Returning the photographer's gaze - sometimes with a proud and knowing smile, an indignant look of resistance and mimicry, or a long studied stare as the observer becomes the observed. The gaze is returned, the observer othered. Subject owns the gaze for a frozen moment.
Saitoti, a Maasai elder, travels each year from his home in a small semi-nomadic pastoral settlement nestled in the Kenyan foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro (near Amboseli National Park and the border with Tanzania, Rift Valley Province) to work as a security guard in Lamu, an island off Kenya's northern Swahili Coast. The money he earns goes towards the upkeep of his family and cattle back in the homeland.
Adorned with circular facial scars, a glass-beaded collar, and stretched earlobes with glass-beaded sleeves and copper pendants.
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Street Portraiture | Social Documentary | BodyArt
