Initially I think my mind was a bit boggled as to how to handle the #eguntrads2015 posts. Then they said.. share what you have. :-D I work with Egun daily, hourly in fact. I document and record customs, traditions and culture here in the Lowcountry. I arrived in June 2010 and stayed at the local homeless shelter. I would begin my process with a flip phone, as time evolved I was able to handle cameras again. I had my first darkroom at 14, yet nerve damage and degeneration prohibits me from using pro cameras... so I make do with the little digital cameras which people dismiss.. but its all about the EYE!!! :-D I may have lost use of my hands and arms but not my eyes!! I attended churches .. you have to remember.. this is the South.. the transplanted birth place of the Negro Spirituals, the Lowcountry Clap, the wood clap... this right ya was where dem Africans played dem bones Churches where the white sheets came out... if not.. I was in the rafters in churches ... saaaanging clear notes... lots of Egun in churches that are over 200+ years old. Like any place of island and country life it takes time to become a part of the community much less to be roaming around with cameras taking pics and shooting video... In sharing these you can see the journey and get to understand where we are today... My own personal Egun know that there will be no pics on the walls. Id like to think that they have their ways of communicating and I have my way of responding to the necessary tasks at hand. I live here for a reason. Ive been given a lifestyle which allows me to be available to attend and participate in occasion which honor and preserve the memory of a vast number of Egun who first entered the New World in the various ports in the Lowcountry. Charleston SC is filled with daily reminders of the lives of enslaved Africans and free Negroes, the traders, plantation owners and residents of South Carolina. I live in a place that I read about in books, yet I would come to find out that the books have nothing on the oral tradition of the people. The many firsts in the history of African Americans happened right here in the streets that I walk through. I document in full that which news outlets whittle down to seconds. My camera work is shaky, my editing shoddy but if you look and more importantly listen, you will learn many things I as do daily.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 01:51:52 +0000
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