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Tour through pictures
By
Daniel Nyirenda - 02-04-2002 |
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People know Steve Chimombo as a poet, short story writer, playwright, editor of Wasi Magazine for the Arts and professor of English at Chancellor College.
However, those who patronised Chimombo’s photo exhibition entitled ‘Malawian Photo-Eyes’ at Chez Maky restaurant in Blantyre recently, will concede the 57-year old academician is good at photography just like he is in other areas.
It was a photo exhibition that carried patrons through a complete life time experience of a Malawian, embodying Malawi’s rich cultural and environmental spheres.
Chimombo is not a novice in photography. Against his name are two previous photo exhibitions ‘Seventy Fotos’ and ‘Themes in Malawian Photography’ which he exhibited at Chancellor College in 2000 and 2001.
He has attended several photo-journalism workshops where he learnt the nittygritty of the profession.
The most significant element of Chimombo’s third exhibition was that it was self-explanatory. He arranged the photos, framed in dull coloured cardboards, thematically.
The exhibition completely transformed Chez Maky restaurant. Almost all the photos were 6 by 8 cm. They were numbered and a description chart guided patrons to each group of pictures.
The exhibition made patrons appreciate what Chimombo’s Pentax Espio 160 and Pentax Espio 200 zoom lens cameras with Kodak, Fugi and Profoto colour films did to the 78 photographs he displayed.
The colour did not exaggerate the beauty of the photos. This could be attributed to the studio where the pictures were developed.
The choice of the photos on display was, however, his.
All Chimombo’s pictures were well-focussed, which is a good mark for a picture. He, says, however modestly, that he shot them as ‘a hobby’.
Chimombo also won the hearts of patrons through the diversity of themes exploited through the exhibition. The first group of photos were displayed under the headlines ‘Mothers’, “Babies’, ‘Girls at play’ to ‘Boys at play’, and so on, which gave a form of chronology.
Furthermore, patrons could draw a lesson from the pictures. Those showing chilren pounding, for instance, attacked child labour. The other pictures tackled arts and crafts, the plight of tramps, restaurants, landscape, just to mention some.
Action pictures like those of musicians plucking their guitars and beating drums, added strength to the exhibition.
Chimombo also captured ignored things in nature like tripod and sculptured trees, demonstrating some admirable skills.
This explains why he says: “Apart from taking photographs suitable for my articles, I am also interested in other subjects for some of the unusual qualities they display, qualities that make them stand out from other ordinary events around.”
To an ordinary person, pictures of tree trunks, an antihill, the fallen boabab tree and cobwebs on sisal would probably not make sense.
But it is these things through which Chimombo reminded patrons of the things they take for granted in our environment..
“The pictures are very imaginative. They are good,” said one patron, singling out the trees.
Another viewer, however, said Chimombo should not only concentrate on traditional musicians using traditional instruments in his pictures but modern instruments as well.
He said there are many musicians today who use modern electrical instruments which were not displayed.
The mostly rural restaurants he displayed in the ‘Restaurant’ category also add evidence to the viewer’s observation.
Though free of charge, the diversity of theme coupled with the brightness in Chimombo’s pictures could have well earned him a pocketful of banknotes had he placed a charge on them. |
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