marcia’s musings

Spitou Mendy taking a break from visiting migrant workers, part of his role as leader of the agricultural worker's union (SOC-SAT) in Almeria. (c) Marcia Chandra 2009

In April I was in Granada, Spain, trying to work on a documentary photography project with a female gypsy organization. After numerous frustrations and the realization that the project was going nowhere at that moment, I spontaneously went to Almeria near the end of my break. I had been reading many newspaper reports about immigration issues in the south of Spain and, in particular, its relation with greenhouse agriculture, and I was curious about it.

I happened to be put in touch with Spitou Mendy, a tireless union organizer who leads the SOC-SAT – an agriculture worker’s union in Almeria (in the municipalities of Almeria, El Ejido and San Isidro). Over the course of 3 days he was invaluable at helping me to understand the situation, introducing me to people, and allowing me to join him on his visits with migrant workers. I was also lucky to have met Tobias Zick, a journalist, and Marc Beckmann, a photographer, who were doing a story for Neon magazine in Germany (just published if you read German!) – I didn’t have a car and they needed translation, a perfect match. But more than that, it was a great experience to be able to work with a photographer and journalist in the field; I learned a lot from them and they were very supportive of the work I was doing. It was nice feedback to hear from them that my approach with people was very personal; even if my photography hasn’t come into its own yet, I am glad to know that I am approaching it the way I feel works best.

You can see some more images from almeria here and here. Today I got some feedback from my prof, John Easterby, on the edit of what I shot in April. Surprisingly, it was nothing surprising as he confirmed everything I felt about what I had done so far – it needs a lot more time, my style is still a little confused, and something seemed to be missing. I think good photo editors are really intuitive. We had a good discussion about what I felt was missing; everything I shot seemed to be quite serious and rather bleek but what I actually experienced was people living, making do, enjoying what they can from the lives they are able to carve in this transient place. In three days, despite the heaviness of the experience, I also had a lot of fun with everyone I met, sharing laughs and stories.

Anyways, it was too short a visit to photograph what I would have liked – an intimate portrait of people trying to move forward amidst such insecurity. The edit I came back with were just a beginning. But I was glad I went, I was touched by all the people that shared their stories with me, and motivated by the clear and complicated injustices that exist there. I want to go back and work longer there to see if I can find a way to share these stories – they are important.

- london, uk, 18 degrees, partly cloudy afternoon, im in the library so no listening to anything…