Caribbean Beat — January/February 2017 (#143)

“He stuck out his tongue as if to
say, Ah give yuh that”: the photograph
of a grease-covered jab
molassie that Maria Nunes recalls
in her interview
To this day it reminds me that what I now take for granted,
someday somebody sees for the first time. I ran for my camera,
and those were my first photos in Carnival.
Because of that, I went out exploring the streets, and took
my first photographs of traditional jab molassies — the black
car-grease ones — on the corner of Ariapita Avenue and French
Street. I’ll never forget it, because there was this one man in total
car grease, and I was glued to him. He had these horns that were
like two cones. I’ve come to understand that people sense when
you’ve zeroed in on them with your camera, even though they
haven’t seen you yet. And that sense that passes between two
people, I experienced for the first time that day. As he passed me,
he turned around to give me a look, with a laugh, and he stuck
out his tongue as if to say, Ah give yuh that. He was fully aware,
I realised, that I had not moved my gaze from him.
So that was the beginning. And around that time my path
crossed with [photographer] Abigail Hadeed, and we must have
spoken about my experience that Carnival. Because the big
A lens for mas
After years of working as a teacher, golfer, and golf club
manager, Maria Nunes found a childhood fascination
with photos turning into a professional interest. For
the past decade, a major portion of her work has been
devoted to documenting traditional performance
traditions within Trinidad Carnival, from the blue devils
of Paramin to individual performers like Tracy Sankar-
Charleau (interviewed on page 56). Her already immense
archive — Nunes says she has at least thirty hard drives
full of still images and video — includes all aspects of arts
and culture, but Carnival remains an obsession, and her
images are among the most widely shared and discussed
by contemporary mas aficionados.
moment for me was that Abigail invited
me the following year, in 2008, to go
with her into downtown Port of Spain
on Carnival Tuesday. That was what
permanently changed my life. I don’t
say that lightly. Whatever scales were
on my eyes got peeled off, in a hurry.
I experienced the heart of east Port of
Spain in a whole different way, and sailor
mas for the first time in any significant
way. The people that I got to know then, I
still know today. It was an introduction to
a world, thanks to Abigail. And it proved
to be such a big, big world.
When I took the plunge in 2010 —
after twenty years of a normal salaried life — into professional
photography, I knew I had to have a website. That was the first
way I started sharing my photography — I would share a link
on Facebook and people would go to the website and comment
on the galleries. I got a lot of encouraging feedback. And it went
from there.
maria nunes
My exploration of blue devils continually fascinates me. I
could never get tired of photographing that expression.
The first time I photographed moko jumbies on a
Carnival Saturday at Junior Carnival, that blew my mind. And I’m
developing a relationship with Ronald Alfred’s jab jab band [based
in Carapichaima, central Trinidad]. I’m always seeking an elusive
photograph of the essence of that art of the whip in motion.
How to convey it to people so they can hear the whip crack in
the photo? Or the dance of the sailor? Those are the things I seek
after. When I’m deep in the moment with a jab jab, with a moko
jumbie, with a blue devil, is when I think I am most immersed in
what I am doing.
I want the performer to see how beautiful and amazing they
are. In the photos, they see aspects of their performance they
aren’t even aware of.
From that first year I went into Port of Spain with Abigail, I
remember feeling this terrible sadness at the end of Carnival. I
wanted it to keep on going. Every year when Carnival ends, I
feel I just want a little more time. It’s all crammed into such a
concentrated period of time — I’m going day, night, day, night,
for two weeks. But I also know that’s part of what it’s all about,
and if there was more room to breathe, it wouldn’t be the same.
It used to be I felt this terrible sadness. Now it’s just a continuum,
because the relationships I have built with the people I have
photographed, so many of whom are truly now my friends,
are year-long relationships. So my Carnival no longer starts or
finishes. It’s now my life.
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