Niger: Tuareg Women Portrait

This additional photo of my 1969 Sahel journey shows two Tuareg girls sheltering in their tent from the mid-day sun.

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Cette nouvelle photo de mon séjour au Sahel de 1969 montre deux jeunes filles touarègues s’abritant du soleil de midi sous leur tente.

Niger:Tuareg Nomads Riding Donkeys From The Well

Another picture from my 1969 Sahel journey. The one I posted yesterday was of Wodaabe nomads. This one is of Tuareg nomads riding away from a well. Water-filled goat skin bags hang from the bellies of their donkeys.

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Une autre photo de mon séjour de 1969 au Sahel. La photo d’hier était de nomades Wodaabe (Bororo). Celle-ci montre des femmes Touarègues s’éloignant d’un puits. Des outres de peau de chèvres remplies d’eau pendent sous le ventre de leurs ânes. 

Niger: Wodaabe Nomads On The Way To A Dance

In 1969, when I took this picture, black-and-white was still much in use because it was much cheaper to print. Still, I needed to shoot in color as well, which I did. Because zoom lenses had not yet reached professional quality I used only primary lenses. And to be ready for anything happening, I always worked with two cameras, a Leica M2 with a 35 mm lens and a Nikon F with a 105 mm lens. I also carried a similar pair of cameras so equipped to shoot black-and-white. Thankfully, those cameras were relatively small and light compared to professional digital cameras today, of which you need only one toady for any situation. Additionally, for when I had the time to change lenses, I carried Nikon lenses of 20, 28, and 50 mm in a pouch on my belt. Still, I used my Leica the most, as it was the easiest to hide when necessary to shoot unobtrusively, and because I liked to shoot close to my subjects.

I shot this picture in Niger’s Sahel while working on four books on African children of different countries. But my experience with this tribe, the Woodabe, and that of the Tuareg, who I was also shooting there, got me the following year a National Geographic assignment to do a chapter on each of those tribes for their book, Nomads of the World. At that time I would shoot only color.

The men here are singing at the rhythm of their companion’s hand-clapping. They are on their way to a Yakey dance, which doubles as a male beauty contest, where they will grimace comically, rolling eyes and showing teeth to display their whiteness, as I have shown in previous posts.

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Photo de 1969 de nomades Wodaabe, connus aussi comme Bororo, en chemin vers un yakey, une  danse qui est à la fois un concours de beauté masculine. Joyeux, ils chantent, rythmés par les battements de mains de leur compagnon.

Bolivia: Haunting Face Of The Altiplano

One of the many stunning faces of Bolivia’s mineral southern Altiplano, a high and bitter cold plateau between two Andean cordilleras, home to Quechua miners and llama and alpaca herder.

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L’un des extraordinaires visages du minéral Altiplano bolivien, un haut plateau glacé entre deux cordillères andines, terre d’indiens Quechua, mineurs et éleveurs de lamas et alpacas.

Ecuador: Lure Of The Sweet Mango

A 14 –year-old cowgirl stands on her wooden saddle to hit down a few sweet mangoes near Salitre, in Ecuador’s coastal Guayas State.

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Debout sur sa selle de bois une cowgirl de 14 ans fait tomber de l’arbre de douces et juteuses mangues près de Salitre, dans la province côtière Equatorienne de Guayas. 

A Time for Horses, A Time For Canoes

Flooded cattle plains near Salitre, in Ecuador’s coastal Guayas Province. For eight months of the year these grasslands teem with zebus watched over by many cowboys. Come the rains in January, and the men move the cattle to higher ground, leaving the savanna as a vast shallow lake covered in many places by water lilies. During four months, until the rains stop and the waters recede, the men will have to cook their own meals, for women and children will remain behind, now moving around by canoe. The seasonal effects on these lowland people and their landscape are stunning.

Honduras: Walking Home From School

Under the bright and heavy Roatan Island sun, off the coast of Honduras, two little girls plod wearily home from school under a vault of palm leaves.

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Sous le brillant et lourd soleil de l’île de Roatan, au large de la côte du Honduras, deux petites filles s’acheminent de l’école à leurs maisons sous une voûte de palmiers.

Bolivia: Selling Poultry On The Streets Of Sucre

The sale of these birds is all these Quechua women standing against a wall of Sucre’s market in Bolivia have to contribute to their family’s survival. And there are millions like them around the world. A reminder to be grateful for our own lives.

Brazil: Rio Negro Flood

Brazil’s Rio Negro, main tributary of the Amazon River, has flooded its banks, killing the forest and forcing families to move to their houseboats. The Rio Negro can rise as much as 14 meters.

Brazil: Red And White River In The Amazon

The Urucu River carries away the foam of its spectacular falls upstream. Its waters are reddish like tea because, when overflowing their banks, they infuse the forest’s dry leaves. They even taste like tea.

     The Amazon rain forest is not the Green Hell some explorers of old, in search of glory, would make people believe. At least not if you are not lost in it and losing your wits and your life.  It provides its Indians a happy and comfortable life working on average less than three hours a day.

     In fact, it is the world’s most beautiful garden. Photographing this river made me fantasize about floating down it on my back, as it seemed that it must lead to some terrestrial paradise.