SHOOTING FROM THE HIPS (20.02.12)

© Reto Albertalli / phovea

I saw her coming from far. I was on a bridge letting my young students take pictures of the Kabul River. She saw us too, visibly perturbed by the cameras, and wanted to change sidewalk. But it mustn't be easy walking on ice, carrying a child and not seeing much from under that burka. People here don't want you to take photos of women. And I was surrounded by scarfed men I was portraying. I knew her coming and got competely focused. Pointed my camera in her direction from the height of my hips. Positioned myself in space trying to imagine the trajectory, the distance... never looking at her, and shot. Now the outcome is not exactyl how I would have done watching through the viewfinder. And that makes the image a stranger to me. As someone else took her. I look at this and I am impressed by this kind of evel sculpture, kind of floating Dark Vader... hiding nothing else than a mother carrying her child in a cold winter day. It makes me think. I wish I could have a better access to people's lives, for images about the gap between private and public here...