Photographing Monrovia

I was very moved by an ode to the photographer Ara Guler by Orhan Pamuk  in The New York Times: ‘I Like Your Photographs Because They Are Beautiful’. Orhan Pamuk explains that Ara Guler 's photographs showed him Istanbul's working class peoples, not just the tourist spots: 

Ara’s attentiveness to the inhabitants of Istanbul’s back streets — the fishermen sitting in coffee shops and mending their nets, the unemployed men getting inebriated in taverns, the children patching up car tires in the shadow of the city’s crumbling ancient walls, the construction crews, the railway workers, the boatmen pulling at their oars to ferry city folk from one shore of the Golden Horn to the other, the fruit sellers pushing their handcarts, the people milling about at dawn waiting for the Galata Bridge to open, the early-morning minibus drivers — is evidence of how he always expressed his attachment to the city through the people who live in it.

Pamuk also writes about the pain of Ara Guler as an Armenian. All in all it was a beautiful tribute by the world renowned Turkish writer for a photographer who captured his city and, who was also betrayed by modern Turkey. 

I felt inspired by the piece and, tried some different photography during this evening's walk and, hope to capture more of the people of Monrovia rather than just buildings and structures. 

At the start of our walk, we ran into our good friend Luca. Bijli went crazy and started jumping all over him. Still he posed for a photograph, crouching on his knees for a shot with Bijli and Kavita on Randall Street. 

Central Monrovia is very compact. The streets are marked by all the wares and goods that are displayed on the pavements, on the ground, outside the shops, in wheelbarrows, in buckets on swaying heads. 

It also very colourful, layers and layers of peeling paint under each other, on buildings. Shop signs and images painted on iron gates are also very striking.

I stood on the corner of Carey Street to see if I could recreate the photograph I took a couple of years ago which I was proud of but there weren't enough keke around. 

One of the favourite photographs from this walk are the old lady walking up the street, right outside the mosque on Benson Street. Then, there's one with 3 market women, 2 sitting down and one bending down, heads together, for a talk.  That's on the corner of Benson and Mechlin streets. I saw a boy plaiting his sister's hair and, when I noticed he got very shy and hid himself. The sister though posed for a photo with Kavita. Another boy eagerly ran up to me and insisted to take a photo with Bijli and Kavita. It was a full moon tonight so I got some shots of the moon rising above the gas station on corner of UN drive and Newport Street. 

On the way back, I got a shot of a fellows playing checkers, but only showing the board and the finger of the players. 

Most of these photographs were taken by a Fujifilm camera and, a few with my old Samsung smartphone.