ZEKE: Spring 2017

ZEKE 

THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY 

SPRING 2017 VOL.3/NO.1 $8.00 

Published by Social Documentary Network

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Published by Social Documentary Network 

Dear ZEKE readers: 

The subtitle of ZEKE, “The Magazine of Global Documentary” was 

not founded on controversy. But much has changed since we published 

our first issue in April 2015—most noticeably the election 

of Donald Trump. Now the concept of globalism is under assault. 

Today the new mantra is America First, British First, French First, 

Fill-in-the-Blank First. It is sad because we all share one planet and today 

we are connected across the globe in ways that have never before been 

possible. It was only last summer that we were having LiveZEKE sessions 

with documentary subjects throughout the South Caucasus (see page 58). 

What we found, and what we always find, is that we have more in common 

with our global neighbors than we have differences. 

The fabric of life in our communities is infinitely complex—families, 

work, culture, recreation, nature, science, love, hate, and on and on. We 

cannot engage fully and joyfully in our lives if we are at war and the fabric 

of our communities falls apart. One of the most important tasks of any 

government is to prevent war so that its citizens can go on with everything 

else that is beautiful and important. 

We can only really engage in war when we perceive our enemies as 

the other, outside our tribe. If our tribe is large enough, then it becomes 

more difficult to wage war. Hence the concept of globalism—that our tribe 

is the human tribe. 

The feature on Iran in this issue of ZEKE makes the Iranians familiar to 

us. Why would we want to go to war with them when they live in homes 

like us, have pets like us, and take sensitive black and white documentary 

photographs like many of us? Iran is more complex than only nuclear 

weapons and global terrorism. Most of the 77 million Iranians just want to 

live their lives as we want to live our lives. 

There are few experiences across half the human race that are more universal 

than childbirth. The article in this issue of ZEKE on maternal health in 

Haiti and Sub-Saharan Africa has extraordinary photos of this most basic, 

painful, and in Haiti and Africa, dangerous, of human experiences. While 

some here in the United States propose deep cuts in foreign assistance, I 

hope these photographs provide evidence why that is not a good idea. 

The last essay in the magazine is about the rise of nationalism among youth 

in Russia. This may seem exploitative, which of course it is: to use youth for 

political means. It may also seem foreign, but then I think about so many patriotic 

clubs for youth in America and I realize that this is a common experience, 

too, across the globe. 

The tragedy, of course, is that when the shooting starts, the walls go up, 

global empathy dissipates, and My Country First is no longer a political 

slogan but a call to arms. 

Glenn Ruga 

Executive Editor 

CONTENTS 

TOY SOLDIERS 

Photographs by Sarah Blesener....................... 2 

Text by Anne Sahler 

IRAN 

BY IRANIANS 

Photographs by Azad Amin, 

Ariz Ghaderi, Saeed Kiaee, Mehdi Nazeri, 

and Sadegh Souri....................................... 16 

Text by Laney Ruckstuhl 

MATERNAL 

HEALTH 

Photographs by B.D. Colen, Nikki Denholm 

Paolo Patruno .............................................34 


Award Winners.................................50 

Interview with Furkan Temir.............52 

by Caterina Clerici 

Taking Pictures, Taking Action.........54 

How Can Images Change the World? 

by Anna Akage-Kyslytska 

LiveZEKE..................................................58 

by Kelly Kollias 

SPRING 2017 VOL.3/NO.1 

$8.00 US 

Book Reviews....................................60 

What’s Hot: 

Trending photographers on SDN..................62 

Cover photo by Mehdi Nazeri from Poverty in Wealth. 

Bandar Abbas, Iran. 

ZEKE SPRING 2017/ 1

Students from School #18 

perform a show at the local 

theater in Sergiyev Posad, 

Russia. December 15, 2016 

2 / ZEKE APRIL SPRING 2015 2017

TOY SOLDIERS 

RISING NATIONALISM AMONG YOUTH IN RUSSIA 

Overlooking the remnants of Volongo 

wharf where millions of African slaves first 

Photographs by Sarah Blesener stepped foot on Brazilian soil, Providencia 

Hill is of particularly significant historical 

importance. The origin of Afro-Brazilian 

culture, the area’s diversity gave way to rich 

musical, dance, and religious traditions. 

Photograph by Dario De Dominicis

She calls them “Toy Soldiers,” distinguishing 

them — for now — from 

the child soldiers who, tragically, 

have become ubiquitous in African 

conflicts. The children and teenagers 

documented by Minnesota native 

Sarah Blesener are not engaged in 

combat. Rather, they are members of 

Russian “patriotic clubs,” engaging 

in field exercises, learning to use 

modern weaponry as part of the 

government’s effort to stir patriotic 

fervor in Russian youth. Indeed, 

a program called the “Patriotic 

Education of Russian Citizens in 

2016–2020” is intended to increase 

new recruits to the Russian army by 

10 percent. 

Sarah Blesener’s Russian project, 

presented here, is the first-place 

winner in the most recent SDN Call 

for Entries on Documenting What 

Matters. 

Blesener was well prepared for 

her work documenting the militarization 

and nationalism of young 

people in Russia and the former 

Soviet bloc nations. She majored in 

linguistics and youth development at 

the University of University of North 

Central in Minneapolis, MN and 

after graduation she studied Russian 

at the Bookvar Russian Academy 

in Minneapolis. She began doing 

documentary work while in college, 

traveling to Haiti after the 

2010 earthquake to photograph 

the work of the NGO Healing 

Haiti. Blesener is a graduate of the 

Visual Journalism and Documentary 

Practice program at the International 

Center of Photography in New York 

and is represented by Anastasia 

Gallery, also in New York. 

—B.D. Colen 


Dmitri Antonets (17) rests after 

an intensive drill. The group from 

Stavropol is practicing for an upcoming 

“fake war” between groups at 

“Orthodox Warrior” camp. They are 

using air-soft guns for the practice 

and competitions. August 1, 2016. 

ZEKE ZEKE SPRING APRIL 2015/ 2017/ 5

Schoolchildren line up for drill on 

a Monday afternoon at School #7. 

Drill is not mandatory but takes place 

before classes start at 8:00 a.m. and 

at 3:00 p.m. School #7 is a public 

school but offers cadet classes for 

those who wish to participate. 

April 4, 2016, Dmitrov, Russia. 



Students compete at the “Inspection of 

Singing and Marching” competition at the 

gymnasium of School #6 for students in 

the Dmitrov region, a suburb of Moscow, 

Dmitrov, Russia. December 14, 2016. 

8 / ZEKE SPRING 2017

Cleyde washes her younger sister’s hair. 

Unfortunately, the training program has faced 

financial setbacks: the salon’s rent was two 

months behind when this photograph was 

taken, and no funding had been secured to 

provide students additional training in business 

management. 


Students dressed in traditional 

hats and shirts of the 

Russian Air Force pose for a 

portrait during a firearm drill 

at the Historical-War Camp, 

in Borodino, Russia. They 

are using air-soft guns for 

the practice and competition. 

July 25, 2016. 


Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion 

whose origins go back to the first days 

of Brazil’s slave trade, mixes Roman 

Catholic and indigenous African ideologies. 

Meaning “dance in honor of the 

gods,” Candomblé’s customs heavily 

incorporate music and choreographed 

dances. 

Photograph by Dario De Dominicis 


Oleg Shaula (21), and his 

girlfriend Nadya Gross (16) from 

Stavropol during an afternoon off 

at the lake. “Orthodox Warrior” 

camp takes place in Diveevo, the 

center of pilgrimage for Orthodox 

Christians in Russia, July 31, 

2016. The participants of the 

camp train not only in martial 

arts and tactical training, but 

unite under their Orthodox faith. 

Various competitions are held 

throughout the week, including 

Cossack dagger training and 

military tactical training. 



past. Racism against people 

from the Caucuses countries 

and regions became overt and 

commonplace. Once again, 

anti-Semitism emerged, as 

conspiracy theories about Jews 

supplemented the standard 

anti-Zionist rhetoric of the 

Soviet era.” 

Nationalist views are widespread in modern Russia. One of the main reasons of this social phenomena is the migration from 

former Soviet republics to large Russian cities. Representatives of these nationalities are rejected by some Russian citizens. 

Photo by Misha Domozhilov from “I am Russian” on SDN. 

Two types of Russian 

nationalism 

Against the backdrop that 

Russia has dwelled upon its 

national identity for decades, 

with questions like “Who are 

we?” posing up in the people’s 

minds, it is important to note 

that there are two different 

types of Russian nationalism: 

The first type (Rossiiskii) is a 

THE MOTHERLAND IS WHITE 

THE RISE OF In many countries across the national identity. While Russia 

non-ethnic nation model and 

world, the refugee crisis, the has become ethnically more 

defines “Russian” very broadly. 

NATIONALISM 

influx of asylum seekers, and homogeneous, it also experienced 

a serious demographic 

It includes significant cultural 

illegal immigrants from other 

IN RUSSIA 

and political rights to noncountries 

have nourished crisis. Leonard Zeskind, 

Russians, but held together 

nationalist sentiments. Though president of the Institute for 

with a high degree of common 

By promoting a revival these developments didn’t Research and Education on 

values and traditions. The 

affect Russia directly, they Human Rights and author of 

of Soviet-style military 

reintegration of the territory of 

had one visible impact: a Blood and Politics: The History 

the former Soviet states is the 

patriotic education, the re-emergence of nationalism of the White Nationalist 

key theme of these nationalists. 

Russian authorities have and patriotic fervor. 

Movement from the Margins 

The second type of nationalism 

is understood as “ethnic 

As is the case in other to the Mainstream wrote in 

also implicitly validated a 

affected countries, nationalist 

sentiments are not new to Huffington Post “The end of 

an article published in The 

Russian” (Russkii), a much more 

vigilantism movement that 

exclusive and even racist ethnic 

combines radical nationalist Russia. Yet, nationalism in the Soviet Union occasioned 

Russian nationalism with the 

the country is of a complex a period of dire — famine-like 

groups. 

overall goal to prevent immigration 

from unwanted groups. 

nature. To understand it better, in some instances — economic 

—Marlene Laruelle, one has to dig deeper into circumstances. Society was 

Co-director of PONARS-Eurasia Russia’s history, keeping in in crisis and the birthrate 

Putin’s militarymind 

the complex diversity declined sharply and suicides 

patriotic education 

of a country with over 185 were up. As the Baltic states, 

A rise of nationalism and 

Text by Anne Sahler ethnic groups. The collapse Ukraine, and Georgia and 

patriotic enthusiasm in Russia 

with additional research 

of the Soviet Union in 1991 others peeled off one by one, 

emerged with the Ukrainian 

by Laney Ruckstuhl 

has been marked by a feeling 

of humiliation and the promoted their own plans for 

ultra-nationalist organizations 

revolution and the annexation 

of Crimea in 2014. 

search of many Russians for a restoring the “greatness” of the 

Furthermore, according to a 


Ultra-nationalist organizations 

promoted their own plans for 

restoring the “greatness” 

of the past. Racism against 

people from the Caucuses 

countries and regions became 

overt and commonplace. 

— Leonard Zeskind, 

President, Institute for Research and 

Education on Human Rights 

survey by the independent 

polling institute Levada Center, 

the levels of respect and confidence 

Russians feel towards 

their armed forces rose and in 

turn fueled the popularity of 

so-called military youth camps. 

As follow-up, Russia’s President 

Vladimir Putin and his government 

made a military-patriotic 

education curriculum the norm 

across the country for adolescents, 

offering a range of 

training from military tactics to 

maintaining assault rifles, provided 

by the revived Soviet-era 

organization Yunarmia (Young 

Army) that was re-established 

in 2015 by the Russian 

Defense Ministry. 

Another anchor point of 

Putin’s military-patriotic education 

curriculum is a program 

by the Russian Ministry 

of Education with the title 

“Patriotic Education of Russian 

Citizens in 2016–2020”. 

The initiative aims to encourage 

young citizens to feel a 

responsibility for their country, 

prepare them to defend the 

motherland, and promote religious 

values. So far, hundreds 

of government-funded, often 

Orthodox Church-sponsored 

patriotic clubs, with names 

like Bright Rus, Patriot or 

Motherland, teach over 

200,000 youth across Russia 

to handle weapons to defend 

the homeland. 

Three other earlier “Patriotic 

Education of Russian Citizens” 

programs were also created, 

in 2011–2015, 2006–2010 

and 2001–2005. The first 

program “included various 

militarized activities (events in 

military-patriotic clubs, military 

sports programs, and events 

commemorating the heroic 

deeds of Soviet soldiers in 

World War II), the dissemination 

of propaganda in the 

mass media, the publication of 

patriotic literature, encouragement 

of relevant pedagogical 

research, and, above all, 

efforts to “actively counteract 

any distortion or falsification 

of national history,” according 

to Sergei Golunov, professor 

at the Center for Asia-Pacific 

Future Studies at Kyushu 

University. 

Guard of the Eternal Flame, Irkutsk, Siberia, 2010. A Russian organization of 

youth cadets learn marching and other military activities at this monument to The 

Great War (WWII) by participating in the changing of the guard several times a 

day. Photo by Frank Ward from “The Great Game: Travels in the Former Soviet 

Union” on SDN. 

Young nationalists at the “Russian March,” the largest demonstration organized by 

the Russian nationalists. Photo by Misha Domozhilov from “I am Russian” on SDN. 

Marlene Laruelle, codirector 

of PONARS-Eurasia 

and research professor at the 

Institute for European, Russian, 

and Eurasian Studies (IERES) 

at the George Washington 

University’s Elliott School of 

International Affairs, underlined 

that “by promoting a 

revival of Soviet-style military 

patriotic education, the 

Russian authorities have also 

implicitly validated a vigilantism 

movement that combines 

radical nationalist groups 

that train youth for warfare, 

mixed martial arts clubs, and 

Orthodox street patrols.” 

An international 

problem 

It is a thin line between “pride 

in one’s home country” brand 

of patriotism to an extreme sentiment 

of “we are better than 

any other country” nationalism. 

With his “America First” 

campaign, the elevation of selfproclaimed 

white nationalist 

Steve Bannon to his chief strategist, 

and his praise for Vladimir 

Putin, U.S. President Donald 

Trump pulled at the heartstrings 

of many right-wing nationalists. 

Within Europe, the refugee 

crisis, fear of financial instability, 

and a growing disillusionment 

with the European Union 

has fueled the rise of far right 

parties including Germany’s 

Alternative For Germany, 

France’s National Front, the 

Dutch Party for Freedom, 

Greece’s Golden Dawn, 

Jobbik in Hungary, the Sweden 

Democrats, Austria’s Freedom 

Party, Slovakia’s People’s Party- 

Our Slovakia, and The Danish 

People’s Party to just name 

a few of the most prominent. 

These parties promote extreme 

platforms of right-wing political 

values and policies touting antiimmigration 

and anti-European 

Union positions. 

Certainly nationalism 

unites, but it unites people 

against other people. The 

challenge moving forward for 

countries dealing with nationalist 

sentiments is to find a 

way of life inclusive of all the 

identities within their borders. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION 

Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace 

www.carnegieendowment.org 

Center for Strategic and 

International Studies (CSIS) 

www.csis.org 

Levada Analytical Center 

(Levada-Center) 

www.levada.ru/en/ 

Foreign Policy 

www.foreignpolicy.com/ 

Ponars Eurasia 

www.ponarseurasia.org/ 



IRAN 

by IRANIANS 

Photographs by Azad Amin, 

Ariz Ghaderi, Saeed Kiaee, 

Mehdi Nazeri, Sadegh Souri 

In this issue of ZEKE, we present the 

work of five Iranian photographers 

who are part of a large and dynamic 

community of documentary photographers, 

film makers, and journalists 

largely unknown in the U.S. All the 

photographers in this feature article, 

except Azad Amin, are affiliated 

with the Iran Photographic Arts 

Federation. Amin is affiliated with the 

Iranian Photographer’s Society. 

Sadegh Souri gives us a chilling 

look at Iranian girls on death row, 

who when they reach 18, will be 

executed for crimes they committed 

as juveniles as young as 9, the age 

of responsibility under Sharia law. A 

still photographer and documentary 

filmmaker, Souri is active in a number 

of Iranian photographic associations. 

In his exhibit “The Market Is 

Closed,” Saeed Kiaee, a photographer, 

journalist, and researcher, takes 

us on a tour of Tehran’s fabled Grand 

Bazaar not as we usually see it, 

teeming with merchants and shoppers 

of all kinds, but rather when it is 

closed and the few remaining people 

appear as spirits wandering through 

the darkened alley ways. 

Ariz Ghaderi, another awardwinning 

Iranian documentary photographer, 

has focused on the crushing 

poverty and challenges facing the 

children of gypsies in Iran’s Khorasan 

Razavi province. Often in poor 

health and malnourished, they beg 

to survive and exist on the fringe of 

Iranian society. 

Mehdi Nazeri, a self-trained, 

experimental photographer who 

has turned to documentary work, 

provides a moving examination of 

the have-nots who live on the scraps 

of the wealthy in one of Iran’s three 

main business hubs. Dedicated to 

exposing the cultures and traditions 

of his people, his work has been 

included in numerous exhibitions 

throughout Iran. 

And finally there is the work of 

Azad Amin, whose project on the 

bond between dog owners and 

their dogs in a nation that forbids 

dog ownership, turns on its head 

our understanding of that relationship. 

Amin has been photographing 

professionally for the past six years, 

and in that time has won a number of 

important awards. 

—B.D. Colen 

Photograph by Ariz Ghaderi 

Modina Khatun is waiting for her husband 

because he went to work five days before 

and hasn’t returned. She doesn’t know if he is 

dead or alive. 



Photograph by Mehdi Nazeri 

Iran Photographic Arts Federation 

Iranian photographer Mehdi Nazeri 

documents his home city Bandar 

Abbas. While one of the wealthiest 

cities in Iran, it is also home to extreme 

poverty—in this case, a kind and playful 

young boy Hassan, who has lost his 

father and was passed on to another 

man, Vahid, to take care of him. 


Photograph by Azad Amin 

Olia, age 34, with her dog LooLoo. 

From “Forbidden Friendships,” a series 

of portraits of dog owners and their 

dogs. Owning a dog in Iran is illegal 

since they are considered “unclean” in 

Islam and keeping one inside the apartments 

is frowned upon in public. 



Photograph by Azad Amin 

From “Forbidden Friendships” 

Right: Haghighat, aged 28, with her dog 

Teddy. 

Below: Yasha Bereliani, aged 30, with his 

dogs Banoo and Bruno. 




Photograph by Sadegh Souri 


Nazanin, 16, was arrested for 

possession of 651 grams of cocaine. 

From “Waiting Girls,” a photo essay 

focusing on juvenile girls in Iran on 

death row. According to the Islamic 

Penal Law, the age when girls are held 

accountable for their crimes is 9, while 

international conventions have banned 

the death penalty for individuals under 

18. 



Photograph by Sadegh Souri 


From “Waiting Girls” 

Hasrat,17, is in prison on charges of 

stealing — with her boyfriend — sheep, 

pigeons, and purses. 


Photograph by Saeed Kiaee 


From “The Market is Closed” 

Although the economic influence of the 

Grand Bazaar in Tehran has diminished 

somewhat in recent years, it remains the 

largest market of its kind in the world. 



Photograph by Saeed Kiaee 


From “The Market is Closed” 



t 

IRAN 

A THRIVING CULTURE EXISTS SIDE-BY- 

Painting on pottery is part of a millennium-old art form in Iran. Photo by Esmaeil 

Haghparast from “Millennium Arts” on SDN. 

SIDE WITH POLITICAL OPPRESSION 

By Laney Ruckstuhl 

“At every era, [Iranians] 

are able to take what is in 

their cultural basket and 

rearrange it and make it 

into something exciting.” 

—Shahla Haeri 

Assistant Professor of Anthropology, 

Boston University 

When many picture Iran, 

they envision a bleak 

political landscape, 

riddled with conflict, 

poverty and discontent. 

Just weeks ago, newlyappointed 

U.S. Defense 

Secretary James Mattis called 

the Middle Eastern country 

the “biggest state sponsor of 

terrorism in the world.” And 

President Donald Trump has 

already proposed banning 

Iranians from entering the 

country on a temporary basis, 

along with five other predominantly 

Muslim countries. 

The U.S. and Iran have had 

icy relations ever since 1979 

when U.S. Embassy employees 

in Tehran were taken hostage 

during the Iranian Revolution 

and the U.S. painted Iran as a 

breeding ground for extremism 

and attacks. But for natives, 

scholars and visitors of Iran, the 

country is something else — a 

hub of art, expression, and 

culture despite political turmoil. 

A Complex Nation 

Boston-based scholar and 

researcher Shahla Haeri has 

conducted research in Iran 

and written on religion, law 

and gender dynamics in the 

Muslim world. Haeri said there 

is much more to Iran than the 

way it is viewed in Western 

culture — and that the U.S.’s 

portrayal of it as a hub for terrorism 

is not accurate. 

“I think it would be nice if 

they looked through a mirror 

and then make comments,” 

Haeri said. “How is the narrative 

of terror created? Who 

has the bully pulpit?” 

In some ways, the modern 

Iranian government is not 

much different from that of the 

U.S., at least in its basic structure. 

The president is popularly 

elected, and there is a 

legislative branch in addition 

to a powerful judiciary. The 

difference is that Iran is a theocracy, 

heavily influenced by 

Sharia Law under a Supreme 

Leader who holds both political 

and theological control. 

Freedom House ranks Iran 

a 6 in terms of freedom, political 

rights and civil liberties on 

a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being 

the least free. Iran does not 

have a free press, and some 

personal rights are restricted 

as well, such as activism or 

even movement between 

places, especially for women. 

But despite these restrictions, 

the citizens of Iran are 

constantly creating as a means 

of coping and expressing 

themselves. Persian culture has 

been known for a millennium 

for its rich poetry, writing, 

painting and music, much of 

which have political themes. 

“People try to make their 

lives meaningful — they try to 

engage with the structures of 

power that restrict their lives,” 

Haeri said. 

Haeri said she goes to 

galleries and concerts every 

year when she visits Iran, and 

believes political strife is the 

context for the vibrant cultural 

expression found throughout 

Iran. “The restrictions are there 

and I don’t want to minimize 

them — but it’s not that people 

are sitting back, they’re pushing 

those boundaries.” 

“Imagine in the ‘80s, it was 

all gray and lifeless and 

joyless, and then it turned 

a little bit more colorful 

and more joyful and more 

normal. That was thanks to 

the resistance of people who 

tried to push boundaries 

whenever they could.” 

—Atosa Buhlmann, Radio Free Europe 

While women are more 

restricted in Iran than men, 

they are creators as well. 

“These are some of the 

paradoxes of this country — at 

one point it’s being restrictive 

and at the same time, it’s 

giving opportunity to women,” 

Haeri said. “It sort of challenges 

all of the stereotypes 

people have — look at how 

many women photographers, 

poets, writers there are living 

in Iran.” 

Examples of this have also 

been captured by Kristen 

Gresh, whose exhibition 

catalog “She Who Tells a 

Story” captured the work 


of 12 leading female photographers 

from Iran and 

elsewhere in the Arab world. 

The photographers’ work 

looks at gender stereotypes 

and political change amidst 

social stigmas against women 

in their cultures. The work of 

these photographers is just one 

vibrant example of the way 

women are creating in Iran 

despite gender constructs. 

Vibrant Literary Culture 

While the press isn’t free, Iran 

still has prominent news outlets 

of its own, in both print and 

online, such as Iran Daily and 

Tehran Times. 

Outlets outside of the country 

bring it news, such as Iran 

Wire or Radio Free Europe, 

which broadcasts in 28 different 

languages. Atosa Buhlmann 

is an Iranian broadcast journalist 

who works in the Czech 

Republic to bring Iranians news 

through Radio Free Europe’s 

Persian broadcast. 

“As a journalist, that is 

where the government is 

looking much more closely,” 

Buhlmann said. “What you 

print on newspapers or 

website or blogs, that is where 

they are looking. This can 

have consequences — this 

means the government not 

only can arrest the journalist 

that wrote what they didn’t 

like, but they can close the 

whole website.” 

Buhlmann said though 

owning satellite dishes and 

receivers in Iran is illegal, 

nearly every home has them. 

And while police periodically 

conduct raids, it does not stop 

people from going out and 

buying new ones after they 

are confiscated. 

“It’s the kind of resistance 

that I haven’t seen it any other 

country,” she said. 

That resistance and 

boundary-pushing is exactly 

what has continued to create 

change, Buhlmann said. And 

while pushing boundaries is 

dangerous, it helps normalize 

activities that were previously 

forbidden, such as women 

wearing sandals in public. 

“Imagine in the ‘80s, it 

was all gray and lifeless and 

joyless, and then it turned 

a little bit more colorful and 

more joyful and more normal,” 

Buhlmann said. “That was 

thanks to the resistance of people 

who tried to push boundaries 

whenever they could.” 

And journalism isn’t the 

only kind of writing occurring 

there. 

“Iran has a long literary 

history. It’s poetry is worldrenowned, 

everybody knows 

about that,” Haeri said. 

Iran’s history gives much 

important context for its 

Adel, a construction worker, is making the reinforced concrete structure of a 13-story 

building in Tabriz, Iran. He has been doing this work for 16 years with his two 

brothers. Photo by Behnoud Mostafaie from “Construction Workers” on SDN. 

Dhow factory in Bandar Kong, on the Persian Gulf in southern Iran. Dhows are 

wooden boats traditionally used for cargo and shipping in the Persian Gulf. 

Photo by Amir Hossein Khorgouei from “Dhow Factory” on SDN. 

literature and art as well. The 

history that informs the expression 

is long and intertwined 

with much of the Middle East. 

Before its independence in 

1979, Iran was known as 

Persia, an imperial dynasty. 

“Iranians have a sense of 

themselves and a good sense 

of their identity, history and 

civilization,” Haeri said. “At 

every era, they are able to take 

what is in their cultural basket 

and rearrange it and make it 

into something exciting.” 

The revolution seen in the 

modern artifacts of Iran is 

not only symbolic, though. It 

is a product of real political 

uprising, like the recent Green 

Revolution that began in 2009 

after President Mahmoud 

Ahmadinejad was elected to 

a second term of office under 

questionable circumstances. 

The revolution is focused on 

creating a fairer democracy in 

Iran and furthering the rights 

of its people. 

“There is a subculture of 

open-minded, mostly atheists 

or not deep believers,” 

Buhlmann said. “They are not 

interested in this lifestyle that is 

imposed on them, and that is 

the fight we are witnessing.” 

The citizens of Iran strive 

to make their lives meaningful 

and transformative for their 

country, but they also simply 

love to have fun in any way 

they can, as the many parties 

and celebrations attest — one 

of the biggest being Nowruz, 

the celebration of the Iranian 

New Year on March 21. 

“They love to get together 

at every occasion, to have fun, 

to read poetry, to sing and 

dance — as much as these are 

frowned upon by the Iranian 

government publicly, but they 

don’t do it in public,” Haeri 

said. 

Though the Western world 

still has a long way to go in 

terms of understanding Iran, 

there are some strides being 

made. Despite the political 

control by conservatives in 

the U.S. pushing the ban on 

Iranians and others from predominantly 

Muslim countries, 

Iranian art is still being recognized 

as great. 

Most recently, Iranian director 

and writer Asghar Farhadi 

won his second Academy 

Award in the category of 

Best Foreign Language Film 

for “The Salesman.” The film 

was a thriller about a couple 

seeking justice amidst violence 

in Tehran, after the wife is 

attacked in the couples’ home. 

Farhadi chose to boycott 

the awards following U.S. 

President Donald Trump’s first 

effort to ban travel from predominantly 

Muslim countries, 

including Iran. 


BETWEEN LIFE & DEATH 

MATERNAL HEALTH IN HAITI AND SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 

Photographs by B.D. Colen, 

Nikki Denholm, Paolo Patruno 

Halimo lives in an internally displaced 

persons camp in Somalia and had her first 

baby at 14-years-old. Somalia has the lowest 

birth attendance rate internationally and 

coupled with the complications of female 

genital mutilation, birth outcomes are poor. 

Halimo lost her baby during a traumatic birth 

and suffered a severe fistula. 

Photograph by Nikki Denholm 



Every two minutes, a woman dies from 

complications of pregnancy and childbirth 

— 99% of them in the world’s 

poorest countries. Three photographers 

give those women a voice and capture 

the importance of the work of international 

aid projects that work hard to 

prevent these human tragedies. 

In Malawi, the words for pregnancy 

in the local language — ‘pakati’ and 

‘matenda’ — translate into ‘between 

life and death’ and ‘sick’. Every year 

in Sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 

200,000 mothers die from complications 

of pregnancy and childbirth — a 

human tragedy affecting families and 

communities. Italian photographer and 

videographer Paolo Patruno documents 

maternal health in Sub-Saharan Africa 

in often very intimate photographs. 

In his powerful black and white photographs, 

B.D. Colen, an American 

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and 

photographer, reports on the important 

work of the NGO Midwives For Haiti, 

working in the poorest country in the 

western hemisphere. Colen believes 

that by bringing health care to pregnant 

women and infants, Midwives For 

Haiti and similar groups are saving one 

life at a time, the most effective way to 

improve life in Haiti. 

Somalia is not only one of the most 

dangerous countries in the world to live, 

but it is also rated the worst place globally 

to be an expectant mother. New 

Zealand photographer Nikki Denholm 

has spent over 20 years photographing 

in some of the world’s darkest corners 

to tell the stories of the voiceless. In her 

moving and confronting photographs, 

she documents the impact of the famine 

and maternal health conditions in some 

of northern Somalia’s IDP camps, clinics 

and hospitals. 


Carmelle Moise, a midwife trained by 

Midwives For Haiti, contemplates an 

infant she has just delivered in the St. 

Therese Hospital maternity unit. 

Photograph by B. D. Colen 



A nurse midwife from the U.S. volunteering 

with Midwives For Haiti, monitors a patient 

about A man to fills give his birth plastic at Hospital buckets St. with Therese, water. in 

Hinche, In Myanmar’s on Haiti’s Dala Central township, Plateau, where the an poorest 

region unforgiving of the dry poorest season nation evaporates in the Western most 

Hemisphere. inland natural water sources. A decadelong 

population boom has stressed the few 

Photograph by B.D. Colen 

resources that remain, so a ration system 

allows people to gather two buckets full of 

water once per day. 



An American nurse midwife volunteer with 

Midwives For Haiti checks over a lethargic 

baby in the home of a Haitian family in 

Cabestor. This remote hamlet in which 

Midwives For Haiti recently opened a birthing 

center is staffed by Haitian midwives trained 

by the American-based organization. 

Photograph by B. D. Colen 


Midwife Mestwote taking the blood 

pressure of a pregnant woman during 

Amref Health Africa’s outreach 

program in rural areas. Jinka, 

Ethiopia. 2013 

Photograph by Paolo Patruno 


What is the cost of the clothes on your back? For most 

consumers the answer is a simple dollar figure, but for 

the millions of low-income workers fueling the global 

garment industry the cost is often much more: education, 

health, safety, and even lives. 

As globalization shrinks the world, consumers become 

increasingly distanced from their goods’ origins and 

subsequently from the woeful realities of garment 

workers, a labor force subjected to long days for 

low pay in hazardous conditions. By capturing their 

deplorable realities, photographers bring consumers 

face-to-face with the beginning of the global assembly 

line, prompting viewers to question their roles 

as conscious consumers. 

As rising demands of the middle class stress the 

garment industry, factory owners compromise 

worker safety for profit. Never were the consequences 

of this trade-off more clear than the 

April 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, 

the deadliest accident in the history of the garment 

industry, documented here by K.M. Asad. 

Reflecting on its aftermath, Suvri Kanti Das’s 

poignant images chronicle survivors’ recoveries, 

exposing the true cost of cheap apparel. 



In South Omo, Ethiopia, more than 

90% of women don’t have access 

to skilled health care while giving 

birth. AMREF Canada has designed 

a comprehensive maternal and child 

health initiative. Jinka, Ethiopia. 2013 




A woman in a postnatal ward, after 

delivering, lying in bed in serious 

condition. She is receiving medical 

treatment, oxygen, and blood 

transfusion. Kabale, Uganda. 2012 



maternal deaths occur in 

developing countries. The 

direct causes of maternal 

deaths include severe bleeding, 

infections such as sepsis 

and eclampsia (high blood 

pressure) and complications 

from delivery or unsafe abortions. 

The majority of these 

complications are preventable 

by offering adequate maternity 

care during pregnancy, while 

giving birth and during follow 

up visits after birth. 

Women’s lives at high 

risk in developing 

countries 

A nurse takes notes after collecting money for services at a maternity clinic in the 

Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Anne Bailey from “Struggling to Thrive: 

Women who live in remote 

Health and Wellness in the Congo” on SDN. 

rural areas and in poor communities 

have a higher risk of 

death, as they are least likely 

BETWEEN LIFE 

& DEATH 

to receive adequate health 

care. According to the United 

Nations, while all women 

in developed countries are 

attended to by skilled health 

workers, only around 40 

percent of pregnant women in 

developing countries have the 

recommended antenatal care, 

which means that millions of 

births are not assisted. 

A 

positively joyful experience 

is what comes to gap between rich and poor, 

This not only reflects the 

MOTHERHOOD 

mind when we think of but also highlights the main 

motherhood. However, problems that prevent women 

IN HAITI AND 

for far too many women, in developing countries from 

motherhood is associated with receiving proper care during 

SUB-SAHARAN 

ill-health, suffering, and even pregnancy and childcare: 

death. Every two minutes, a poverty, inadequate access 

AFRICA 

woman somewhere around to health services, distance 

the globe dies from pregnancy from medical services, lack of 


or childbirth-related complications. 

That’s 830 women every tors. Additionally, women in 

information and cultural fac- 

day. And, according to the developing countries have, on 

World Health Organization average, many more pregnancies 

than women in (WHO), 99 percent of all 

developed 

Every year, approximately 

200,000 women die as the 

result of pregnancy and child 

birth-related complications in 

Sub-Saharan Africa. 

— Amref Health Africa 

countries, and as a result, their 

lifetime risk of death due to 

pregnancy is higher. 

In Sub-Saharan Africa, more 

than half of all births take place 

without the support of a skilled 

birth attendant. “In Ethiopia, 

for example, 90 percent of 

women deliver their babies 

without the help of any trained 

health professional,” UNICEF 

writes in an article on maternal 

and newborn health 1 . 

Every year, approximately 

200,000 women die as the 

result of pregnancy and child 

birth-related complications 

in Sub-Saharan Africa and 

account for 66 percent of all 

maternal deaths worldwide 

according to the international 

organization Amref Health 

Africa. The UNICEF article 

concludes “[…] high fertility 

rates combined with inadequate 

access to quality antenatal 

care and skilled attendance 

at birth substantially 

elevate the risk of death in 

this region.” Additionally, HIV 

and AIDS epidemics are one 

of the greatest challenges to 

maternal and newborn health 

in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

In the Western Hemisphere, 

Haiti is the most dangerous 

country to give birth. 

According to the United 

Nations Population Fund 

(UNFPA), a woman in Haiti 

has a 1 in 80 chance of death 

due to pregnancy or child 

birth, compared to the regionwide 

risk of 1 in 510. 

“A lack of infrastructure, 

no waste removal, limited 

access to clean water and 

basic health care services, 

frequent natural disasters and 


MATERNAL 

MORTALITY RATE 

Deaths per 100,000 live 

births 

Haiti 

625 

359 

1990 2015 

Sub-Saharan Africa 

987 

547 

0 200 400 600 800 1000 

Source: The World Bank 

cultural barriers make it very 

challenging to deliver proper 

care to women, especially in 

rural areas of Haiti,” explains 

Nadene Brunk, CEO and 

founder of Midwives For Haiti, 

a non-profit organization that 

trains skilled birth attendants 

and educates and empowers 

people to improve health 

in their communities. The 

organization offers a mobile 

clinic to provide prenatal care 

“In Haiti, only 25 percent 

of mothers have access to 

skilled birth attendants 

during childbirth and 75 

percent deliver in rural 

areas, often with the help of 

traditional Haitian midwives 

that lack medical knowledge 

and equipment.” 

— Nadene Brunk 

CEO and founder of Midwives For Haiti 

in remote areas and distributes 

clean birth kits to traditional 

birth attendants. 

“In Haiti, only 25 percent of 

mothers have access to skilled 

birth attendants during childbirth 

and 75 percent deliver in 

rural areas, often with the help 

of traditional Haitian midwives 

that lack medical knowledge 

and equipment,” Brunk says. 

“Our mission is not only to 

increase access to skilled birth 

attendants, but also to increase 

access to care and skilled training. 

Training Haitian nurses to 

become skilled birth attendants 

is critical to reduce maternal 

and infant mortality.” 

Beside the importance of 

ensuring that all pregnant 

women receive proper care 

in order to avoid maternal 

deaths, women need to have 

access to contraception, 

safe abortion services and 

post-abortion care, so they 

don’t find unsafe methods to 

prevent and terminate their 

pregnancies. However, since 

taking office in January, U.S. 

President Donald Trump has 

reinstated the global gag rule 

which prohibits the use of U.S. 

aid money for abortions, prevents 

NGOs that receive U.S. 

funding from using private 

funds for abortion services 

or even referring women to 

groups that provide abortions 

or even offering information 

Khadja lives in an IDP camp in Somalia with her 12 children, two of whom have 

recently died. This is her youngest, Mohammed, who is suffering from severe 

malnutrition. Photo by Nikki Denholm from “Mothers of Bosaso Maternal Health in 

Somalia” on SDN. 

Photo by B.D. Colen from “Birth in Haiti—With Midwives For Haiti” on SDN. 

on abortion services. As a 

result, regular access to contraceptives 

will become more 

difficult and many organizations 

now fear that the number 

of unwanted pregnancies will 

increase and lead to more 

unsafe abortions and women 

dying from unsafe practices 

and complications. 

A global issue calls 

for global initiatives 

Unsafe maternal health is 

not only an issue limited to 

the countries of Haiti and 

Sub-Saharan Africa — it is 

a global issue in developing 

countries. Although 

the maternal mortality rate 

worldwide has fallen by nearly 

50 percent between 1990 

and 2015, and more than 71 

percent of births were assisted 

by skilled health professionals 

globally in 2014 (compared to 

59 percent in 1990), there is 

still a long journey ahead for 

many countries. 

As a follow-up to the UN’s 

Millennium Development 

Goals’ agenda — that had 

maternal health as one of its 

top priorities — the 2030 

Agenda for Sustainable 

Development was launched. 

It calls on countries to begin 

efforts to achieve 17 sustainable 

development goals by 

2030, among them reducing 

the global maternal 

mortality rate to less than 

70 per 100,000 live births. 

Furthermore, the Global 

Strategy for Women’s, 

Children’s and Adolescents’ 

Health (2016-2030) was 

launched by former UN 

Secretary-General Ban 

Ki-moon. This initiative is a 

roadmap for the post-2015 

agenda with the aim to end all 

preventable deaths of women, 

children and adolescents, as 

described by the Sustainable 

Development Goals. It is also 

a call to action for all countries 

and all people to help end the 

tragedy of mothers dying during 

what should be the most 

joyful experience in their lives. 

1 

https://www.unicef.org/ 

health/4011_maternalhealth.html 

FOR MORE INFORMATION 

Amref Health Africa 

www.amrefcanada.org/whyhealth/mothers/ 

Midwives For Haiti 

www.midwivesforhaiti.org 

United Nations Children’s 

Fund 

www.unicef.org/health/ 

index_maternalhealth.html 

United Nations Population 

Fund 

www.unfpa.org/maternalhealth 

United Nations 

www.un.org/millenniumgoals/maternal.shtml 

World Health Organization 

www.who.int/topics/maternal_health/en/ 


AWARD WINNERS 

HONORABLE MENTIONS 

FROM SDN’S CALL FOR ENTRIES ON 

DOCUMENTING WHAT MATTERS 

Fabien Dupoux 

Workers 

The world of work is everywhere; 

hard, cruel, unjust, without mercy, 

brutal, inhumane, in opposition 

with nature and with ourselves. 

Away from this so-called modernity, 

the consumer society — this 

sterile environment that they 

are trying to sell us at any price 

— this cruel reality of a world 

unforgiving and uncompromising. 

The barbaric world of workers 

is photographed here with a 

concern for aesthetics but above 

all in its raw reality. 

Valerie Leonard 

Black Hell 

India 

In the State of Jharkhand, in the 

northeast of India, the Damodar 

Valley has become a hell on 

earth. The open-cast coal mines 

there took over the forest. These 

mines have been active without 

interruption for over a century. 

The extraction of the “black diamond”, 

destroyed the fauna, the 

flora, and upset the topography. 

For more than eighty years, a 

huge underground fire is burning 

exhaling enormous quantities of 

carbon dioxide into the air. All 

efforts to put out this fire have 

been in vain. 

50 / ZEKE 2015 SPRING 2017

ZEKE presents these four honorable mention winners from SDN’s Call 

for Entries on Documenting What Matters. The jurors selected Sarah 

Blesener as first place winner (see Toy Soldiers, page 3), and the four 

honorable mentions presented here. 

Younes Mohammad 

In the Name of Religion 

Iraq and Syria 

The Islamic State of Iraq and 

Syria (ISIS) is a Salafi jihadist 

militant group that follows an 

Islamic fundamentalist Wahhabi 

doctrine of Sunni Islam. While 

ISIS calls itself the real executor 

of Islamic rules, so many 

other Muslims blame them for 

diverging from Islamic rules and 

introducing a brutal Islam. As 

of December 2015, the group 

has control over vast landlocked 

territories in Iraq and Syria with 

population estimates ranging 

between 2.8 million and 8 million 

people, where it enforces 

Sharia law. 

Woong-jae Shin 

From Sand to Ash 

The semiconductor is the backbone 

of the digital era. The CPUs 

in a PC, the memory chips in cell 

phones, and even the display 

unit of a TV — semiconductors 

invisibly sustain our daily lives 

from inside these devices. Yet we 

lack knowledge about its manufacturing 

process, which results in 

enormous human cost, sacrifice, 

and environmental destruction. 

This project aims to bring awareness 

to the human consequences 

and environmental destruction 

throughout the whole electronic 

industry by following the life cycle 

of a semiconductor chip. 

ZEKE SPRING ZEKE 2015/ 2017/ 51

Interview 

WITH FURKAN TEMIR 

by Caterina Clerici 

Furkan Temir is a self-taught Turkish 

photographer, born in a small town in 

eastern Turkey in 1995. He is currently 

living in Istanbul and is a member of the VII 

Mentorship Program. Interested in photojournalism 

as well as art, he uses mixed 

media to create documentary work on the 

Middle East, particularly focusing on sociopolitical 

changes in contemporary Turkey. 

Caterina Clerici: How did you become a 

photographer? 

Furkan Temir: I was born in a really 

small town in eastern Turkey. When I was 

7, I went to the cinema in the city center, 

and for the first time in my life, I saw the 

cinema screen. That’s when I decided I 

wanted to make movies. My mother was 

a literature teacher and she told me if I 

wanted to make movies, I had to read a 

lot. So I became really obsessed. When I 

was 14, I was reading Tarkovsky’s cinema 

theory and he was always talking about 

the frame. I understood that if I wanted to 

make movies I had to learn photography 

as well, but I was so young and didn’t 

have a camera. So I started looking at 

photos on the internet — three or four 

hours a day. I became obsessed and 

almost watched everything in the archives 

of the agencies. 

CC: What drew you to photography? 

FT: I understood that photography can give 

me a chance to understand the world and 

to travel, it can connect with reality. When I 

started getting into photography, art photos 

or artistic pictures were a bit too far away 

from me, I was really young, so I decided I 

wanted to go into photojournalism. 

CC: What was your first photojournalism 

project? 

FT: We moved to Boursa [in Turkey] and 

I started to document my little city and 

the things happening there. Then, the 

Gezi Park protest happened and that was 

the first time I worked as a professional 

photographer. I was working for a Turkish 

photo collective, Agence Le Journal, and 

my photos were published in TIME, The 

Guardian and Stern. After the Gezi Park 

protest, I went to Syria in 2013 for the first 

time. The war was just starting at that time. 

I was 17, and I was 18 the first time I went 

to Iraq. I have made several trips to Syria 

and Iraq since then. 

CC: What made you want to cover the 

events in Syria? I read in an interview you 

did with the New York Times’ Lens Blog 

that one day you told your family you were 

going to school and instead you went to 

Syria. 

FT: My aim was documenting the refugees 

on the border, how they arrived, what they 

were doing. Then I met with a few guys 

who knew some smugglers and asked me 

I strongly believe that photography 

can change things. ... When you see 

the front page of the New York Times, 

like millions and millions of other 

people every day, maybe just one 

person looking at that picture and 

feeling something will bring change. 

—Furkan Temir 

if I wanted to go to Syria. I said yes and I 

went. 

CC: What about the first time you went to 

Iraq? 

FT: In Iraq, my aim was going to Kirkuk. 

At this point, there was a fight between the 

Kurdish Peshmerga and ISIS, and I had a 

small assignment from Le Monde. I was 

going to the frontline. 

CC: Is it harder for you to be objective and 

detached when working on the frontline 

or with refugees from a conflict that affects 

you a lot more than it does to any Western 

photographer, who doesn’t necessarily 

relate in the same way to the grievances 

and the politics of the region? 

FT: It isn’t really hard. With the Peshmerga, 

for instance, I was spending all my time 

with them because I didn’t have assignments 

or money, and because the only 

way to take these pictures was living with 

Photo by Furkan Temir. Cizre, Turkey. March 4, 2016. In December 2015, the Turkish government launched 

a military operation across Kurdish regions of Turkey to lift barricades and fill ditches created by the Kurdistan 

Workers’ Party (PKK) and The Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H). As a result of this offensive, 

7,000 people have lost their lives and more than 350,000 people have been displaced. 


and architecture. After the AKP (Justice and 

Development Party) party won the election 

in 2003, they tried to shape Turkey 

politically but also breaking from the past 

to create an ideal society with a new architecture 

and aesthetics. My project focuses 

on these changes all around Turkey. They 

renovated everything and built things 

anew. I’m trying to understand the story 

behind it and how these aesthetic changes 

affect people’s lives. 

CC: Is this a way to literally fabricate, and 

impose, a new vision of society? 

Photo by Furkan Temir. After the capture of Kobane from ISIS by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the annual 

Newroz celebration was dedicated to the victory in Kobane. During these celebrations, people traditionally build 

large fires and jump over them. In this photo a child is jumping over the fire with a YPG flag tied to his face. March 

17, 2015. 

FT: Actually, I don’t know. My aim was 

to give answers, but I have even more 

questions now. It’s a very contemporary 

journalism project — it’s mixed media with 

archives, some new media works from 

Google Earth, some archival pictures, 

some black and white and some colors. It’s 

really mixed. I’m just putting everything on 

the table with a lot more questions. 

them. I am not sure if I was objective or 

not, but I’m sure I was inside the story, and 

I tried to protect the photojournalism ethics 

of course. 

CC: Was it harder to document the suffering 

of people who were really close to 

your home? 

FT: Absolutely. Syria and Turkey share 

a border which is drawn by the governments. 

I don’t see this border. For me, Iraq 

and Syria are close to my home. 

CC: What were the most interesting stories 

or people you met there? 

FT: On the Syrian border, I saw a funeral, 

the only one I had seen after my grandfather’s. 

It was a really strange thing 

because I was crying for other people that 

I didn’t know, but I felt their pain. And I 

feel like it was a really similar pain to my 

grandfather’s funeral. This was a bit hard. 

It became impossible to stop crying as I 

was shooting because it was too intense 

and these people were also giving me 

access to shoot some photos [in a moment 

of grief]. 

CC: Have you kept in touch with some of 

these people? 

FT: Not in Syria or Iraq, but I did with 

some of them in Turkey by chance. In 

2015, I was in the Newroz celebration. 

It’s the biggest spring celebration for Kurds 

and it also has a political meaning. At this 

moment in Cizre, the Newroz celebration 

was so big. One year after, when I went 

back to document this celebration again 

after the war between PKK (Kurdistan 

Workers’ Party) and the Turkish army, and 

reconnected with a few civilians I had met 

there the year before. This time, half of the 

city was totally destroyed. 

CC: Why are you so interested in covering 

the Middle East and the area where you’re 

from? 

FT: I’m more connected to this region 

because I was born here and I grew up 

here. I’m still so young; I would like to 

understand my region first, and then in the 

next couple of years, I would like to travel 

out of the Middle East as well. 

CC: You started off being interested in 

cinema, so you’ve always been interested 

in working with mixed media. Has your 

idea/vision of photojournalism changed, 

and are you shifting more towards artistic 

photography? 

FT: I see myself as a storyteller and I’m 

trying to use all the techniques that I find to 

express myself. At this period of my life I 

am painting a lot, and my current documentary 

project, which I started a year 

ago, includes more artistic photography 

and video. It’s about the idea of Turkish 

Paradise and the post-truth era in Turkey 

— how a new vision of the country and 

its society is being pushed forward. I’m 

using the term ‘post-truth’ for its political 

value, but the project is about aesthetics 

CC: Do you think that photojournalism has 

lost its power, since people are so used 

to seeing those types of images, and that 

maybe art can sometimes convey a stronger 

message? 

FT: I do, but I also strongly believe in 

ethical journalism and I love it as a way 

to tell stories. I’m mixing [media] because 

I’m born in this new age, with these new 

rules, and I wouldn’t know another way of 

approaching this profession. I was born in 

1995 and I’ve grown up with computers, 

so I have to use VR and mix new technologies 

to tell more powerful stories. But it 

doesn’t take away from classical photojournalism. 

These are just tools. 

CC: After spending a few years working in 

photography, do you still think it holds the 

power to change things? 

FT: I strongly believe that photography can 

change things. First of all, it’s an action. 

Every act in the universe has some sort of 

consequence. It’s impossible not to change 

at least something. Maybe it can be hard 

to see with our eyes, but look at history. 

Maybe it’s not changing today, but I’m 

sure someone will be affected in the future. 

When you see the front page of The New 

York Times, like millions and millions of 

other people every day, maybe just one 

person looking at that picture and feeling 

something will bring change. 

N.B. This interview was edited for clarity. 


TAKING PICTURES, TAKING ACTION 

SDN asks scholars, activists, and photographers how 

images can change the world 

by Anna Akage-Kyslytska 

You really can’t go into it 

with the idealistic thought 

that there will come a 

difference just if you shoot it. 

—Amy Yenkin 

As the police arrested his father, Diamond said “I hate you for hitting my 

mother! Don’t you come back to this house!” Minneapolis, MN, 1988. 

Photo © Donna Ferrato 

A CONVERSATION WITH: 

Michelle Bogre: Associate Professor of Photography, copyright 

lawyer, documentary photographer and author of Photography As 

Activism: Images for Social Change 

Greg Constantine: Documentary photographer working on a 

long-term project, “Nowhere People,” documenting the life of 

stateless people around the world 

Donna Ferrato: Acknowledged documentary photographer, TIME 

Magazine’s one of the “100 Most Influential Photographs of All 

Time” 

Vicki Goldberg: Photography critic, historian and author of The 

Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives 

Ruddy Roye: Brooklyn-based photographer and activist who 

documents life of his community and has over 270,000 followers on 

Instagram 

Minky Worden: Director of Global Initiatives, Human Rights Watch 

Amy Yenkin: Former and founding Director of the Documentary 

Photography Project at the Open Society Foundations 

Images cannot stop a war, although some 

have tried to use them to such end. A viral 

video of a shocked and bloodied toddler in 

an ambulance cannot turn the exchange of 

missiles into a peaceful settlement, although 

thousands on Facebook may view it. Still, photography 

refuses to be just an illustration. Its nature 

is action, and framing is an exercise in taking a 

side. To see where taking pictures as taking action 

can bring us, we talked to seven experts in the 

fields of photography and activism. 

MAKING A CONNECTION 

“No photograph has ever made a change unless 

a political or social response was ready for or 

aroused by it,” Vicki Goldberg says. “The whole 

world saw hundreds upon hundreds of videos 

and photographs of the destruction in Mosul and 

Aleppo, but nothing was done about it because 

almost no country could see a clear geopolitical 

path or support for intervention.” 

The power that a photographer has over 

circumstances starts a bit earlier than the action. 

It starts with the activism of knowledge. 

“Being an expert at your craft is the starting 

point,” says Amy Yenkin. “If photographers are 

trying to do more than shoot images for the 

daily news cycle, they have to involve themselves 

in the existing environment, develop a 

deep understanding of the history and circumstances, 

and form connections on the ground 

to the actors involved, both subjects and advocates. 

That’s a very different approach from 

going in and shooting a body of work and 

then trying to figure out how to sell it around.” 

Over the years, within the framework of the 

Documentary Photography Project at the Open 

Society Foundations, Yenkin helped to develop 

and present hundreds of projects whose 

creators were stubborn enough to believe that 

change was up to them. 

“Just because you have a really strong 

NGO partnership, a well-developed 

campaign, a clear goal and an audience, 

doesn’t necessarily mean that change is 

going to happen. But it doesn’t mean you 

shouldn’t work hard. Even active docu- 


I watched two bouncers escort 31-yearold 

Olajuwon Green from out of the 

Casablanca night club on Malcolm X Blvd. 

He had shuffled inside to beg. As our paths 

crossed at the entrance, me heading home 

and he being tossed out of the club he 

asked me if I could help him get something 

to eat. I told him that if he went to the 

chicken spot and waited for me I would 

drop off my bags and join him. He got two 

centre breasts and a bottle of green tea. 

“Warrants, I spent four weeks at Rikers 

Islands because I did not pay my tickets. 

I was caught smoking weed twice and so 

they picked me up on September 4 and the 

bus dropped me off on Gates Avenue a few 

days ago. My mom lives there, I really love 

her,” he told me. 

Photo © Ruddy Roye. Excerpted from Instagram. 

mentation — keeping a record — is vitally 

important. You never know how or when 

the result will come.” 

Writer and scholar Michelle Bogre 

names artists whose works are obviously 

documents and demonstration of activism. 

“Depending on the subject, the story 

and the audience, a less traditional 

documentary work can be powerful,” 

says Bogre. “I think work like that — of 

Alfredo Jaar or Shahidul Alam — should 

be mentioned here. If you just look at their 

installations, you would think it’s art, but 

when you try to read the story, you will 

realize it’s actually documentary.” 

The absence of actual change as a 

result of hard work becomes an unavoidable 

circumstance, Yenkin says. 

“You can’t go into it with the idealistic 

thought that just because you take 

a picture, change will happen,” Yenkin 

says. “But, that does not mean we should 

stop taking pictures. Recently, New York 

Times photographer Daniel Berehulak took 

enormous risk to photograph the extrajudicial 

killings by the Duterte regime in the 

Philippines. I don’t know what immediate 

change it can bring, but it is imperative 

and urgent that this be documented.” 

Since media agencies started cutting 

their budgets and long-term projects 

became rare, NGOs and photographers 

have strengthened editorial and financial 

partnerships, leading to mutual benefits. 

Minky Worden, Human Rights Watch’s 

Director of Global Initiatives, believes 

photography is a key tool to be included in 

reports on human rights abuses that HRW 

produces regularly. 

“A photograph often is an entry point for 

viewers to engage with our work. By using 

photography and multimedia we’re able to 

connect the media and ordinary citizens to 

testimonies and stories in our reports.” 

TRUST 

More freedom means more responsibility, 

which is why Michelle Bogre talks with 

her students about being a sophisticated 

viewer. 

“My students are far more sensitive than 

I am,” Bogre says. “Maybe because I’ve 

been a photojournalist and I’ve seen things. 

On the other hand, they are more desensitized 

because they are oversaturated with 

images and don’t think about the power of 

a serious photograph...I don’t think there 

is anything too graphic for people to see. 

Describing the Abu Ghraib photographs or 

an image of a child washed up on a beach 

with words does not have the same value as 

an individual photograph.” 

Sympathy toward a viewer is generally 

a rare thing among photographers or activists, 

and the reason is clear. 

“It’s not about telling a sensational story 

to get someone’s attention,” Worden says. 

“I think images, for example of landmine 

victims in Burma, are striking and difficult 

to look at, but it’s the truth. They represent 

consequences of the war and reality for 

these people, and for their families, which 

is much harder than the viewer’s experience 

of the photo.” 

Situations where a viewer becomes 

a photographer are numerous, although 

Bogre is rather skeptical about citizen 

journalism. 

“As a viewer, I trust a photographer 

more than I trust an image,” Bogre says. 

“Citizen journalism is a little dangerous. 

New media shifts responsibility to a viewer 

— unless you do your own extra work you 

can’t assume that what you’re observing 

has any accuracy.” 

The problem of actually getting to a 

viewer or to an extensive audience is 

complicated. Vicki Goldberg gives the 

main reason — the lack of a generally 

acknowledged national newspaper or a 

generally trusted TV channel. Digital sites 

are multiple and have their own audiences, 

as do TV stations and newspapers. 

“Back in the age when an image could 

cost the presidency, as with Michael 

Dukakis in a helmet sitting on a tank in 

1988, we had a limited number of television 

channels instead of the 500 we have 

now, USA Today increasingly functioned as 

a national paper, and private ownership 

of computers only reached something like 

15% in this country in the late 1980s, all 

of which meant that a very large percentage 

of the voting population saw the same 

images.” Goldberg says. “Now audiences 

are divided, which means that people tend 

not to see opposition news, often being 


I don’t pretend to be a photographer 

who’s there just to watch people like a fly 

on a wall. I’m more like a five-hundred 

pound gorilla with a camera in their 

house. And there is no screen between 

me and them. 

—Donna Ferrato 

Up to one million Rohingya have been denied citizenship and are stateless in 

their homeland of Myanmar (Burma). As a result, they are subjected to systematic 

human rights abuses from Burmese authorities. Since 2012, violence against the 

Rohingya has forced over 100,000 Rohingya to flee their homes, live in internment 

camps or leave Burma. Photo © Greg Constantine 

I don’t think that just putting images 

on a website, having an exhibition, 

or publishing a photo book, absent 

a larger campaign to reach targeted 

audiences, will work. 

—Amy Yenkin 

completely unaware of things published 

in sources other than those they choose to 

read or were directed to by an algorithm 

based on what they had visited or liked 

before.” The opportunity to sift information 

has become a censorship of its own. 

Yet, simply reaching a viewer means 

nothing, even though the culture of new 

media is built upon the number of likes and 

the fake feeling of belonging and acting. 

“I don’t think that just putting images 

on a website, having an exhibition, or 

publishing a photo book, absent a larger 

campaign to reach targeted audiences, 

will work,” Yenkin says. “The same can be 

said of appreciation and acclaim by the 

photographic community. All of these are 

important and good things for a photographer’s 

career, but they don’t necessarily 

impact the issues.” 

Moreover, the topic to which a photographer-activist 

tries to get attention often 

appears to be less than comforting. That is 

why Yenkin, as well as the other experts, 

agree that communicating stressful information 

requires giving a viewer a way to act. 

“I think people can become desensitized 

or they can turn off emotionally if 

they don’t know what to do or how to 

process the information they’ve seen.” 

BEING THERE 

Donna Ferrato never gets tired, and she 

never runs out of anger and compassion. 

Ferrato is not only an inspiration to photographers 

and activists, but also a committed 

advocate for victims of domestic violence. 

To those who take photographers’ work 

lightheartedly, Ferrato has no mercy. 

“Scratch and sniff stickers — that’s the 

new media,” she says. “If you are a photographer, 

you have a huge responsibility to go 

deeper and you never know where you will 

end up. There’s no magic platform — the 

agency model doesn’t work anymore.” 

Documentation for Ferrato requires 

attachment to the subject. 

“I don’t pretend to be a photographer 

who’s there just to watch people like a fly 

on a wall. I’m more like a five-hundred 

pound gorilla with a camera in their house. 

And there is no screen between me and 

them.” 

The work of photographer-activists 

demands putting all their skills into their 

work. For Ferrato, an image without a 

voice or action has no value. 

“If my pictures arouse misunderstandings, 

I’ll talk about that again and again. 

My voice is as important as the photographs.” 

Ferrato talks about walking away from 

a subject, a privilege that is often unavailable 

for the subjects themselves. 

“I did jobs in both Somalia and in Iraq 

where, at the end of a day, I could always 

go to a safe place. And so I quit, because 

I wanted to stay in that hell and not run 

around with other photographers. I admire 

those photographers who risk their lives, 

who get on boats with refugees, but not 

the ones who wait for them on the shore. I 

also admire the refugees who carry cameras, 

who become journalists themselves, 

because that’s how you learn to be a 

photographer or a writer. Being a photographer, 

we watch people with our camera. 

Why should we watch them in safe zones? 

Let’s watch them where horrible things are 

happening and be a presence of some 

sanity for these people. Let’s really be there 

for them. Otherwise, what we are doing 

with our cameras — just trying to win 

awards, earn money, make ads, be cool.” 

Photographer Greg Constantine, who 

spent 10 years working on a project about 

stateless people, says initially, he took a 

very traditional approach to photography, 

simply trying to get his work published. 

“I walked away feeling that getting published 

just wasn’t enough. It didn’t serve 

the amount of work I had and the importance 

of the stories of the people I had 

met,” Constantine says. “Therefore, my 

work shifted from just having it published 

to trying to figure out how I can actually 

engage people in the issue. Because so 

much of it just dissipated into this world of 

publications.” 

Constantine started his journey trying to 

reveal the stories of stateless people through 

national and international organizations 

and communities working on the issue and 

raising awareness to create change. 

“As a photographer working on the 

theme of human rights abuse, I know it is 


unlikely I will be able to force the government 

to change national laws. However, 

I can collaborate with the organizations 

which have more influence.” 

“I think that these days, the most important 

thing is not necessarily to reach the 

widest audience possible. I would rather 

have a couple hundred people coming to 

an exhibition, spending time, really looking 

at the photos and reading, really exposing 

I would rather have a couple hundred 

people coming to an exhibition, spending 

time, really looking at the photos and 

reading, ...than thousands of people 

looking at these pictures for a few 

moments on their iPhone. 

—Greg Constantine 

themselves to the stories of the stateless 

people so they have a deeper understanding 

of it, than thousands of people looking 

at these pictures for a few moments on 

their iPhone. I really believe in the power 

of social media and I use it to inform 

people about the opportunities to become 

more involved in the story, but I don’t think 

that 2,000 likes on Instagram actually 

mean that all these people have engaged 

with the picture. Issues of human rights are 

too complex and they cannot be explained 

in a few images or a single post.” 

Ruddy Roye is an immigrant, then a 

writer — afterwards, an unemployed 

father, and now, a successful photographer 

who addresses the issues of human rights. 

His Instagram profile identifies him as a 

humanist and activist. 

Roye firmly believes that without new 

media — a smart phone and Instagram — 

his photographic work would be impossible. 

Roye’s images have lengthy captions 

that his followers say they love him for. 

“The captions are there to bring the pictures 

away from what they’ve always been 

in history — a black man has always been 

perceived as a slave or a lazy person. I 

hope that my words will take you away 

from these stereotypes. I’m going to bring 

you to a place where you see this person 

as a man. Maybe he has failed, but he is 

still a man who is trying.” 

Often people in his images are first invisible, 

homeless, the color of the sidewalk. 

“Why is it that only I can see them?” 

asks Roye. 

He never goes far, not more than 50 

minutes from home in any direction, and 

he keeps exploring what life around him 

looks like. He talks with the people he 

shoots, sometimes following them for 

several days, looking closely into faces 

and listening carefully to the voices of the 

individuals, not the crowd. 

Roye sees his documentary work as 

temporary, and hopefully not necessary in 

the future. 

“Fifty years from now, I hope my work 

will not be needed. I believe that my work 

exists only in the present time and even if 

something will come out of it — it is not the 

reason it was designed.” 

Addressing his audience, Roye has a 

very clear message, and that is not frustration 

over the injustices of life. 

“I want people to write to their city 

council, senators, congressional representatives 

and demand change. When they 

drive home from the city center through 

poor neighborhoods, I want them to think 

that this is not normal, that there should 

also be big supermarkets and good 

schools. My pictures say that ‘homeless’; 

is not synonymous to the street light or a 

closed sign on a door. First of all, ‘homeless’ 

means a human. I’m hoping to jerk 

people from the ideas that have been 

normalized.” 

New media attention is elusive and 

fashions come and go easily, but as Roye 

has been doing his work before, he will be 

doing it after. And, like Ferrato, he sees a 

camera as one of the tools of an activist. 

“Being an activist, I do not necessarily 

have to be in fashion,” says Roye. “What 

will never change is the voice that I gave 

to the struggle. If it means going into the 

crowd without a camera, I will do it, or 

standing in front of a bunch of kids telling 

them the story of this struggle to inspire 

them, I will do it also. I’m more concerned 

with what I’m doing today. Do I want 

Trump in the White House? No. However, 

I also understand that he is entitled to four 

years. The question is, how do we manage 

as the citizens during these four years? 

Are we going to fight or just lie down 

and allow him to have these four years? It 

depends on us, our character will be born 

out of these four years.” 

November 8, 2016. Someone recently 

told me that if your policy or art have 

nothing to do with poor people, it’s 

neither radical nor revolutionary. I met 

Davian age 10, in Milwaukee waiting 

for the one o’clock food truck from the 

Salvation Army to arrive. The truck 

stops in his community with ham sandwiches, 

fruits, and milk as a means of 

feeding those who are hungry. 

Photo © Ruddy Roye. Excerpted from Instagram. 

I want people to write to their city 

council, senators, congressional 

representatives and demand change. 

When they drive home from the city 

center through poor neighborhoods, 

I want them to think that this is not 

normal, that there should also be big 

supermarkets and good schools. 

—Ruddy Roye 

Personal reasons to do this kind of 

documentary are always there and photographers 

use the inner and outer struggles 

to create impactful images. “I grew up in 

Jamaica in rough conditions, but out of this 

roughness came me and many of us — 

who are brilliant movers and seekers in this 

world. I believe that changes come through 

the struggle, not through the niceties. And 

if I push harder, change will certainly 

come. There will be a new birth. And it is 

my job, not to worry about the birth but to 

worry about the push,” says Roye. 

If we had any goal in writing this article 

— it surely was not to end a dispute over 

the changes photography might make. The 

only question is not if the photography can 

make a difference, but if the photographers 

can. Well, we named some who could. 


LiveZEKE Brings Photographs to Life at Photoville 

By Kelly Kollias 

Photoville. New York’s premier photo festival. 

Photography comes alive as viewers interact live with subjects in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

ZEKE magazine changed expectations 

for traditional documentary 

practice this past September 

at New York City’s premier 

photography festival, Photoville 

(September 22–25), when it 

brought documentary subjects to 

life in a new, interactive media 

called LiveZEKE. 

Glenn Ruga, Executive Editor of 

ZEKE magazine and director of Social 

Documentary Network (SDN), came up 

with the concept after thinking about 

how to change the ways in which people 

perceive documentary subjects in photographs. 

For 175 years, documentary 

photography has always been focused 

on capturing images and presenting them 

to viewers at a later time without interaction 

with the subject themselves. Through 

LiveZEKE, Ruga sought to break down this 

wall and create an opportunity for communication 

between those documented and 

those perceiving. 

The original concept for LiveZEKE 

began as an idea for the Social 

The Forgotten Caucasus exhibition on display at 

Photoville. 

Documentary Network website — a creative 

and technical platform for documentary 

photographers to present visual stories 

about a wide range of global issues. Ruga 

wanted to give more texture to these stories 

and create live video and text chat rooms 

where viewers anywhere in the world 

could speak directly with the documentary 

subjects. 

People could sign up to participate in 

live sessions, where they could ask questions 

and speak with documentary subjects 

about their personal lives. “After viewing 

a documentary exhibit, there was always 

something missing. What happened to 

the subjects? What are they doing now?” 

Ruga continued, “We always wanted to 

have the opportunity to meet and talk with 

them to learn more about their lives in 

real time. LiveZEKE became a new way 

to interact with people and cultures from 

around the world and a revolutionary way 

to experience documentary photography.” 

But until he had the resources to create 

LiveZEKE on the SDN website, he saw 

Photoville as an opportunity to present 

the idea of “live” documentary in a more 

limited setting. The festival was an opportunity 

to garner interest towards eventually 

creating a space on the website where 

subscribers could regularly interact with 

documentary subjects. 

The Forgotten Caucasus 

Comes to Brooklyn 

For Photoville, Ruga chose a feature article 

from the spring 2016 edition of ZEKE 

magazine, titled The Forgotten Caucasus, 

which showcased documentary photography 

and text from the South Caucasus— 

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and 

Nagorno-Karabakh — by photographers 

Ara Oshagan, Daro Sulakauri and Jan 

Zychlinkski. Each afternoon at the festival, 

ZEKE presented live video conferencing 

between people featured in the exhibit and 

the exhibition audience. The results were 

astounding. After viewing the photographs 

on display in the exhibit, viewers sat down 


“LiveZEKE became a new way to interact 

with people and cultures from around the 

world and a revolutionary way to experience 

documentary photography.” 

—Glenn Ruga, ZEKE Executive Editor 

A musician in Brooklyn sings as Edik plays the piano in 

Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Student Day at Photoville with teacher Shanee Epstein. 

and had the doors close around them. 

After a brief introduction from Ruga, their 

attention was drawn to the projector and 

what were once static pictures came to life 

on the big screen. 

Suddenly, viewers found themselves 

halfway across the world in the South 

Caucasus, speaking to Leila, 14, who 

escaped from her home and crossed 

the border from an occupied territory of 

Georgia to marry her forbidden boyfriend; 

Shota, 77, and Kolya, 65, who 

were forced from their home in Abkhazia 

(a breakaway part of Georgia) to flee 

to an abandoned village in the Svaneti 

Mountains in Georgia; and Edik, who 

fought in the war against Azerbaijan but 

chose to remain in Nagorno-Karabakh and 

raise his family there. 

Viewers Respond 

The interaction rendered a few audience 

members shy and many speechless. While 

some viewers merely approached the 

camera and threw a quick wave of their 

hand at the video screen, others grew bold 

and found themselves engaging in full-on 

conversations with the subjects, asking 

questions varying from life after the photos 

were taken to what their favorite food is. 

One woman from Brooklyn, a professional 

musician, found herself singing along with 

Edik in Nagorno-Karabakh through the 

computer as he played his piano to her 

via the video link. Edik’s family clapped 

as they gave a live concert performance 

across media platforms. “It was just amazing 

to walk into the exhibition and just 

connect with people halfway around the 

world,” said one spectator after the video 

session ended. “It’s so exciting because 

there are so many projects that could benefit 

from actually talking with who you’re 

seeing in the picture, so that was really 

moving and it was really emotional to 

make that human connection. It isn’t just a 

print on a wall, it’s a real person. It’s a real 

family affected in these pictures.” 

The results were not only moving for 

spectators, but LiveZEKE staff as well. I 

am an intern for ZEKE Magazine and 

SDN and a sophomore at Tufts University. 

LiveZEKE was one of the most memorable 

and valuable experiences I’ve had since 

starting to work for SDN in August. Prior 

to this moment, they had always just been 

beautiful pictures to me. Suddenly, they 

just came to life on screen, like a movie. 

Suddenly, their stories weren’t just captions 

under photographs — they were personal 

narratives, full of love, loss and perseverance. 

It made me see what a difference 

documentary work can make in the world. 

I felt I finally realized not only what documentary 

photography can mean to me, but 

what it really means to the photographers, 

Glenn, and the rest of the ZEKE staff.” 

As I move forward with my internship, I 

hope more students my age become more 

involved in powerful projects with global 

impact such as those featured in ZEKE and 

on the SDN website. 

As technology itself becomes more 

tangible and moves beyond the still image, 

photographers will find more innovative 

methods to present their works in ways 

that transcend the documentary community 

and into the everyday world. This was 

especially proven through Ruga’s ability to 

bring the stories of the South Caucasus to 

life in the streets of New York with nothing 

more than a computer and a WiFi connection. 

SDN’s live documentary experiment 

at Photoville was a huge success and 

provided an exciting preview to the future 

of both documentary photography and 

journalism. 

For more information on LiveZEKE, visit 

www.zekemagazine.com/livezeke 

LiveZEKE attendee interacts 

with Shota and Kolya in 

the Svaneti Mountains in 

Georgia. 


BOOK 

REVIEWS 

JEROME AVE 

By The Bronx Photo League 

With Introduction by Michael Kamber 

BDC Editions, 2016 

136 pp./$40.00 

www.jeromeaveworkers.com 

Angelica Camacho, originally from Mexico, works as 

an ice vendor on 170th Street and Jerome Avenue during 

the summer. She’s been in the Bronx for 25 years. 

Last fall, the Bronx Documentary 

Center (BDC) released Jerome Ave, 

the first photo book published under 

its new label, BDC Editions. The book 

explores New York City’s working-class 

community of Jerome Avenue, a South 

Bronx corridor under consideration for 

rezoning, an endeavor that would likely 

spell the demise of its “proud culture of 

industry and work.” In 2015, the 18 

photographers of the Bronx Photo League, 

a project of BDC, took to the avenue to 

document the experiences of workers and 

residents grappling with the looming threat 

of rezoning and displacement. 

The Bronx Photo League, which takes 

inspiration from the similarly activistminded 

Photo League of the 1930s and 

‘40s, is a diverse group of Bronx-based 

artists and journalists whose common goal 

is to archive and expose the “realities and 

changes in our own community.” 

For a year, the League traveled the twomile 

stretch of Jerome Avenue, using old 

Hasselblad cameras with just 12 photos per 

roll, to shed light on the growing concerns 

of this blue-collar community. The Leaguers 

listened carefully and photographed 

intentionally, capturing the stories of Jerome 

Avenue with an attention to detail and 

nuanced approach true to the League’s 

commitment to social justice and mission of 

striving for “balance, not sensation.” 

Jerome Ave is a stunning collection of 

black-and-white portraits of the people 

who make Jerome what it is. They come 

from near and far — some are third 

generation shop owners, while others 

have only been in the United States for 

two months. The place itself is equally 

worldly — storefront messaging calls out to 

passers-by in several different languages. 

The vibrant cultures and personalities that 

intersect on the avenue bring every page 

of Jerome Ave to life. 

Though the future of Jerome is uncertain, 

each story in Jerome Ave is a testament 

to the ability of its people and their 

collective values to endure in the face 

of hardship. Their myriad differences – 

nationalities, native tongues, religions, and 

the like — pale in comparison to the unity 

forged through shared values of hard work 

and a desire for a better life. There is a 

sense that its people will continue to persevere, 

even as Jerome is eyed for redevelopment 

and the subsequent wholesale 

disruption of life and livelihood. 

Jerome Ave is a product of the Bronx 

Photo League’s honest approach and a 

reflection of the integrity that characterizes 

its community. The photographers honor the 

complexity of the human experience by portraying 

the people of Jerome as a dignified 

community of individuals stitched together 

by a desire to preserve its culture of industry 

and the opportunities that accompany 

it. Concern regarding the possible changes 

to come is a main theme of Jerome Ave, 

but so, too, is resilience. And while fears of 

gentrification and the further displacement 

of a predominantly immigrant, workingclass 

community inevitably alarm their 

readers, the Bronx Photo Leaguers succeed 

in rejecting a sensational narrative that 

would depict the workers of Jerome Avenue 

as passive or powerless. Instead, they do 

justice to the proud people who live and 

work there by exposing the problematic, 

while still honoring the humans affected — 

their strength in the face of hardship, and 

their resistance against ongoing attempts to 

reduce their life chances. 

—Emma Brown 

Rally, Benghazi, April 8. 2011. 

By Michael Christopher Brown 

LIBYAN SUGAR 

By Michael Christopher Brown 

Twin Palms 

412 pp./$85.00 

www.twinpalms.com 

Gaining a greater understanding of 

the Arab Spring and the Libyan 

revolution will not follow from reading 

Libyan Sugar by Magnum photographer 

Michael Christopher Brown. But you 

will gain terrific photography taken with a 

camera phone, very personal and thoughtful 

reflections by a photographer finding 

himself through war, and a compelling 

and intelligent book weaving a narrative 

between the two. 

This is not Robert Capa or Eddie 

Adams, whose reporting was first and 

always about the historical events unfolding 

before their cameras. “Fallen Soldier” 

by the former or “Execution in Saigon” 

by the latter are only great photographs 

because of their meaning in the historical 

context. Rather, this is Michael Christopher 

Brown using a cell phone camera because 

he broke his SLR shortly after arriving in 

the war zone. (A Leica probably would 

have withstood the shock.) Not to be 

deterred, Brown continued to fight with his 

newfound tool to produce the remarkably 

beautiful and sometimes powerful photos 

reproduced small in Libyan Sugar — small 

because the resolution from a 2011 cell 

phone camera does not allow them to be 

reproduced any larger. 

Maybe it’s because the oeuvre was 

created with the quintessential social 

media device that Libyan Sugar reads 

like a Facebook feed. All that is missing 

is a selfie or two — but instead, peppered 

throughout are email and Skype 


Denora in Noon Shadows, Obrapía. 

1999. By Susan S. Bank from Piercing 

the Darkness 

exchanges with his family in the Skagit 

Valley in Washington state and an occasional 

friend or colleague elsewhere. 

But once you can get over the fact that 

you aren’t going to learn much about 

the soldiers, civilians, corpses and ruins 

that are the subject of his photography, 

sit back and enjoy reading this extraordinary 

book. Rarely do photobooks so 

effectively create such an interesting tension 

between the words and images. As 

any good photobook will attest, Brown 

doesn’t attempt to tell you everything with 

either the images or the words — only a 

reading of the careful interplay between 

the two will provide the narrative glue 

holding the book together. 

The seminal event in the book (spoiler 

alert), and Brown’s life up until then, is 

that he was wounded in the same attack 

on April 20, 2011 in Misrata that killed 

his colleagues Chris Hondros and Tim 

Hetherington. Prior to this, Brown was high 

on the adrenaline of being a war photographer. 

Following his hospitalization 

and recovery, he has now matured with 

understanding: “The pain of four pieces 

of shrapnel that I get to keep reminds me 

I am not pure anymore.” He goes on to 

lament, “Never again do you take stupid 

risks for pictures.” And finally the words to 

him by a sage friend: “All true knowledge 

comes from direct experience and now 

you are amongst those who have come 

too close to death. You will never be the 

same but perhaps a lot wiser than most.” 

His newfound wisdom is what has given 

him the fortitude and patience to expose 

himself in this book. 

But 90 percent of the 400 pages are 

extraordinary photographs, carefully 

composed, saturated with deep rich colors 

or expanses of desert sands. There are 

expressive faces of the living and death 

masks of the dead. There is an enigmatic 

lion that makes it to the cover and a 

handful of photos from home in the Skagit 

Valley, Washington. Sequentially, the photos 

tell the story of one year in the life of 

Michael Christopher Brown and one year 

of the war of Libyan liberation — desert 

scenes, street fighting, carnage, the death 

of Gaddafi, liberation, celebration and the 

love affairs between Brown and his family 

at home, his closest of colleagues in the 

trenches of photojournalism and his fallen 

comrades Tim and Chris. 

Since the book ends in the year it was 

retelling — 2011 — there can be no mention 

of the catastrophic events in Benghazi 

a year later that killed the U.S. ambassador 

and three other embassy employees, 

and became a continuing nightmare for 

Hillary Clinton in her campaign for U.S. 

president. Nor mention of the chaos and 

failed state that Libya has fallen into. That 

is another book by another author. 

Libyan Sugar is a must-read for anyone 

who breathes the life of a photojournalist, 

and great reading for anyone else wanting 

to experience the artfully told coming-toawareness 

story of the author. Along the 

way, you get just a taste of Libyan sugar 

— enough to make you want more. 

—Glenn Ruga 

PIERCING THE DARKNESS 

Susan S. Bank 

Brilliant Press 

128 pp./$65.00 

www.brilliant-press.com 

A 

photo book is such a precious 

object in this age of picture-saturated 

cyberspace. At its best, the 

photo book stands as an artist’s statement 

in dialogue with history. In the case of 

Susan S. Bank’s Piercing the Darkness, not 

only is the book a beautifully designed 

and sequenced telling of the first ten years 

of the 21st century in Cuba, it is a highly 

personalized view created with 20th 

century intent, style and processes. Bank’s 

Leica camera, her black and white film 

and her choice of lenses create a world 

apart from her contemporaries’ colorful 

Cuba travelogues. I have never seen 

Havana with so few old cars. Bank also 

skirts the seductive pleasure of the elegant, 

decayed architecture. The Malecón, 

Havana’s boulevard along the bay, is 

in only a few compositions. Her camera 

prefers to look down at the pavement and 

into the buildings. Fortunately, Bank does 

acknowledge the thousands of dogs to 

whom Cuba has granted the freedom to 

roam. 

Piercing the Darkness begins in 

shadow. We see slumped workers with 

backs turned in chiaroscuro. Faces are 

hidden or masked. Bank masterfully 

photographs arms and hands, letting 

them direct the viewer’s eye across the 

frame. Many pictures are about Cubans 

in contact, sizzling with gesticulation and 

assertion. Bank is present when they argue 

or embrace — and often, these vignettes 

reveal the scars of Cuba’s crimes committed 

in the name of ideology. 

I found myself viewing each page like 

a detective at a crime scene. The details 

unfold slowly, and the most telling evidence 

lies in the shadows. She certainly 

named her collection wisely. Like Robert 

Frank’s Americans, Bank’s Cubans are 

people with a shared mythology best 

expressed through their sense of solitude. 

We are viewing the work of an artist who 

knows her subject well and refuses to 

make simple pictures about complex lives. 

Bank is not telling the story of Cuba; she is 

telling the story of humanity through Cuba. 

—Frank Ward 


WHAT’S HOT! 

TRENDING 

PHOTOGRAPHERS 

ON SDN 

Of the hundreds of exhibits submitted to SDN 

each year, these four stand out as exemplary 

and deserving of further attention. 

Eric Mindling: Flags of Community (Oaxaca, Mexico). Eric 

Mindling has lived in Mexico since 1992, capturing and 

illuminating the lives of its people in a way he sees as balancing 

traditional Western imagery. In Oaxaca, he captured the clothing of 

a people — a rich fabric of those who don its bright colors. 

Ralph Pieazs: Prison Ink (Cebu City, Philippines). Ralph 

Piezas enjoys documentary and creative photography of all 

kinds. His project Prison Ink captured the tattoos of people 

behind bars in Cebu City — where he currently resides 

— and their implications and stigmas. The photos are a 

display of creative expression for those who are otherwise 

imprisoned. 

Jared Ragland: Good Bad People: Methamphetamine Use on 

Sand Mountain, Alabama. Jared Ragland is a documentary 

photographer and photojournalist whose work focuses on the 

Southern United States and its unique traditions and struggles. 

He currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama. In this project, he 

looks at drug use due to cultural anxiety in a struggling region of 

the South. 

Tony Savino: Wake Up and Smell the Misery (Dominican 

Republic). Tony Savino is an international documentary 

photographer based in New York City whose work has 

appeared in publications such as New York Times Magazine, 

Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. Savino shot 

this project in the Dominican Republic, focusing on Haitians 

who have relocated there for work, showing the lives of 

foreigners in transition. 


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ZEKE is publishing great photography 

about important global issues by both 

established and emerging photographers 

from all corners of the world. 

— Ed Kashi, Photographer 


Social Documentary Network 

A Global Network for Documentary Photography 

Above. Artist and educator 

Shanee Epstein talks with 

New York City public school 

students about SDN’s 

LiveZEKE exhibition at 

Photoville, September 2016, 

Brooklyn, NY. 

2015 SDN Exhibition at the 

Bronx Documentary Center 

on the theme of Visual 

Stories Exploring Global 

Themes. 

We strongly believe in the power of visual 

storytelling to help us understand and 

appreciate the complex ities, nuances, 

wonders, and contradictions that abound 

in the world today. 

SDN is not just for photographers 

SDN is also for editors, curators, 

students, journalists, and others who 

look to SDN as a showcase for talent 

and a source of visual information 

about a complex and continually 

changing world. 

SDN is more than a website 

Today we have grown beyond the boundaries 

of a computer screen and are engaged in exhibitions, 

educational programs, publications, 

call for entries, and providing opportunities for 

photographers. 

Michael Kamber (left), director 

of the Bronx Documentary 

Center, and Glenn Ruga (right) 

SDN director, at opening 

reception for SDN exhibition at 

the Bronx Documentary Center. 

Exhibits: SDN has presented exhibitions 

showcasing the work of dozens of photographers 

in New York, Chicago, Boston, 

Portland, Maine, Milan and other cities 

across the world. 

Spotlight: Our monthly email Spotlight 

reaches more than 9,000 global contacts 

that include editors, curators, photographers, 

educators, students, and journalists. 

ZEKE Magazine: Turn the pages of this 

magazine to see SDN’s newest initiative. 

assignmentLINK: Need a photographer 

in Niger, Uzbekistan, or another hard-toreach 

location? We can find one for you 

fast. 

Education: SDN organizes and participates 

in panel discussions, conferences, 

portfolio reviews, and photography 

festivals. 

Photo Fellowship: SDN has partnered 

with Management Sciences for Health to 

offer six Photo Fellowships, providing a 

$4,000 stipend to a photographer to 

document MSH’s public health work in 

Africa and South America. 

Special Issue and Interviews: SDN 

publishes online Special Issues exploring 

in greater depth themes presented by 

SDN photographers. 

Photograph by 

Nikki Denholm from 

Mothers of Bosaso 

Maternal Health in 

Somalia on SDN. 

Join us! And become part of the 


www.SocialDocumentary.net 



Spring 


Published by Social Documentary Network 

Photographers and writers featured 

in this issue of ZEKE 

Anna Akage-Kyslytska, Ukraine 

Azad Amin, Iran 

Sarah Blesener, United States 

Emma Brown, United States 

Caterina Clerici, United States 

and Italy 

B.D. Colen, Canada 

Nikki Denholm, New Zealand 

Ariz Ghaderi, Iran 

Saeed Kiaee, Iran 

Kelly Kollias, United States 

Mehdi Nazeri, Iran 

Paolo Patruno, Italy 

Laney Ruckstuhl, United States 

Anne Sahler, Germany and 

Japan 

Sadegh Souri, Iran 

Frank Ward, United States 

Project Looking for a Publisher 

PROSPERITY 

GOSPEL 

2017 Vol. 3/No. 1 

ZEKE is published by Social Documentary Network (SDN), an 

organization promoting visual storytelling about global themes. 

Started as a website in 2008, today SDN works with nearly a 

thousand photographers around the world to tell important stories 

through the visual medium of photography and multimedia. Since 

2008, SDN has featured more than 2,000 exhibits on its website 

and has had gallery exhibitions in major cities around the world. 

All the work featured in ZEKE first appeared on the SDN website, 

www.socialdocumentary.net. 

ZEKE Staff 

Executive Editor: Glenn Ruga 

Editor: Barbara Ayotte 

Interns: Kelly Kollias, Laney 

Ruckstuhl 

Social Documentary 

Network Advisory 

Committee 

Barbara Ayotte, Medford, MA 

Senior Director of Strategic 

Communications 

Management Sciences for Health 

Lori Grinker, New York, NY 

Independent Photographer and 

Educator 

Steve Horn, Lopez Island, WA 

Independent Photographer 

Ed Kashi, Monclair, NJ 

Member of VII photo agency 

Photographer, Filmmaker, Educator 

Reza, Paris, France 

Photographer and Humanist 

Molly Roberts, Washington, DC 

Senior Photography Editor, 

National Geographic 

ZEKE is published twice a year by 


Copyright © 2017 


ISSN 2381-1390 

ZEKE does not accept unsolicited 

submissions. To be considered for 

publication in ZEKE, submit your 

work to the SDN website either as 

a standard exhibit or a submission 

to a Call for Entries. Contributing 

photographers can choose to pay 

a fee for their work to be exhibted 

on SDN for a year or they can 

choose a free trial. Free trials have 

the same opportunity to be published 

in ZEKE as paid exhibits. 

To subscribe: 


Advertising Inquiries: 

glenn@socialdocumentary.net 

Jeffrey D. Smith, New York NY 

Director, Contact Press Images 

Steve Walker, New York, NY 

Consultant and educator 

Frank Ward, Williamsburg, MA 

Photographer and Educator 

BY CHARTER WEEKS & KEITH FLYNN 

Portraits & interviews with 90 individuals about 

the effects of the Great Recession on their lives. 

We have been in homeless camps, gold stores, 

churches, homes, and many other environments. 

“They’re powerful & important images.” 

—Scott Stossel, Editor, The Atlantic 

61 Potter Street 

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info@socialdocumentary.net 

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network 

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USA 

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ZEKE: Spring 2017

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