“PAIN & BEAUTY”
Globalization has sped up. We are witnesses to its breathtaking progression and impact. Distressingly, people living in extreme poverty are experiencing new challenges. Over the last six years, Schlegel has seen many changes in the people groups he photographs.
In the case of the Karo of Ethiopia, the construction of a new road and the government and travel industry’s promotion of “tribe tourism” are behind these changes. The tribe’s traditional lifestyle is succumbing to Western, consumer influences marked by the presence of Beyonce blaring from the boom-box and Coca-Cola for sale. The Karo make small sums from selling refreshments and posing for quickly composed snapshots, but it is really the travel agencies who are making big bucks by exploiting the tribe’s openness to visitors and inability to develop other industries.
Potential benefits of globalization are not part of the package for the villagers. The tourists move on to their itinerary’s next stop, most likely leaving nothing of significant development value behind and learning nothing of superstitious practices that should be confronted with education. If globalization could do anything positive for the Karo, it would be helping them abandon mingi. Their belief in this centuries-old curse results in infanticide, with babies thrown into the Omo River for the crocodiles. Approximately 70 Karo children die every year due to mingi. The Karo are only one example. The other people groups depicted also face their own battles.
Fighting the failures of globalization, Schlegel focuses on the person, not the environment or circumstance in which they live. The body decoration and dress seen on the individuals are the authentic, yet threatened, expressions of their culture. Although some of the faces are smiling, many are marked by pain and hopelessness. You see the people as they really are, raw and real. The beauty of these people is clear and undeniable. Each one of them is unique, important, and amazing the way they are. Their fate is unknown, but Schlegel preserves their existence with his portraits.
The project is not finished. Schlegel plans to continue artistically documenting the cultural uniqueness of other people groups in Africa and Asia. In the near future is is planning to visit some of the indiginouse tribes of the Amazonas Region. However, the homogenizing effect of globalization still races ahead.
THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Jan C. Schlegel (1965) was born in the Black Forest of Germany. He discovered his passion for photography at the age of 14. From the influence and counsel of Walter Schels and Toni Schneiders, he began to ascertain his fervor for black-and-white portraits. At 18 he was professionally trained in photography. In 1998, he began traveling throughout Asia and Africa with the objective of photographing diverse people groups and tribes. Through these experiences, he developed a striking style of capturing the beauty in these nations.
Schlegel not only succeeds in creating artistic photographs, but also in documenting and preserving unique artworks - the people themselves. Although some of the faces are smiling, most are marked by pain, dolor, and hopelessness. None of the people photographed wear special make-up or were specially dressed before the photos were taken. They were all captured in their own habitat — at the market, in the village square, or simply on the roadside. Schlegel focuses on the person, not the environment or circumstance in which they live.
Nothing was staged, nothing is fake. You see the people as they really are, raw and real. But most importantly, clear and un-ignorable, is the beauty of these people. Each one of them is unique, precious and irreplaceable.
Each viewing becomes a jewel, evoking the beholder’s emotions in a way that goes beyond the bare pleasure of arts – these are not pictures of people, but pictures about people.
The viewer has the opportunity to encounter foreign cultures and to gain insight on the realities of these people. The picture’s compositions, the highly-contrasted play of light and shadow, the inner dynamics and the extraordinary perspectives, open a crack in the door of secret-treasures of this world that are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Schlegel takes part in the race against globalization, fighting against that which threatens to change these cultures and rob them of their distinctiveness and individualism.
Schlegel works for the University of the Nations. He teaches courses in photography and takes students through Africa and Asia, mentoring them as they discover their own way of seeing. Thus far, Schlegel has traveled to 61 countries and is still in pursuit of the beauty and diversity of the nations.
TECHNICAL BACKROUND
The black and white photographs from Jan C. Schlegel are taken with a 4x5 field camera (Ebony SV45 Ti) on traditional film (Kodak Tmax). The Negatives are developed in
Kodak D76 Developer 1+1 dilution.
To enhance shadow detail and the appearance of sharpness, each Negative is sandwiched with an manually made unsharp mask.
Nothing is digitally edited, and the pictures are enlarged on fiber base photographic paper (Adox Vario Classic FB).
Afterwards each photographic print is partly toned (Schlegel’s own mixture) in order to give each picture its special inner dynamics and depth. Often this process takes several hours and turns out differently with each picture. This way each picture is unique.
To finish the process, each picture is Selen toned which guarantees its maximum life.
The pictures are mounted on achievable cotton board.
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