Twuchu (Leaving): a study of a traditional nomadic community in the changing world by Harry Hall FRPS
The following is an extract from a review by John Cogan:
“In honour of Harry Holder's memory as a pillar of the Durham Photographic Society, and at his bequest, an annual lecture is held to help the imaginations of the DPS members to soar.
The lecture of 2012 was given by Harry Hall FRPS and was the premier outing (after his daughter) of his Doctoral Thesis.
In what, to many of us, would be inhospitable terrain live the Karnack peoples. Nomadic goat herders dependent upon their flocks and the fine Pashmina wool they give, these small clusters of families roam the mountains and passes of Ladakh, North India, settling briefly in traditional tribal areas while their flocks graze what passes for vegetation. Season-dictated, they move to fresh pastures once the pitiful vegetation is cropped.
In Leh, the Karnack people gather in communal safety fearing their strange neighbours (The Others) and trying to find ways of making a living with what skills they have. All this Harry has recorded in both words and pictures, a fluent and mutually supportive combination. The slow disintegration of an ancient way of life has been placed before us in all its starkest detail; like a living history lesson reflecting our own move from the pastoral to the urban. There is no doubt that Harry cares for the people he befriended though, as with all good Qualitative Researchers he must have found it hard not to cross the invisible boundaries that separate the participant observer from the object of his/her research. That dichotomy between staying sufficiently apart from the subject yet being appropriately involved will always be a researcher's dilemma. It's one we also face as photographers: how far can we remain distant from what we hope to photograph and yet not alter the way the subject reacts to our presence?”
Read John’s whole insightful review in Articles on the Durham PS website: http://www.d-p-s.org.uk/articles.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment