Batwa Elder, Bwindi, Uganda
Fujifilm X-H2, 56mm f1.2, 1/1800 second @ f1.2, ISO 125

Note: Sorry if you have read this before - but most people will have not. I am having a little trouble with my newsletter system and have moved to a new provider. Fingers crossed transmission has now returned to normal. 

Most of the photos I have of this village elder show her joking and smiling, engaging wholeheartedly with her foreign guests. We had been invited to a show where the local Batwa village would dance and sing. I'm sure from time to time the villagers all get together and have a fine old time, but this group was hoping to do a show every hour and be paid handsomely. So on the one hand, it's a sausage machine, on the other it's still incredibly real and authentic.

It's authentic because this is how the Batwa people are now earning a living. After the performance, the stage clothes come off and they look much like every other Ugandan walking the streets of their town, but nothing could take away the wonderful character lines of this matriarch.

So, why didn't I choose a smiling photo to share with you? Good question and I don't have a satisfactory answer. My view of photography is clouded by years of professional awards where judges would give modest scores to beautifully photographed portraits of families smiling into the camera. I guess the smile has become something of a cliche, something you might post on social media or put in a family album, but hardly the content for a serious art photographer. Yes, there's a healthy amount of solid bullshit in this view, but whatever the reason, the smiles indicated a different kind of relationship to the camera. I wanted to disguise that.

Rather, I want the viewer to marvel at the age and dignity of the subject. That alone is cause for celebration and interest. A smile introduces a tourist's reality, while this expression (in my view) is more photojournalistic, more documentary. I'll have to ask Michael Coyne to write an article on why the smile is rarely the documentary photographer's choice.

But it wasn't mine!