LYRICAL
PORTRAITS OF PROUD SEMI-NOMADS
Book Review
of ‘Vanishing Songs of the Warriors’
By Bobby
Pall
Footprint
Press, 2017
Reviewed by
Margaretta wa Gacheru
Bobby Pall may
be best known for the photography that he’s done for development and aid
agencies like the Red Cross, UNHCR and the Global Fund. He’s also the favored
photographer of Footprints Press, producing sharply focused portrait images of
all sorts of Kenyans, including everyone
from elders to outstanding ‘women over 50’ and most recently, over 50 of the
country’s most acclaimed visual artists selected by FP’s founder-publisher
Susan Wahkungu-Githuku to include in the new book ‘Visual Voices’.
But at long
last, Bobby has come out with a book of his own. Still published by Footprints
Press as a high-quality coffee table-sized work, his ‘Vanishing Songs of the
Warriors’ is first and foremost, a visual ode to the people living in one large
section of East Africa whose cultures and ‘songs’ are rapidly disappearing, eroded
by poverty and other forces of underdevelopment.
But the book
is also autobiographical in that it reflects all the years that Bobby has
worked in that region. Having gone to South Sudan, Somalia and northern Kenya many
times for those international agencies, Bobby made many friends in those
‘remote’ and oft forgotten places. So after those assignments were done, he
decided to return and record more personal features of the people’s lives.
“I often
went back and stayed with families that I’d gotten close to during my previous
tours,” says Bobby whose book is filled with portrait photos as well as with
people struggling to eke out an existence on terrain that’s semi-arid and
barren.
Interspersed
with his images are African proverbs and adages coined by the photographer
himself. He also includes poetry that reflects on the same theme of vanishing
cultures. One is by his publisher, Susan Wakhungu-Githuku. Another is by his
wife, Xonchitl Ramirez. And towards the end of the book he includes a short
catalogue of cultural and ethnic categories of people, many of whom are included
in the book.
As another
endnote, he shares a brief biography and philosophical explanation for why he
calls the characters in his book ‘warriors.’ One critic has challenged his use
of the term, noting his subjects don’t carry spears, guns or even bows and
arrows.
Bobby
answers his critics when he explains that for him, a ‘warrior’ is a term that
transcends gender. It can refer to anyone, man or woman, who stands strong in
the face of adversity and lives with courage, integrity, dignity and commitment
to protecting the lives of others. That could include mothers, shepherds,
fishermen and everyone else contributing to keeping their community and family
alive.
Bobby may be
using language loosely, but his point is clear. What’s more, the value of
‘Vanishing Songs of the Warriors’ is recognized and explained well in the
book’s foreword by the Hon. Ambassador Amina Mohamed.
In
appreciation of his book, she writes: “In my 30 years as a Kenyan and
international diplomat, I regretted the scarcity of books on Africa by
Africans,” For her, his book serves to counter “the barrage of negative media
stories” that do such a disservice to the continent.
So while
Bobby’s black and white images do not paint exotic portraits of Africans
‘adorned’ with the regalia that often gets worn especially to impress tourists,
his photos reflect an authenticity that reveals people’s everyday lives and
their struggles to survive in a parched and barren land. But his book is by no
means depressing; instead, his images reflect people’s resilience, dignity and
reliance on family to carry on singing the ‘songs’ they still retain deep inside
the core of their cultures and traditiions.
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