The Sound of Divinity, Shamli District, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2016

The Sound of Divinity II from Halim Ina on Vimeo.

Last week I presented my work from India at the doctor conference in Huntington Beach, California. The scene was as removed from my past two months in India as possible, with priceless homes lining the streets across the beach. The collective wealth in the room was unimaginable, and gave me further inspiration in presenting the story.

Usually such talks make me nervous, but a calm came over me as the first slide was projected. My mind was still with the girls in the villages. As the slides continued, the silence in the room became more intense. The mood was perfect as the slide of this young girl arrived, and she began singing. Here she was, thousands of miles away from her village, expressing herself perfectly to an enchanted audience.

I glanced at the faces now and then, only to find them speechless. Before the presentation, I thought it perhaps too much to include a two minute performance within a 15 minute presentation. Last night as we talked about the presentation, the supporting staff at the company told me over and over again to just show it.... they wanted to see the girls in more than two dimensions. So the video played, and their eyes and ears took it all in.

It was quite beautiful. After the presentation many came forward to express their sincere satisfaction. My hope is that tonight and this weekend, the snowball will continue to roll down the mountain and the talk will turn into action for her sake, and for the sake of her sisters in India!

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Note: Above is her portrait from the previous year, made with a Sony RX100M2. When watching the video, please make sure to enjoy it in HD!

Barber, Muş, Turkey, May 22, 2013

On my first visit to the wonderful city of Muş I walked around a bit and photographed some of the local businesses. The man above owned a shop across the street from the mosque and invited us in for tea while working. He was kind enough to allow me to document his craft while serving us with the famous Turkish tea.

The space was small but comfortable and we worked for perhaps twenty or so minutes before moving on up the street to find more faces to document. The pace of his work was incredibly fast while his cuts were most precise.

When I returned to Muş due to the protests happening in the western parts of Turkey, we seemed to run into each other almost every day. Whether this happened while I was having breakfast with a friend or discovering various hidden parts of the old city, he would always smile and wave as he walked by us. The people around me would always be surprised in that people had come to know me in such a small period of time. I found it an honor to be recognized and to have been accepted with such kindness.

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Halim Ina Photography

Young Girl, Corn, Konso Tribe, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, February, 2010

She sat down on a small stool provided to us by the community. Perhaps over sixty people were standing less than four meters to her right, and twenty or so to her left. Their shadows would sometimes enter the frame, giving us pause until we could reorganize the scene once again.

Chaos it was since this was one of our first villages together, and the sound was almost deafening. The fact that the spoken language was unusable to me anyway made the situation more workable. In order to help the children feel comfortable and at ease, hand gestures would be used along with a smile. Running around to organize the scene like a fool helped a bit also, even though organization was the last effect of my actions.

In the end we made wonderful portraits in an open space, a place to which the community took us when asked about such an area. In this village the spaces are so tight that one needs to be careful about walking into sharp, hard and seemingly chaotic branches that make up the houses and fences. All of the children were running past me so quickly while I walked at a snail's pace to make sure my eyes remain intact. It was incredible, the energy.

The space was beautiful, open to the rising sun and with trees all around. The community shared with us a stool on which the people would sit for their portraits. One by one they came, some voluntarily and some at my request, some more shy than others.

She was sweet, and thought that we'd want to make a portrait of her without the goods that she was carrying. To her surprise we wanted both and this made her smile the entire time. Environmental portraits are usually outside of my work, but had been included more so in the past. I am now returning to this approach and will do more of these portraits in the near future.

When every person was finished with the portrait, I walked over to them to help them up and to also shake their hands. In this way their skin touched my skin, and when I do so in India or in Cuba that energy will be transferred to yet another developing experience. When I tell the children this in almost every single case they smile.

According to Wikipedia:

The Konso mainly reside in Ethiopia's Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, south of Lake Chamo in the Sagan River bend.
Although there are today marked differences in customs between the Konso and their Oromo neighbors, Konso society has also retained some commonalities with traditional Oromo culture. The latter include the gadaa generation-grading system of social organization, similar high priests and a cult of phallicism.

Konso society is largely agricultural and involves the irrigation and terracing of mountain slopes. Staple crops include sorghum and corn, with cash crops including cotton and coffee. Cattle, sheep, and goats are raised for food and milk.

Polygyny is an accepted practice among the Konso.

Group members also erect carvings (wagas), which are created in memory of a dead man who has killed an enemy or animal. The statues are often arranged in groups, with statues representing the man, his wives, and his adversaries present.

In terms of creed, the Konso practice a traditional religion centered on the worship of Waaq/Wakh. In the related Oromo culture, Waaq denotes the single god of the early pre-Abrahamic, montheistic faith believed to have been adhered to by Cushitic groups.

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Halim Ina Photography

Printing Mariel, Darkroom, Cleveland Heights, December 1, 2012

Starting late this morning made me think very little would be printed in the darkroom. Rather than working between various projects, concentrating on my latest collaboration with Mariel seemed appropriate since yesterday was spent in the same manner. The negatives were still laid out on my desk and the proofs were on the screen for easy reference.

My time with Mariel at El Mirage Dry Lake Bed will be for another posting, for this deals with the process of printing her negatives earlier today. Earlier in the week we exchanged a few messages and got an idea of which images were to be selected according to our preferences. The image shown above was one such selection.

Before this negative was printed three others were processed, taking me to nearly 6:00 pm and a little later than my usual to print any more for the afternoon. Since I started a bit later today it seemed only right to print one more negative. I sat in front of the computer screen and went back and forth, finally selecting the negative shown printed above.

While most negatives are printed without cropping, something inside of me pushed me to crop this image considerably. Before doing so I checked the image sharpness with loupes and confirmed that such could be done without compromising the quality of the final product. The negative was placed in the negative holder, and the enlarger head was raised to achieve the proper image size.

A few minutes later it was clear that an exposure of nearly four minutes would be needed for this negative, complicated by the distance from the easel. In addition a considerable amount of burning would be necessary to calm the highlights down on the left cheek and forehead areas, adding almost three more minutes to the process. The chemicals had 'matured' nicely and would be different tomorrow morning, so I pressed on.

A little bit of dodging the background areas, burning the highlights on the skin, an overall exposure of seven minutes later produced an exquisite print by my standards of course. I decided to go ahead and print nine more for the evening, and made a quick snapshot of the final two prints right before they were removed from the fixer. At this moment they are washing for the next hour in an archival print washer, and will be laid on screens to dry overnight for viewing tomorrow morning.

Overall two hours were spent printing this negative, with ten prints to show for the effort. Many will wonder as to my reasons for using film, and the printing of that film in the darkroom. For the sake of clarification there are those performing much more complicated printing processes relating to photography to make my process seem so simple. The question usually arises in comparison to the digital process, and with this in mind the question is framed.

For me personally, I am in love with the process, the idea that the reflection from a person's skin moves through a series of glass elements, lands on a light sensitive film, processed to permanence through a chemical process, placed in an enlarger that acts as a camera in reverse depositing the negative image on a light sensitive paper, then processed to permanence through a similar chemical process to achieve a print that we will hold in our hands, and frame for those generations in the future to witness.

The details flow from one to another without steps, from one piece of grain to another. There is something magical about this, as my loupes show me every single time I view a negative prior to its printing in the darkroom. Soon Mariel will have this print in her hands, and we shall celebrate.

halim.ina@gmail.com
Halim Ina Photography