Phil Ottum's blog

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

We were recently asked to create a large-scale permanent photography collection for the gallery attached to our Portland Action Center. This image by Thatcher Cook was one of the selections. There are several in the series of this woman in Ethiopia, but this one struck me right away because of the angle of her face. Her name is Khadija Ali, 45, and she lives in the Addis Alem neighborhood of Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. She was the recipient of a loan to rehabilitate her house. The house is tiny - basically just one room with a single door and window - but the pride her upturned chin and her posture display is engaging. It's as if she's saying “Yes, this is my wonderful house, take a good look ... isn’t it fantastic?” Here’s what Thatcher remembers about his time with her:

“I remember making this photo well ... after Roger (Burks) interviewed her, I went inside her home and used the window and the door as a light source. She initially faced the light and then moved her head away from the light and that’s when I snapped this frame. I had made versions of her looking towards the light, but I was struck by the partial silhouette and the green palette — a very beautiful environment indeed. (I was especially drawn to the red!)”

The colors work so well in this image. Note the soft blue-green of the shutter and hutch in the background in concert with the green of the walls and her headscarf.

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This intriguing image is part of the work that Cassandra Nelson brought back from her recent MC assessment trip to Libya and Egypt. It was taken in Cairo while visiting a Coptic Christian community in El Makattam Hill.

Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

The residents make a meagre living sorting through garbage for recyclables. She’s captured a moment that’s an appealing combination of composition, background, and expression and almost appears staged. It isn’t. Cassandra rounded a corner and found these two as you see them.

One of Cassandra's talents as a photographer is the ability to disarm subjects and elicit open and honest reactions. This is a first-rate example. The centerpiece of the frame is the oddly mature looking baby perched like an adult in his full-sized chair. The wall with its saturated colours and partial script is a photograph all its own…particularly the upper right hand quadrant. It takes the eye from a rusty switch whose wire trails upward across the portrait of Jesus to that lethal looking jumble of ancient wiring in the junction box and on to who knows where inside the building.

Cassandra will be showing her work and talking about her experiences in Libya and Egypt at the Mercy Corps Portland Action Centre, at 7pm, Wednesday, May 1st.

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Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

Photographer Miguel Samper recently visited headquarters to give a workshop for Mercy Corps staff. Miguel continues to be one of our most trusted photographers and always provides us with images we are able to use in a wide variety of ways.

His visit offered me the opportunity to sit down with him and look as some of his work in our library. I’m attracted to the quiet, still life images he creates while working with our beneficiaries. Miguel is able to organize a wide variety of visual elements within the frame. The result is often an image I can return to several times before I see everything that’s been included.

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Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

I'm often attracted to photographs that have an air of mystery — images that pose a question and encourage the viewer to fill in the blanks. Because children are so naturally gregarious, my curiosity is piqued by this solitary little girl in pink. What's motivated her to sit quietly and alone by a river in Jakarta? Her body language seems neither happy nor sad, just contemplative. Thatcher Cook took this intriguing image when he traveled for us to Indonesia in August of 2009. Here's what he says about it:

"It was a hot day and I sat with some old men and smiled and made hand-gestured small talk with them. This little girl came and sat in front of us and I decided to make some photographs of her with the numbers in the background. She was this sweet little pink and white angel in a city neighborhood. The numbers are for a fishing derby that happens in the Krukut river. I was reacting to the soft colours of her outfit and the juxtaposition of the heat and the old men. I also remember many boys playing an aggressive version of marbles. I photographed them as well — but it was this little girl who sat in the middle of the activity that was the winning image for me."

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Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Cassandra Nelson has helped tell Mercy Corps' story with photographs and video for eight years. Her work is the backbone of our photo library — more than 9,000 of the archive's 60,000 assets are hers. She has been on the ground for virtually every emergency we've responded to during that time and she's covered most of our programmes worldwide. She was part of our first-responder team after the Haiti earthquake and supplied moving images of Mercy Corps' early relief effort there.

This touching image is from Twic County, South Sudan in 2005 when 150 abducted slaves were freed and reunited with their families after 17 years of separation. The emotion of pure joy in the photograph is compelling. Here are Cassandra's recollections of the trip and this moment:

We received word from the UN that there was a group of slaves who were being repatriated from the north, back home to Turalay in South Sudan. At the time I was in Wunrock, South Sudan with Mercy Corps. We decided to go meet the families that were being reunited because part of Mercy Corps' work in South Sudan was to work with war-affected youths and help to reintegrate them into their communities. It took us the better part of a day driving on one of the areas very few roads to reach Turalay. It was incredibly hot — well over 100 degrees and no shade.. just a lot of dust.

"When we reached the village, the returnees had not yet arrived. I spent an hour talking with the grandmother of some of the children who were being freed. She told me that she had never met the children — they were born in captivity in the North. Her son, had been taken as a slave when he was a young man. He was walking to a nearby village to go to the market and he never came home. It had been 17 years since she last saw her son. She was not at all certain that he would really be coming home that day. She was very excited, but also afraid in case the reunion did not really take place.

When the truck with the freed slaves arrived the grandmother stood back. She didn't rush to see if her son and grand children were there. She just watched and held her breath. Then suddenly she ran across the compound calling out their names at the top of her voice. When the children saw her they ran towards her. I remember thinking it was amazing that they met as if they had known each other for a long time...but this was the first time they had every seen one another. It was beautiful — almost like a scene out of movie. The dust and the heat melted away and all you could see was this amazing joy and love."

By the way, a few more of Cassandra's images are featured in this month's Portland Monthly magazine.

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When we receive pro bono work from photographers it's particularly gratifying. As a contribution to the organisation, this visual philanthropy is invaluable.

Recently, for example, I was contacted by local photographer, Lloyd Smith, who had just returned from Haiti. He offered us several hundred beautiful portraits from his trip. One of them became the cover of a book we recently published called "Notes from the Field: Haiti After the Earthquake". Since I've been here, image contributions have come from noted photojournalist, James Nachtwey and from humanitarian photographer, Nancy Farese, who has mounted two pro bono trips for us: to Liberia and to Haiti.

We've also received contributed work from Portland photographers — Craig Alness, Juan-Carlos Delgado and Joni Kabana. Joni has been a particularly good friend to Mercy Corps for several years and has donated a wide variety of large format prints that we've used to augment our permanent photography collection on the walls here at headquarters.

Photo: Joni Kabana for Mercy Corps

This image at right is from India in 2008, when she accompanied a Mercy Corps Phoenix Fund trip. I've always been intrigued by the way the boy's hand rests on his chest — it looks spontaneous and genuine. As it turns out, that was precisely the case. Here's what Joni says about it:

I asked if I could go to the lowest caste neighborhoods, and it took quite a bit of persistency to get someone to take me there. What I found was a tight camaraderie and loving encouragement of one another. Rarely does a foreigner come to these neighborhoods, and their excitement was fast and genuine. They showed me where they lived, tiny things they were proud of, such as a torn page from a magazine.

"I let them use my cameras and their hands shook as they held the devices. I was struck by how much feeling they could express from their eyes. The culture felt pure to me. Yes, they are ostracized and live in the slums. But this seemed to only intensify their spirit.

"This boy watched me photograph the more jovial and outwardly extending girls. He stood by shyly, taking it all in. I knew he was near me and I could feel all of his curiosity that he politely kept at bay. When I finally asked him to sit for a photograph, he had a catch in his breath and he sighed as he put his hand on his chest. It felt like we both got exactly what we were looking for, at the same moment. It made me cry. Of course they all laughed at this.

"Ever since I photographed him, I now use more hands in photos as I believe they tell another part of the story. Our hands reach out, and it feels like a connector or bridge across the cultures, blending our common stance as simply being human.

"The boy's name is Gunaratna or 'Jewel of Virtue.'"

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Photo: Kaarli Sundsmo for Mercy Corps

Staff members send me photos they've come across pretty regularly. The special ones I call "Easter eggs" because they're such a pleasant discovery.

This image from Uganda taken at a Mercy Corps Cash-for-Work site is a perfect example. Staffer Nate Oetting emailed it to me a few months ago and said it was taken by Kaarli Sundsmo, an employee of project funder USAID. I like the dreamy, painterly quality of the image. The composition is unorthodox and even a bit cluttered, but it's held together by the fact that everything is out of focus except the two workers in the foreground. Another component of the photograph's visual interest is the way the curves of the digging tools are sympathetic with the curves of the horizon line.

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Photo: Jenny Bussey Vaughan/Mercy Corps

A couple of years ago, someone mentioned that I should look at the photography of Mercy Corps staffer, Jenny Bussey Vaughan. At the time she was working in Central African Republic. The disc of images I received was filled with excellent work.

Since then we’ve used her photographs in a variety of ways (two are included in the permanent collection here at headquarters). She mixes beautiful portraiture with evocative detail shots. Jenny’s sense of the moment and use of light is consistently strong.

This photograph feels like her take on Grant Wood’s "American Gothic" from half a world away. The resolute grip this boy has on his simple bent rake draws me into the frame.

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Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

I look at hundreds of images each week. Many of them are beautiful and noteworthy, but a few stick in my mind. Often, the ones I remember don’t have an obvious use in our publications or on our website, but they are visually dynamic nonetheless. This image by Miguel Samper is a good example. Miguel has traveled for us to Colombia, Sudan, Pakistan, and Haiti. His work's been a staple in our photo library since 2007.

This photograph is from Afghanistan in 2008. The woman’s hurried gait is exaggerated by the camera’s motion and I can’t help but wonder what’s on her mind and where she’s going with such purpose and concentration.

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