Dave Blumenkrantz: Photojournalism, Documentary, and Visual Communications Studies . . .

At the risk of sounding maudlin, I'd like to pay tribute to the remarkable character and sense of history displayed by a group of freedom fighters-turned-photographers. This past July, I spent three unforgettable weeks in the service of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), which just a year before had finally defeated the forces of Ethiopian colonialism, and was in the process of establishing itself as Africa's newest independent country. My assignment was to put together a three-week photography training course for the transitional government's Department of Information.

Having had just as little knowledge about Eritrea as most of the world, I had no way of knowing that the thirty or so individuals whom I was about to encounter would all be former "fighters," as they referred to themselves. Or that all of them had given the best years of their young lives to wage a selfless, patriotic struggle, in some of the most unforgiving terrain in the Horn of Africa. Moreover, I hadn't been told that the reason most of them had taken up photography was because they had suffered various injuries during skirmishes with Ethiopian forces.

It's necessary here to delve briefly and unromantically into the history of the Eritrean people's struggle:

After Turkish and Egyptian occupation, it was the Italians who finally brought the European-style colonialism familiar to Africa in this century, along with modern roads, towns, and cappuccino. World War II ended the Italian rule, if not the cultural influence, and the capital city Asmara became home to British "caretakers," who did what they did best before the Sun Finally Set. To make a long story short, divide and rule didn't work as well with the Eritreans as it had with others, and by the time the USA and Britain sold the Eritreans out to Ethiopia through the United Nations, a resistance movement was more than fledgling.

Why did they sell out Eritrea? The answer is depressingly simple: to appease Haile Selassie by granting him the entire Red Sea coast, which Eritrea encompasses. Sooner than later Ethiopia took this "federation" further, annexing their northernmost "province." Meanwhile the pleas for justice by the Eritreans went unheeded, and in 1961 a war of secession began that was to last thirty brutal years. Suffice to say that the Eritrean forces, including tens of thousands of determined women, were finally led to victory by the EPLF, after battling personnel and weaponry from such formidable and well-financed foes as a US-backed Selassie, and later a Soviet and Cuban-backed Mengistu.

Today the streets of Asmara are about as blissful as any in the world. And clean. And polite beyond words. There is an unmistakable and uplifting sense of pride and dignity in today's Eritrea, well deserved after the long struggle. This was the most pleasant and surprising thing about meeting the war photographers in Asmara. In passing, one would never realize that these friendly, outgoing people-- whose unwavering, affectionate camaraderie could only be borne of the closeness of years in struggle together-- were for 10-15 years, or longer, in the harshest field conditions imaginable. Or that everyone-- no exceptions here-- lost loved ones in battle.

Only a little more familiarity would reveal telltale signs-- the slight limp here, a gimpy arm there. One day Roma Abraha-- who married fellow photographer Michael Tesfalidet after they met, both in critical condition in a field hospital-- placed my fingers on the side of her skull where a large hole remained beneath her thick black hair. Then there was the time we traveled to the decimated Red Sea coastal port town of Massawa, and I spotted my friend Eyob's pistol, tucked away in his back pocket. When asked why, he showed his beautifully sad smile and said only, "it's mine." His gentle humility was in keeping with the general somberness and painful memories evoked by a burial ceremony we attended that day, the creation of a Patriot's Cemetery years after the fact.

Rosa Abraha and Fremenitos Stefanos
Photo by David Blumenkrantz

War is Hell, as they say, and the government photography archives in Asmara contain thousands of images of hell-- pictures photographed valiantly by the very people I was supposed to impart knowledge upon. Pictures that had cost some of their comrades their lives. The combined works of dozens of photographers have created a documentary that must rank among all the important war photography done in history. Yet like the country itself, the collection is sure to remain fairly obscure for years to come. Personally I was faced with a dilemma: what could I possibly teach these men and women about shooting in the field? In that context, I waged my own battle against our language differences, and limited the lectures to mainly technical discussions: better printing, how to avoid scratches on negatives (an epidemic problem), reducing grain through more careful developing, different cameras and lenses, and so on.

That was at least one area where I had more life experience. Much of their lack of photo quality could be attributed to a low, near non-existent budget. Their equipment was outdated, or simply old. Film was being developed without running water, as the photographers manually transferred water between a pair of large oil drums. What was lacking in education and technical finesse was more than compensated for in pure heart. The struggle continues, they say.