'Ask a photography enthusiast whether they know the name Pim Ras and they will (hopefully) say: isn’t he that well-known sports photographer? Exactly! That is absolutely right, but I do not photograph sports alone. In February 2008, Médecins Sans Frontières asked me to produce a report in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the exhibition First Ladies.
The assignment was to document the daily lives of women in the village of Shamwana who had returned home after being driven from their homes by rape and other horrific violence. They did ask me to photograph the story in my own way, using the same approach as in my sports photography. The aesthetics and use of color that characterize my ‘regular’ work also had to be reflected in the series I would make in Congo.
And there I was, a tall white man with two large digital cameras fitted with telephoto zoom lenses, among children who wore little or no clothing and whose mothers had to work hard every day for a single meal. The five days I was allowed to observe life in the village of Shamwana left an incredible impression on me.
One day I traveled by jeep with the mental health team—the psychologists among the Médecins Sans Frontières doctors—to the village of Sangwe. An enormous storm broke out, and the village’s oldest resident invited us to shelter from the rain in his hut.
The hut, which consisted of little more than a few poles and some straw, protected me and my cameras from the torrential rain. Suddenly, the piece of cloth serving as a door moved aside and the old man’s granddaughter entered carrying her little brother. Her face was absolutely soaking wet, and her brother looked frightened when they suddenly found themselves facing a Mzungu (white man) with a camera.
Yet the girl, Milambwe, kept looking confidently into the camera while protecting her brother Mukulai. With a shutter speed of 1/30 second, I captured this moment of sisterly love for posterity.
It is not a sports photograph, but it is certainly one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever taken.'
Text: Pim Ras
Name: Pim Ras (1966)
Place of residence: Hoofddorp
Information: www.pimras.nl
