Hamar Men at Tribal Ceremony
Ethiopia 2013, Somewhere in the Omo Valley
Three Hamar men attend a ceremony celebrating a young man’s entry into the rank of warrior. The event is called a “bull jumping” and the candidate, who has been circumcised recently, must take a running jump and leap onto the backs of a group of cattle that are lined up side by side. He proceeds to run over the lot of them…maybe about ten in all…leap down and do the whole thing over again, four times in sequence. If he does not fall, he has passed the test.
These men could be relatives of the bull jumper. The man who is sitting holds a ‘switch’ as we called them in South Carolina: a thin, flexible section of a tree or bush. He may be what is called a “whipper” and he uses that switch on the backs of female relatives of the initiate. (More on this later.) The third man stares at the crowd below, posed perfectly against the sky.
To be honest, I don’t remember taking this photo, but I’m glad I did. I like the three men forming an arc. They are isolated and yet a group. One of my favorite photographers, David Vestal, wrote that practice at home allows us to shoot automatically when we find ourselves in an interesting situation. Through practice and studying photographers we admire, we program ourselves to see what makes a pleasing photo and our subconscious takes over. We react automatically when the time comes.
Read an article of David Vestal’s here:
http://phototechmag.com/when-in-doubt/