Taking pictures of misery

I have always said it is not easy to take pictures of misery. Not only emotionally, but composition, feeling of the picture. It is difficult to convey what poverty is like when, many times, it is sunny. The buildings around are lapidated, but still you don’t feel the pain of poverty. People are usually smiling. You know they suffer, but they don’t show it. It is very hard to capture in a picture.

But, today, misery was in plain sight. We were driving back from the border of Togo where we interviewed the Commissar about how he and his men can stop child trafficking. I noticed, just off the road, a bunch of people digging. Then I noticed most of them were children. We stopped the car and I went over to film. Kids, as young as probably 4 years old, were lifting picks bigger then themselves. It was hot. There were a few adults. No one stopped me.

And that was strange too. No one thought anything was wrong with this scene. Kids are helping their parents. But breaking up gravel in the hot sun for sale is no work for small children. One little girl in her little yellow dress, barely looked up when I went to photograph her. Other kids laughed and wanted me to take their picture. It was almost a haunting feeling filming this little girl, this silent little girl lifting the huge pick while other kids laughed around me. What was going through her head?