the first time I went to Swan idea I was
not planning on going this one idea I
wasn’t a photographer yet it was a
backpacker but this is the story that
made me a photographer I met a german
linguist who told me about a place where
people spoke a language that had never
been written that was surrounded by you
know 17 18 thousand foot peaks so this
german linguist drew a map on a napkin
for me and i transferred it into my
journal and I left the next day and on a
bus right into the mountains a woman
turned around me after about two hours
and said where are you going and I said
well I’m gonna camp when the bus stops
at the end of the road and she just
looked at me she said no hoko please
don’t do that and she took me with her
and she took me to a wedding and that
wedding was of the eldest daughter of
the family that ended up adopting me in
this region and they got me drunk and
made me dance and I woke up the next
morning in their home and they probably
felt some pity on me I thought we should
shelter this kid he doesn’t know what
he’s doing that started a three-year
relationship that’s now I guess a 16
year relationship now the National
Geographic sent me back
yeah my journals really are pretty
pedestrian at times I was a very young
they’re very embarrassing to read
sometimes but there are some things I
still really love in the journals
I wrote down recipes and I wrote down
vocabulary so I would have like daily
language lessons for myself and of
course the songs I wrote down all the
songs but I saw the potential for a
story that was a little bit more like
poetry that was revealed more about the
soul of the people and the space
and it was that third year that I
returned specifically to try to make a
story with pictures and that became my
first other story that was some of my
first rolls of film but it’s the first
story that made me fall in love like
with a people with a place that really
is what it is like this story made me
fall in love with a whole community it
was imagery of that family that family
is central to all of those early trips
and the photographs they were beautiful
people that were musical and the home
was filled with song all the time I
would wake up to singing I would go to
bed to the family singing together and
from the very first trip they taught me
their sons and I remembered those songs
when I came back 13 years later the
songs are about heroes and about love
and about your friends having your back
all the things that good country songs
are about the reunion with my adopted
family was a little embarrassing because
a Georgian television crew followed me
and I told me I had to stay back at the
gate it was really emotional for me you
know and I saw my my mother from that
family new-new and I went to her and I
hugged her and it just made me start
weeping like the songs that were really
buried in me that that just came out
like I I love this woman and that came
out when I saw her and when I held her
and it was exciting to see them and it
was confusing to see them and how do you
restart a relationship after 13 years
but the fact that they wanted to bring
me in again that they had not forgotten
me that
they still thought of me in that way was
very moving to me and they did they they
took me in again I don’t Sheila Dikshit
red tongue so I found these I found all
the families again I sat down with them
again sang with them again and talked to
them about their lives and the old men
still play chess in the backyard in the
same spot and the girls the whole family
still sings in the kitchen and there are
some of those things that just never
change and and I found a lot of those
again
and there were other scenes that I found
that weren’t necessarily literally the
person in the same place but I found the
same scenes again I found the dancers
and the traditional singers and it
brought back that memory of those first
images and when I see them together side
by side like I see what has survived
these stories are not just about making
pretty frames we we tell the stories of
entire peoples so if we do this story
right we preserve those things you know
and that’s what our job is to preserve
that poetry so many people that have
never heard of Swan Eddie o or this
region of the Georgian Republic or where
these people this one’s this may be the
only thing they ever read about these
people and I think that’s what I look
for now in all of my projects is can I
can I keep finding that can I keep
carrying that much
not planning on going this one idea I
wasn’t a photographer yet it was a
backpacker but this is the story that
made me a photographer I met a german
linguist who told me about a place where
people spoke a language that had never
been written that was surrounded by you
know 17 18 thousand foot peaks so this
german linguist drew a map on a napkin
for me and i transferred it into my
journal and I left the next day and on a
bus right into the mountains a woman
turned around me after about two hours
and said where are you going and I said
well I’m gonna camp when the bus stops
at the end of the road and she just
looked at me she said no hoko please
don’t do that and she took me with her
and she took me to a wedding and that
wedding was of the eldest daughter of
the family that ended up adopting me in
this region and they got me drunk and
made me dance and I woke up the next
morning in their home and they probably
felt some pity on me I thought we should
shelter this kid he doesn’t know what
he’s doing that started a three-year
relationship that’s now I guess a 16
year relationship now the National
Geographic sent me back
yeah my journals really are pretty
pedestrian at times I was a very young
they’re very embarrassing to read
sometimes but there are some things I
still really love in the journals
I wrote down recipes and I wrote down
vocabulary so I would have like daily
language lessons for myself and of
course the songs I wrote down all the
songs but I saw the potential for a
story that was a little bit more like
poetry that was revealed more about the
soul of the people and the space
and it was that third year that I
returned specifically to try to make a
story with pictures and that became my
first other story that was some of my
first rolls of film but it’s the first
story that made me fall in love like
with a people with a place that really
is what it is like this story made me
fall in love with a whole community it
was imagery of that family that family
is central to all of those early trips
and the photographs they were beautiful
people that were musical and the home
was filled with song all the time I
would wake up to singing I would go to
bed to the family singing together and
from the very first trip they taught me
their sons and I remembered those songs
when I came back 13 years later the
songs are about heroes and about love
and about your friends having your back
all the things that good country songs
are about the reunion with my adopted
family was a little embarrassing because
a Georgian television crew followed me
and I told me I had to stay back at the
gate it was really emotional for me you
know and I saw my my mother from that
family new-new and I went to her and I
hugged her and it just made me start
weeping like the songs that were really
buried in me that that just came out
like I I love this woman and that came
out when I saw her and when I held her
and it was exciting to see them and it
was confusing to see them and how do you
restart a relationship after 13 years
but the fact that they wanted to bring
me in again that they had not forgotten
me that
they still thought of me in that way was
very moving to me and they did they they
took me in again I don’t Sheila Dikshit
red tongue so I found these I found all
the families again I sat down with them
again sang with them again and talked to
them about their lives and the old men
still play chess in the backyard in the
same spot and the girls the whole family
still sings in the kitchen and there are
some of those things that just never
change and and I found a lot of those
again
and there were other scenes that I found
that weren’t necessarily literally the
person in the same place but I found the
same scenes again I found the dancers
and the traditional singers and it
brought back that memory of those first
images and when I see them together side
by side like I see what has survived
these stories are not just about making
pretty frames we we tell the stories of
entire peoples so if we do this story
right we preserve those things you know
and that’s what our job is to preserve
that poetry so many people that have
never heard of Swan Eddie o or this
region of the Georgian Republic or where
these people this one’s this may be the
only thing they ever read about these
people and I think that’s what I look
for now in all of my projects is can I
can I keep finding that can I keep
carrying that much
Please follow and like us: