Cry Of The Wounded

Photographer Sebastião Salgado, has said that when producing a body of work, a photographer must consider that “Photography is not objective, It is deeply subjective.” He went on to say that his own photography “is consistent ideologically and ethically with the person I am.” In other words, when you are out to photograph, you also bring with you the themes you carry inside yourself. I have always reflected on that idea, and I ask myself, “What themes do I carry inside myself?” As I stood among the protesters, I heard the cries of wounded people and witnessed their pain. They were angry and grieving, and not just because of the death of one man, but because of many deaths over the generations caused by racist systems. In his book The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen narrates a story from which I’ve taken a thought I carry with me: “If you had looked into his eyes, you would have known.” The assumption here is that we recognize our own brokenness and woundedness. Only then can we become a bridge that allows us to know the pain and woundedness of another. We step into other people’s wounds out of our own woundedness. When I look someone in their eyes, they look back. When they see through the camera, they realize that fraction of a gaze is for me, but that questioning gaze is also for everyone who will witness the photograph. In that moment, they are asking me to honor them and who they are and what they represent. I think honoring a person standing in front of you is always right. God is at eye level.