Collectable prints

Artisanal Miners of West Africa

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An occupation/ way of life that won’t be around in the years to come.  People mining using sixteenth century technology and incredibly demanding work.

We ended up sacking our guide and driver after four days as he was petrified at the risk of being killed and insisted we have a police escort at every site we visited.  While we could understand the logic behind his concerns the people are among the most friendly I have met anywhere in the world.  The risk was there but a manageable one.  It stemmed from the fact that these people are among the most poor and hard working in the world and literally earn only their food and keep unless they find gold.  Cameras obviously quite valuable and he was also concerned because some of the people take drugs and alcohol to help them get over the fear of the work they do.

Many work underground in shafts that run thirty and forty and seventy metres straight down.  Just getting to the bottom of the shaft is incredibly dangerous and then they have to spend their entire days chiselling out ore in the hope that it will contain enough gold to help them push their aspirations in life.  The drugs and the alcohol come into the equation to give them the Dutch courage to overcome their fears, step over the hole and then climb down the mine shaft.

Our new driver and guide were excellent and the entire vibe of the trip changed.  Yesterday I did one of the most nerve-wracking things I have ever done.  I’d shot pretty much the entire value chain of the lifestyles these guys lead but had not shot them underground actually ripping the ore out of the ground.  Had been mulling over the possibility since before I left Australia and had vacillated between too dangerous and then that I must do it to complete the collection of images I’d built.

So after much discussion in the vehicle on the drive to our last site yesterday I decided to give it a crack.  We stopped at a market beside the road and picked up the thickest rope we could find and then headed to the site.  The nerves had calmed a little and we worked hard on covering off the risk assessment.  Key risks were: (a) falling down the shaft; (b) ventilation; and, (c) using electronic flash in the event of noxious gases.  The gas risk was the one I was probably worried about most as it’s not uncommon for miners in these places to die from methane and monoxide inhalation.  I’d heard a story of about thirty being killed at one site earlier in the year.

The falling risk was the one that gave me the greatest fear, though I think it was more a perceived risk than a real one I think in the end.  Get it wrong and it was a fall of thirty two metres to the bottom of the shaft.  Not a good way of remaining in the land of the living.  The fear in actually lowering oneself into the shaft was incredible but the logical side of my brain (logic and actual fear are two very different things!) figured the risk was minimal given the rope and the set-up we’d worked out.  Miners lower themselves to the bottom of the shaft via footholds chiselled into the sides of the shaft and have a bit of rope in the middle to steady themselves.  One mistake by these guys and they’re gone.  It turned out not to be that difficult climbing down, though the legs went to jelly and were shaking violently for both the ascent and descent.  It was amazing to see the space and conditions down hole that these guys work in.  Unbelievable and it just enhanced the enormous respect I already held for these people.

Finally getting out of the hole was an amazing experience also.  The entire site had downed tools to see some stupid white bloke climb down one of their shafts.  It was as if I’d joined some brotherhood by experiencing what it was they do and I felt an enormous connection with them all on climbing out.  Josh, my cameraman, described it as the most out there thing he’d ever filmed.

As it turned out the photos were pretty average.  The radio transmitter that I had rigged up for sound at the top interfered with my flash transmitters and it took me about five minutes to eventually work out that it was that that was causing my flash to fire unprompted.  The temperature down hole was well over fifty degrees and I came out with my clothes dripping wet.  Also made it incredibly difficult to stop the lenses from fogging up.  One of the most intense experiences I have ever had and will remain with me for the rest of my life.

We think we’ve got some pretty good and unique footage from the trip and now the next step is to turn it into something good for the documentary that it was shot for.  It’s been one of the greatest privileges I’ve had in my photographic work being able to connect with these people to some degree and experience some of the warmest and most genuine people I’ve ever met.

About Hugh Brown Collectable prints

In recent years, I have tried to focus on those aspects of the world that are disappearing and undergoing rapid change.  Landscapes, occupations, peoples, cultures and towns are but some examples.

To date I’ve produced four photographic coffee table books.  Each of these sold out reasonably quickly but most significantly for me, they now stand as a photographic record of places at a time in Western Australia’s history.  Already many of the people photographed have passed on and landscapes and industries have disappeared.

In 2003 I spent three weeks on the Kimberley Coast documenting the operations of one of Australia’s largest pearling companies.  Then no-one could ever have thought that pearling would all but disappear along the Kimberley Coast.  A victim of rising labour costs, disease and cheap imports from Indonesia.

As pearling disappeared, mining flourished.  I was fortunate to document the emergence of China and the mining boom.  Back then geologists said to me on numerous occasions that a person were extremely lucky if they could say one of the companies they’d worked with had made the transition from exploration to production.

I’ve been documenting the Pilbara since the arrival of the early drill-rigs, the huge equipment transported to and from the region and some of the world’s largest mines.

I was perhaps the only photographer to document the Pilbara at the peak of the global financial meltdown.  A time when entire mines were shut down and ports were empty or ships were not being loaded.

I’ve continued to photograph the changing fabric of Western and Outback Australia. The desire to document history makes up a large part of who I am and what I do.

Three years ago I photographed one of Northern Australia’s most famous bull-catchers in the far North Kimberley.  I pulled together the entire town of Nullagine for a group photograph in 2008 and, soon after, I pulled together the last eight residents of Wittenoom for perhaps the last group photo of the people left in that town.

Through all of this I’ve also continued to photograph Australia’s Outback characters and to take down small parts of their stories.  It’s important to me that at least some of photos and the incredible and colourful stories of these people be recorded before they pass away.  This is a lifelong project and each time I travel I run at least one or two or three interviews and photo sessions.

I’ve also sought to focus on rare events.  Two years ago I travelled to Birdsville in the Queensland Channel Country to photograph the mass pelican migration brought about by the flowing of water into Lake Eyre.  We spent nine days waiting for the weather to break. Then we took a helicopter and photographed an amazing colony of 60,000 pelicans from the air.  In mid 2010 I returned again and photographed Lake Eyre’s largest flood since 1974.

My desire to get into remote or greenfields locations has also lead to travel into some of the most remote and pristine parts of Africa and Papua New Guinea.

In 2008 I travelled into a remote part of the Congo Basin.  There I was fortunate to photograph a pygmy tribe that had never had white contact.  These photos are unique.

In 2007 I undertook my first trip into the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.  Most of the people I photographed had never seen a camera and I collected some unique images of a people that would shortly undergo massive upheaval.

The only access to the villages I photographed was by helicopter and the villages were almost totally devoid of any form of crime, violence, rubbish and the impacts of drugs and alcohol.  These photos in years to come will also be of significant historical importance.  Many of the villages I photographed continued to hunt with bows and arrows.

In years to come I will be the only photographer to have documented the change in these villages that resulted from the arrival of white man.

It’s impossible to be everywhere and to capture every significant historical event.  I hope that with the work I do, that I at least get to record those places and events that very few photographers get the chance to see and experience.  I hope that these will one day be an important historical record for Australia and the other countries that I visit.