, tended for and even breast fed by women as piglets. In PNG ones wealth is determined by how many pigs you have. Pigs were treated like children and behaved like pet dogs. Sharing meat in the protein starved highlands is no small thing. They shared.



They killed their pet cassowaries and killed their pigs. They did so methodically and with clubs.



The shoot was hard and towards the end I argued with my friend and business partner Eric. After awhile and tempers flared and we didn’t speak. We muttered terrible things about each other’s countries. No one understood us we were mean. We were the only people we could be mean to, each other. Everything else was unfamiliar and stared for long periods of time. wE argued and sweated and itched and in time I could see how I could kill someone. My friend. Easy.





We were the exotics.


We waited for our helicopter that never came sitting apart on a hillside with an amazing view, me feverish, in pain and hot. It was late and Eric was furious that the chopper hadn’t arrived. We trekked back to the clearing for another miserable night in the tent. It rained and my legs ached. I ate an old piece of cassowary...tasteless, lean and flavorless. No salt.





I gave away my shirt to the man above on his request. The same man who had arrived naked from the forest when we had arrived. I also gave him a pillow and he was touched and almost cried. Our dirty shirts and caps were highly prized. He said he would give it to his wife. He seemed to like my brigade road bought export quality surplus shirt very much.



Eventually the chopper returned and the flag still stood. Plastic takes a long time to go away. The village watched as we left and waved until they disappeared into the distance and the mist swept in.



We flew away.