Me? I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with photography (see previous post). I love a picture that captures the essence of a person or a place suspended in a particular moment, but I dislike carrying a camera on a trip, especially because I perceive it to be intrusive. In fact, I have few, if any photos, of most of my travels.
That’s why it’s good that there are people like Annie Griffiths Belt.
Griffiths Belt, one of the first female photographers at the National Geographic Society, didn’t own a camera until she was a 19 year old college student, but from the moment she picked up a camera, she writes in A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel: My Journey in Photographs, “I was a goner.”
A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel is the artist’s equivalent of a mid-career retrospective, with photographs from across the times and places that have marked the seminal points of Griffith Belt’s impressive career.
Much of that career, she has been accompanied by her husband, the writer Don Belt, and their two children, Lily and Charlie, and the book is as much a concise parenting manual for adults who love to travel and who share Griffith Belt’s belief that the institution of schools shouldn’t “get in the way of…education.”
Lily had traveled to 13 countries before she was even born, and Griffiths Belt expresses her gratitude and awe that her kids have become passionate multilingual travelers. One of the most moving photos in the collection is of her son resting beside two Bedouin men in Jordan. Charlie is wrapped in the crook of one man’s arm; his face is turned away from the men, but is illuminated by the sun and his own pure pleasure.
But A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel is even more than a career retrospective and parenting guide; it’s also a travelogue, coffee table book, essay on cultural understanding, and tip guide for photographers. Early in the book, when she’s describing the trajectory of her career, the reader feels as if she’s been let in on a delicious secret. Griffiths Belt’s descriptions of National Geographic meetings made me want to go bang on the Geographic’s door and beg for a job.
When she moves on to a discussion of her family’s life on the road, the text often reads like a letter from a family member. “We had quite a little celebration,” she writes about Lily’s and Charlie’s accomplishment of walking 100 miles around Jerusalem in the span of two months. Her writing isn’t dazzling, but it’s humble, honest, and true.
It’s also incredibly funny. She recalls an assignment on a ranch in the Midwest US. She awoke to a sunrise that had “ignited cornrows of luminous clouds over the horse pasture.” She grabbed her camera and ran outside, shooting passionately. It was only after she’d captured this fleeing moment that she realized she’d forgotten to put on any pants, and was photographing—in front of a line of cowboys—“in nothing more than… t-shirt and undies.”
As if all of these stories weren’t treat enough, A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel is incredibly relevant and timely, and the section about the Middle East is particularly moving, both in words and images. She describes Arab women as “some of the most misunderstood and misrepresented people on Earth,” and she helps build the reader’s understanding of Arab women and men by sharing the joys of her own experiences negotiating the diversity of Middle Eastern cultures and traditions. These are her best stories, and are among the many gifts she gives the reader.
I’m not convinced that the photos in A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel are Griffith Belt’s best. There are some photos whose selection is puzzling, including a two page, largely blurry spread of a baseball field. But I’m also not convinced that including the best was the point. Each of the photos evokes memories and stories about human connection.
Ultimately, it’s what’s outside the frame—the moment when she’s watching a lunar eclipse and listening to cowboy poetry—the stuff she can’t photograph—that’s important, both to Griffiths Belt and to the reader. Even she says so. It’s the “constant miracle of my work,” she writes, that people “allow me to be with them.”
Throughout the book, Griffiths Belt offers tips to photographers: Quickly assess and relate to others. Be patient. Learn to listen. Transform “no” to “yes” by seeing a denied request as a “creative challenge.” Give each subject “time and sincere attention.” Griffiths Belt clearly shows, both in her photographs and in her writing, that she’s mastered all of these skills. Far from viewing the camera as an intrusive instrument or a barrier, Griffiths Belt uses the camera as a passport, business card, and invitation, and she does so with extraordinary grace.
Photo: kkfea (creative commons)
