-.-W

V - -

0

0

8BThe Statement // Wednesday, March 31 2010
PERSONALSTATEMENT

A PHOTOJOUI

BY ZACHARY MEISNER
am not, and will never be, a great
photojournalist.
From the first week of my fresh-
man year through the summer of
2009, a camera strap was as essential
apiece of clothingto meas myunder-
wear. I inhaled campus through my
camera lens. The benchmark for my
success was capturing spontaneous
campus moments, and I was deter-
mined to miss nothing.
And I was pretty good at it. Though
I wasn't the best among the people I
worked with, I carried my weight as
long as I carried my camera.
Yet, even during those formative
years of being a photojournalist, I
struggled with the implications of
keeping my face guarded behind
the comfort of a camera rather
than engaging with my subject. No
photographer shoots the trial of a
condemned man for the first time
without becoming a little nause-
ated at his or her semi-disgusting,
awkward role in that moment of the
man's life -, as photographers, we
profit from the lowest points in oth-
ers' lives.
It wasn't until I left the comfort of
Ann Arbor and immersed myself in a
foreign culture that this suppressed
self-loathing escaped and I was no
longer able to maintain myrelatica-
ship with my camera.
I spent May of 2009 in Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, working on short
documentaries to raise money for
and awareness of the global issue of
avoidable blindness. I lived outside
the city with five fabulously talented
creators and documentarians - all
students - working on the project
with me. Everyone was a photogra-
pher.

RNA LISTS DILEMMA camera like a smoker quittin' cold
turkey, forced to watch "Madmen"
all day.
After a few days, my cravings sub-
sided and I took in my environment
with a naked eye. I began to notice
nuances in our subjects.
In reality, these were visible
through the lens but somehow they
were obstructed by the process of
As a visitor in an environment one camera out at a time. Three of us photographing. In still images, there
where the cost of your equipment would work in one section of the hos- is a look in the eye of sad subject that
could easily feed 5,000 of the city's pital and three in another. translates into a desperate call for
inhabitants for one day, it's essential As the producer, I let the people sympathy.
to carry yourself with some tact. As who were best at their jobs do their In real time - without a lens -
a group, we succeeded in doing so jobs, and I enjoyed the luxury of the thin layer of moisture covering
while working on location. We main- leaving my camera at home. For the the shape of the eye doesn't ask for
tained a strict rule of only keeping first week, however. I ached for my understanding. but instead screams

of embarrassed disdain.
I stopped caring about missing the
photographic opportunities these
moments offered. For the first time, I
saw without the filter of a lens.
During our time in Tanzania we
took a short, 36-hour vacation to
Zanzibar, a place possessing the kind
of beauty that should only be allowed
in dreams. I was the sole member of
the group to leave my camera behind.
We trekked through the city all
day and walked to the beach for din-
ner as the sun set.
There is probably a scientific rea-
son why the same sun I've always
seen is so much more stunning in
Africa, but I don't know it. It was a
sunset that begged with every ray to
be photographed - hundreds of peo-
ple overlooking the pier were silhou-
etted perfectly.
I hung back and spoke with our
guide while the rest of the group
snapped for the best shot. I began to
feel something I still can't explain
as I looked at the people above the
water.
Not knowing exactly why, I quick-
ly and quietly approached each mem-
ber of our group and told them to put
their cameras down.
Lowering their cameras, the group
retreated. Then I joined the Tanza-
nians overlooking the water to find
a dead, drowned body float closer
to the beach, one of 50 that had
drowned after a cargo ship sank not
far off the coast.
I came back to the Daily as a pho-
tojournalist unable to shake this-sort
of experience from my consciousness
- I envy and respect the photojour-
nalist that could have.
It is that kind of photojournalist
that presses on in an effort to give the
public the truest visual information
from the most difficult circumstanc-
es. All that's left for me is document-
ing my own life, and the seemingly
futile enterprise of creating mean-
ingful art.
- Zachary Meisner was the Daily's
co-managing photo editor in 2009.

Patients waiting at an eye clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzia. The clinic evaluates patients for subsidized cataracts surgery.


WANT TO WRITE FOR THE MICHIGAN
DAILY'S NEWS SECTION?
SEND AN ELECTRONIC MESSAGE TO BERMAN@MICHIGANDAILY.COM