I had already met Dinara when I was shooting an assignment for the ARDI disability centre and she was present. Nevertheless, as always in the initial stages of a new project, I agreed to meet with the subjects and discuss the rationale and content of the photographs. I met Dinara and her mother, Bibigul, at their home – without my camera, just a notebook and pencil. Continue reading “Dinara Sharipova – first visit”
During our second meeting, Dinara was keen to show me all that she is capable of doing with her feet instead of her hands. Although I have already seen her embroidery, she felt compelled to show me again. Continue reading “Dinara – second visit”
The next time I visited Dinara, we tried to recreate the photograph where she has written her name, but somehow I could not get a decent composition. It was an overcast day and the light was poor as well. I don’t like working with flash since it creates ugly shadows and is tiring and distracting for the subjects. Another issue with flash photography is that it can cause seizures, and since people with CP are prone to seizures, strobe lighting is out of the question. Continue reading “Dinara – third visit”
During this visit, I showed Dinara some of the images I had already taken, and rephotographed some family album snapshots. We also photographed the embroidery work that Dinara was preparing for her upcoming exhibition. I took the opportunity to make some shots of Dinara at work – both at her computer and doing embroidery, but the embroidery shots were not as strong as the previous session.
Although not strictly speaking a visit, since this particular time we met at the exhibition centre where Dinara’s embroidery was being shown. I promised to take pictures of the vernissage, which I did as a personal favour, but I don’t know if I’m going to show these images, since they detract from the normalcy I am trying to get across through the work.
Adilzhan is no longer attending ARDI, but he keeps in close contact with some of the staff and disabled people who do attend the centre. He told me he left the centre since he wanted to develop himself more, and didn’t see much possibility of that happening at ARDI, though he says it did open up his horizons. Now he is working at a local workshop making handcrafts. Continue reading “Adilzhan Baratov – first visit”
Although I had practically given up hope on Adilzhan, he seems to have sorted out his issues and we have been able to meet up on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, his unreliability has made me keep him on a back burner, and I’m not sure if I’ll use the materials to make a film. In this series, he wanted me to show how he doesn’t just communicate with disabled people, but numbers among his friends able-bodied people as well. Continue reading “Adilzhan – second visit”
Since we agreed that the main focus of our project would be on how Adilzhan places importance on exercise and keeping fit, we arranged to shoot at a concert where the ARDI break-dance team had been invited to perform. Continue reading “Adilzhan – third meeting”
One of the other important areas that we agreed to show was work, as this is one of the areas identified as a specific problem for disabled people. Adilzhan tries to do what he can to earn money, as he told me: it’s a matter of importance (and not a little pride) for a man to be self-sufficient, particularly in Asian society. He showed me some soaps that he had manufactured with a view to selling them on local craft markets. Continue reading “Adilzhan – fourth visit”
This time when I arrived Adilzhan was hard at work, resoling a pair of boots.
Carl Whetham photography 