Bad Photos, Moments of Resistance

During our fieldwork among Evenki we had an interesting problem. There were moments that we desperately wanted to document and make a photo, because we knew in advance that we will write something about them and it would be nice to have a picture to put into text as illustration. But we constantly failed to make such pictures. For example, every morning in the Evenki camp started with sprinkling fresh tea into the fire. I planned to make a picture of this everyday ceremony for almost a month, and although I got the opportunity to make it every day, I never managed. Somehow, this simple act was to such an extent part of awakening process of the whole family including us that I was never prepared to use a camera. I lived in a same rhythm with other members and never could step outside this flow to document it. I always remembered about the camera, when the ceremony was already in progress. It was systematically unremarkable event, routine and not pompous at all. Finally, once the same ritual was conducted for other purposes and in other time. But now this was not about starting a day, the same sequence of actions was conducted before sending hunters on their trip. So although, actions were the same but surrounding elements differed, the context was different. The light was bright and the contrast of the picture was harsh. No any trait of those mystic twilights in which this was usually done in the morning. There was snow melting on the stove, when usually there is a pot there in the morning. It was already warm, and you cannot see the stiff figure of the praying woman. From this photo you do not have the impression of how cold it is in the morning, how anticipated is this fresh warm tea is. So on a close inspection, although this photo provides all the formal resemblance with what I intended to document, it showed a totally different mood. And was a bad photo, a wrong one. Perhaps, sometimes we need to accept that some moments are impossible to make a photo about. ‘Reality’ shows its resistance.