ZEKE Magazine: Fall 2024 Public

ZEKE 

THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL 

FALL 2024 VOL.10/NO.2 $15 US 

DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY 

CELEBRATING OUR 20 TH ISSUE!

ZEKETHE MAGAZINE OF 

GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

Published by Social Documentary Network 

Photo by Nima Taradji from Shishmaref 

Photo by Eleanor Moseman from Jamyang 

Tsomo: The Daily Life of a Tibetan Woman 

02 | SHISHMAREF 

A Native Struggle 

By Nima Taradji 

10 | JAMYANG TSOMO 

The Daily Life of a Tibet Woman 

By Eleanor Moseman 

20 | MALE SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ABUSE 

IN MEXICO 

By Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez 

32 | BLACK CHILDBIRTH 

By Benita Mayo and Brian Branch-Price 

44 | HOMELESS IN THE SHADOWS OF 

THE JUNGLE 

By John Simpson 

Photo by Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez from 

Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse in Mexico 

Photo by Brian Branch-Price from Black Childbirth 

18 | Celebrating Twenty Issues of ZEKE! 

30 | Interview with Rehab Eldalil 

By Daniela Cohen 

52 | Seven Photographers 30 and 

Under Making a Difference 

By Glenn Ruga 

56 | Book Reviews 

Photo by John Simpson from Homeless in the 

Shadows of the Jungle 

Cover Photograph by 

Benita Mayo 

Michaela Banks delivering 

the after-birth of Chloe while 

surrounded by her husband, son, 

mother, mother-in-law, and sister.

FALL 2024 VOL.10/ NO.2 

$15 US 

Dear ZEKE Readers: 

Ten years and twenty issues later I can’t thank enough everyone who has helped us 

make ZEKE a force in the world of visual storytelling—writers, editors, volunteers, interns, 

donors, printers, and of course the scores of photographers who have contributed their 

outstanding and heartfelt work since we first started publishing in 2015. 

This issue brings together photographers exploring themes in Alaska, Tibet, Mexico, 

Egypt, and the United States and celebrates photographers under 30 who are making a 

difference. 

We’ve learned a lot after twenty issues of ZEKE. We’ve had many successes, we’ve 

made mistakes, we’ve evolved (so has the world), but we’re still steadfast in our core 

belief in the power of the documentary image and the voice of the photographers who 

create these images. If there is one thing that sets ZEKE apart from the vast majority 

of editorial magazines it is that the stories in ZEKE are conceived and driven by the 

photographers, not editors and writers. And what sets us apart from most photography 

magazines is our undivided commitment to the story being told by the juxtaposition of 

images and words. 

One lesson I have learned over the years is how important ZEKE is to both the 

photography community whether or not their work is published in the magazine, and 

to our readers, many of whom are not photographers but are as passionate as we are 

about the power and importance of these global stories. It is our never-ending quest to 

expand the readership which will only make ZEKE more valuable to the photographers 

whose work is published in the magazine and will make these stories seen by an evergrowing 

public. 

This past September Barbara Ayotte and I had the great pleasure to attend the Visa 

pour l’Image photo festival in Perpignan, France. For those of you not familiar with 

Visa, it is the largest photojournalism festival in the world bringing together thousands 

of attendees from all over. For us, it was a great opportunity to meet many ZEKE 

photographers from Europe, but it was also encouraging to see that documentary 

photography as we define it is still strong and well with an unwavering commitment 

by a whole new cohort of photographers who are eager to explore, understand, and 

communicate the world through still images. If there is anything lacking, it is that there 

are not more magazines like ZEKE to showcase their work and to provide reasonable 

compensation to support them in their practice. 

Our dreams and goals for the future of ZEKE are to have the resources to publish 

more often, to have full-time staff to support this growth, and to finally be able to pay 

photographers what they deserve to publish their work. Your unwavering support for 

ZEKE will help us accomplish these goals. 

Dinner at the Visa pour l’Image festival 

in Perpignan, France. Left to right: Glenn 

Ruga (ZEKE Executive Editor), Natalya 

Saprunova (featured in Spring 2024 

issue of ZEKE), Isabella Franceshini (in 

Spring 2024 issue), Svet Jacqueline 

(featured in Spring 2023 issue) and 

Barbara Ayotte (ZEKE Editor). 

Best regards, 

Glenn Ruga 

Executive Editor 

ZEKE FALL 2024 / 1

Shishmaref 

A Native Struggle 

by Nima Taradji 

S 

hishmaref, Alaska is a remote village 

of about 600 people on Sarichef 

Island 30 miles south of the Arctic 

Circle, flanked by the Chukchi Sea 

to the north and an inlet to the south. 

The village sits atop rapidly melting 

permafrost, and coupled with rising sea 

levels due to melting glaciers, has resulted 

in an accelerated sinking of the isolated 

island it sits on. Erosion at Shishmaref is 

unique along the islands because of its 

wind exposure, high tides, relatively intense 

and multiple shoreline defense structures 

built beginning in the 1970s. It is estimated 

that the Island loses about 10 feet to erosion 

each year and likely the entire island 

will be gone within the next decade or two. 

The Native Iñupiat who have inhabited 

this island for many generations need 

to find a new location and funds for the 

necessary relocation, both of which, as of 

now, are not secured. 

So for now, this traditional Iñupiat 

village, where residents rely heavily 

on a subsistence lifestyle and hunting 

and gathering their food, has adopted 

a wait-and-see attitude towards their 

uncertain future. At stake is the existence 

of this unique Native culture of Alaskan 

Indigenous Iñupiat people going back 

many generations. It will likely disappear 

should the city not be relocated as a unit 

and the residents end up scattered around 

the mainland of Alaska. 

2 / ZEKE FALL 2024

Subscribe to ZEKE today and 

receive print edition. Learn more » » 

Andrew Ningealook, 26 years 

old and a lifelong resident 

of Shishmaref, breaks the ice 

before laying his fishing net 

under the ice. 

ZEKE FALL 2024/3

Johnny Weyiouanna Sr. is 80 

years old and has been a resident 

of Shishmaref all his life. He 

lives with his wife Ardith (68) and 

takes care of his grandchildren 

during the day. 


ZEKE FALL 2024/ 5

A young Shishmaref resident 

runs with her puppy on the 

main street in the village. 

Puppies older than eight weeks 

old must be on a leash — 

although many puppies older 

than that age roam free in the 

village. 



A resident of Shishmaref 

visits his sister’s grave on the 

17th anniversary of her passing. 

The cemetery is centrally 

located in the village and 

is in front of the Lutheran 

Church — the only church in 

the village. 



Jamyang 

Tsomo 

The Daily Life of a 

Tibetan Woman 

by Eleanor Moseman 

J 

amyang Tsomo is a Tibetan woman 

living with her family in a small 

community in the remote mountains 

of the Garze Autonomous Region. 

Now in her late 30s, unwed but with a 

three-year-old son, she is the primary 

caretaker of a household that also includes 

her elderly mother and three brothers who 

often come and go. Their presence and 

ability to contribute to the household depends 

on their migrant work, studies, or monastic 

obligations. 

This project is an ongoing story of a 

woman who exemplifies dedication and 

bravery. Yet, it’s also about poverty and an 

alternate narrative to the common mythologized 

visions of Tibet. Jamyang Tsomo, like 

other Tibetans, lives in one of the most physically 

challenging environments and politically 

unstable regions of the world. Like millions of 

others, she faces daily difficulties in work, life, 

family, culture, environment, and politics. 


Jamyang Tsomo carries a 

handwoven basket filled 

with dirt up to the roof of 

her family’s home. After she 

has removed weeds and 

stones from the roof, she 

fills the dips and holes to 

prevent water leaks or collapse. 

Besides her mother, 

Jamyang Tsomo is the only 

woman in the household 

responsible for most of the 

domestic duties. 





Snuggled into her bed 

after a long day of labor, 

Jamyang Tsomo spends 

her late-night hours playing 

games on a mobile phone 

that belongs to one of her 

brothers. She rarely leaves 

the village or ventures out 

alone, so her mother and 

brothers see no use in her 

having a phone. 



Jamyang Tsomo mixes fresh 

yak dung with a little dirt 

and presses the mounds 

onto the stones that form 

the foundation of the 

house. These dirt and dung 

patties will dry and harden 

under extreme high-altitude 

sunshine. Once dry, they 

will be used to start fires in 

the hearth of the home for 

cooking and heating. 



A srung khor, or protective circle, is 

a sash worn by Tibetans. The sashes 

are decorated with ga’u (amulet 

boxes) to hold sacred materials such 

as religious texts, blessing cords, 

medicine, and relics. Portraits of 

Lamas and Rinpoches (high-ranking 

monks and teachers) are also hung 

off the sashes. A srung khor can 

be worn across the chest, around 

the waist, or neck and carried on 

pilgrimages or extended stays away 

from home. Jamyang Tsomo is leaving 

home and heading to live and 

work at a nomad camp on a plateau 

during late spring. After an accident 

in a barley field, her family insists 

she wears her amulets and portraits 

of Lamas to ward off evil or mishaps. 


Twenty Issues of ZEKE ! 

When we launched ZEKE magazine 

in 2015, we were bucking 

a trend. Print magazines were 

on a rapid decline as content 

of all types was migrating to 

the digital space–significantly 

less costly to produce and distribute. Ten 

years and 20 issues of ZEKE later, the 

decline continues to follow the way of 

family farms across rural America. But for 

every 200-year-old cattle farm going 

under in northern Vermont, one upstart 

sustainable and organic new one opens 

up somewhere–and this is the space where 

we find ZEKE today. While LIFE magazine 

in the late 1960s had 8.6 million weekly 

subscribers, there is still an important space 

for niche small-distribution publications with 

committed followers such as ZEKE. 

Through it all is our steadfast commitment 

to the documentary form and providing a 

space–both in print and online– for photographers 

to publish their stories exploring 

both global and local themes. It is also 

an appreciation for the printed form that 

is so conducive to the documentary space 

that is as much fine art as it is journalism. 

While most of the content you see in the 

print version of ZEKE also exists online, the 

experience of holding ZEKE in your hands 

and experiencing the images large and in 

print is something that the digital experience 

can never reproduce, and is still the magic 

behind what we do. 

We can’t thank enough the scores of photographers 

who have donated their work to 

ZEKE since our first issue. The holy grail for 

us has always been to have enough revenue 

through subscriptions, contributions, and 

grants to pay photographers a reasonable 

fee for their images, and we still hope to get 

there one day. In the meantime we continue 

to do our best with limited resources to bring 

you high quality content produced with the 

highest quality printing and materials. 

And not to lose sight of the substance 

behind it all–the global issues that photographers 

are driven to tell stories about and that 

we are driven to publish. In the 20 issues of 

ZEKE, we have covered the war in Ukraine 

years before February 2022 when Russia 

launched a full scale invasion. We had a 

feature article on the Rohingya crisis years 

before they were driven out of Myanmar in 

a genocidal onslaught that began in 2016. 

We have covered teen mothers in Rwanda, 

maternal and global health, refugees and 

migration, gender diversity, racial equality 

and inequality, incarceration in America, 

and the war in Gaza. We have published 

special issues on Africa, Climate Change, 

Roma, Women, Bangladesh, Incarceration, 

America, and others. There is never a lack 

of issues, and never a lack of driven photographers 

to tell important visual stories 

about these issues, and that is what keeps us 

publishing. Thank you for reading! 

Spring 2015 

Fall 2017 

Spring 2020 

Back issues are available for sale for $5 each + shipping. 

See zekemagazine.com/20th-issue 

for summary of each issue and to order. 




Spring 2016 


Spring 2017 

Spring 2018 


Spring 2019 



Spring 2021 


Spring 2022 

Spring 2023 


Spring 2024 

Fall 2024/Twentieth issue 


One of the strengths that 

Amaury found in photography 

is the ability to recount 

his life and share it with 

those who are going through 

a similar situation. With his 

self-portraits, he learned 

to accept and embrace his 

identity and appearance. 


Male Survivors of Sexual 

Abuse in Mexico 

by Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez 

In recent years there has been a growing 

social awareness surrounding 

sexual abuse in Mexico. Yet, while this 

increased advocacy is a significant 

step toward change, it primarily focuses 

on the sexual abuse of women, often 

neglecting the abuse of men and minors. 

Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse is a 

story that breaks this silence, presenting a 

story of the resilience and survival of men 

who suffered from sexual abuse during their 

childhood. In different scenarios, times, and 

spaces, these men narrate how they have 

survived a world that turned its back on them, 

forcing them to live in silence – a silence that 

inflicted wounds, some still unhealed and 

others slow to close. 

Their stories reveal that Mexico’s justice 

system has fallen short of protecting children 

from sexual exploitation, and then further faltering 

when prosecuting justice for its victims. 

Beyond legislation, the absence of data 

on male victims of sexual abuse– often for 

reasons stemming from cultural and religious 

factors that lead families to hide and silence 

their victimized children– makes it challenging 

to track the prevalence of abuse. 

This story gives voice to those who have 

been silenced and aims to seek justice for 

those who the system has failed. 





Sexual abuse survivor, 

Teo, fixes his hair in 

front of the mirror. 

Years of psychological 

abuse and humiliation 

from the religious education 

imposed on him 

forced him into a state 

of perpetual depression. 

“I was raised 

like a nun, I couldn’t 

laugh, I couldn’t speak, 

I couldn’t express 

myself... they forbid me 

to be happy.” 


After years of harassment, 

attacks, and 

contempt from his 

family, Santi fell into 

depression and a state 

of helplessness. Mentally 

overwhelmed of his situation, 

Santi took all the 

medicines he found at 

home and crushed them 

slowly to dissolve them 

in a glass of water. In 

the process, he remembered 

his childhood, the 

attack, all the love that 

was denied of him, and 

all the days and nights 

of tears and crying 

of a young man who 

was victimized and 

revictimized by those 

who were supposed 

to protect him. 

For ‘B’, another sexual 

abuse survivor, religion 

has been one of the 

spaces where he has 

been able to heal all the 

wounds resulting from 

the abuse he suffered as 

a child. 


Guadalupe Maldonado, 

Alejandro’s mother, 

carries a portrait of her 

son, who died of cancer 

and is a survivor of 

sexual abuse. For two 

years Alejandro fought 

to survive and defeat 

leukemia with optimism, 

undergoing very painful 

chemotherapy and 

treatments. Yet despite 

being discharged, weeks 

later Alejandro suffered a 

relapse of his illness and 

unfortunately died at the 

age of 28. 



Amaury suffered sexual 

abuse by two adults 

on his sixth birthday. 

After that brutal act, 

his birthday became a 

martyrdom because, even 

though he was a child, he 

had to fake happiness to 

make others happy. In this 

image, Amaury celebrates 

his 7th birthday, 

exactly one year after his 

attack. 


Scanned Polaroid photograph of 

Rehab Eldalil in the field, in Sheikh 

Awad village in St. Catherine, South 

Sinai, Egypt. Taken by Yasmine om 

Mohamed. February 2021 

Interview with 

REHAB ELDALIL 

Rehab Eldalil is an award-winning 

documentary photographer, visual 

storyteller, and educator based in 

Cairo, Egypt. Her work focuses on the 

theme of identity explored through 

participatory creative practices. 


What inspired you to become a 

documentary photographer? 

I’ve always been in love with the idea of 

telling stories with photography. I had my 

first camera, an analog, when I was 11 

years old. I lived in the U.S. as a child for 

three years and then my parents decided 

to return to Egypt after 9/11. I needed to 

understand who am I? The camera was 

the best way for me to try to make sense 

of myself in changing spaces while also 

looking for a space of hope. 

I decided I wanted to major in 

photography in college and become a 

wildlife photographer. I had no interest in 

documentary photography or telling stories 

of human beings. During my senior 

year in college in Cairo in 2011, the 

Egyptian revolution happened. I was an 

activist, so I participated in the revolution 

from the early days, when there was no 

media coverage. I felt I had this responsibility 

to document what was happening. 

That was the start of my love of telling 

stories of people, especially my people. 

It felt very powerful to start telling this 

sort of story, about my identity, how we 

reclaimed our land. 

I read in your artist statement that 

you’re exploring how to challenge 

traditional documentary frameworks 

by developing methods to 

involve subjects to become participants 

in the creative process. Could 

you tell me more about what that 

looks like in practice? 

I started my research about collaboration 

in 2015. I’ve been working with communities 

that I either belong to or have a 

lot of commonalities with. So, it felt weird 

to be like a parachute photographer 

coming in, taking photographs from my 

own perspective and leaving. In 2018, I 

started my master’s degree in photography 

focusing on representation in visual 

storytelling and exoticism of communities 

like my community within Egypt – the 

Bedouins of St. Catherine in South Sinai. 

I also have Palestinian ancestry. Looking 

into the history of how my community has 

been represented in visual storytelling has 

motivated me to look for ways to create 

autonomy and collaboration with the 

communities that I’m working with. 

I applied my experimentation and 

research in my long-term project called 

“The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path 

Has Been Broken.” I invited the community 

to be part of the creative process by telling 

me how they would like to be photographed. 

Most of the previous photography 

was taken by colonial photographers. 

So, the stories that came out about the 

Bedouin community have really impacted 

their civil rights, because for many years, 

people thought that Bedouins are these 

uneducated, aggressive communities, but in 

reality, they’re actually quite progressive. 

Including the community as part of 

this dialogue helped erase a lot of the 

influences that I have absorbed subconsciously 

throughout the years from 

Western photographers who have photographed 

Bedouin communities. 

Then we elevated the collaboration 

because I wanted to celebrate the collaborative 

process visually by inviting the 

community to have a visual voice within 

the project. We wanted to use traditional 

mediums that the community is already 

familiar with and speaks about their 

identity. So, the Bedouin women, who are 

experienced with embroidery, agreed to 

embroider on their own photographs that 

I had printed on fabric. Bedouin women 

have been portrayed as either sexually 

exotic or submissive, voiceless objects 

by colonial photographers, so they were 

hesitant to have their faces shown. But 

surprisingly, when we started this collaboration, 

a lot of the women who were 

intending to hide their identity, decided 

not to because for them this idea of having 

power over their images removed this 

idea of hiding who they are. 

That’s amazing. It sounds like part 

of the importance of that is offering 

choice. 

Exactly, its autonomy. And visually things 

really became elevated because the men 

also wanted to be part of that. They write 

poetry. So, I started collecting handwritten 

poetry and putting it as the text with 

images I wanted to depict the meanings 

of the poetry through. And the older members 

of the community started to forage 

plants from the mountain to create a field 

guide of plants and herbs native to South 

Sinai, and it became this mixed media 

landscape project. 

What’s also standing out to me is 

you’re showcasing people’s gifts at 

the same time as using your own 

gift. 

Yes. Art is humans’ form of expressing 

who we are. So, it only makes sense, 

when I invite protagonists to tell this story 

visually, it should be in a way that they 

are comfortable expressing their identity, 

in a familiar medium. 

One of the experimentations that I did 

early on when I was working on my master’s 

degree was photographing together 

collaboratively, but it didn’t work because 

it was an unfamiliar medium. So whatever 

images came out, even though they 

were beautiful, it really did not help them 

release this sense of expression. 




“The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken.” Embroidered photograph of Hajja Oum Mohamed 

(53) in her garden in Gharba Valley, St. Catherine, South Sinai, Egypt. November 2019. Embroidery made by 

her. Photograph by Rehab Eldalil. 

I just released another project called 

“From the Ashes, I Rose,” where I collaborated 

with patients who are civilians 

injured from warfare in Palestine, Syria, 

Yemen, and Iraq. This was done in collaboration 

with Médecins Sans Frontières 

Italy. I wanted to celebrate the patients’ 

resistance, how they’re rebuilding who 

they are. A lot of these patients are children 

who have lost limbs or have been suffering 

from severe burns, and you will find 

these children, with all the pain and agony 

they have gone through, drawing images. 

They’re creating things. They’re trying to 

look for ways to find life. So, the project 

really celebrates it. And it’s a merger 

between a workshop I did with them where 

they drew images of themselves as superheroes 

and the photography. 

I was very limited in the field because 

I was working with the mental health 

department of the hospital and they 

wanted to make sure my presence didn’t 

impact new patients. That’s why I used 

the idea of Polaroid for the first time. Then 

the patients started using an art therapy 

method that they were already using in the 

hospital, the idea of diamond paintings, to 

add their creative contribution to the work. 

It’s not something that is related to their 

identity as they are from across the region, 

but it’s related to their recovery process, to 

the invention of who they [now] are. 

As you go through the stories, you 

will really be impressed by some of 

these interventions because it was done 

by patients who have severe injuries to 

their hands. Seeing how they have been 

able to create these beautiful mosaics on 

Polaroid, I feel it creates a new perspective 

of looking at civilians who have been 

injured in wars, especially wars in our 

region. Because people think it’s just these 

number of deaths and they don’t realize 

the stories and the beauty of the people 

who are impacted by these wars. 

I’m curious about the highlights 

and challenges of your projects. 

Especially “The Longing of the 

Stranger Whose Path Has Been 

Broken,” because it was such a 

personal project for you. 

My father was a war veteran, so he was 

part of the war retrieving the land back 

from the Israeli occupation, but he never 

shared about our Bedouin ancestry. I 

always felt this spiritual connection with 

the community. So, when I was in high 

school and in college, I would go alone to 

establish this connection. In 2009, I was 

sitting down with one of the tribe elders, 

and he was very curious about my last 

name because it translates to the word 

“guide.” He’s the one who opened up 

and told me about our ancestry and that 

our family moved to another city where 

my father was born. It gave me a lot of 

ammunition to confront my father, and he 

opened up about both our Bedouin and 

Palestinian sides of the family. The project 

layers a lot of the things that I was afraid 

to know about – why would our family 

hide our ancestry, recreate our identity 

away from that? And also, where do I 

belong? That was a very painful question, 

because I became a lot more interested 

in being part of the community, partially 

moving there. I met my husband there 

and we started a community clinic. But 

still, it felt weird because I didn’t grow up 

as a Bedouin. I could never call myself a 

Bedouin. And that’s where the title came 

from because I consider myself a stranger 

even though I’ve been reintegrated into 

the community. 

Before embracing the idea that I’m 

going to always be a stranger, I tried 

to force myself to photograph from only 

my perspective, and that enforced a lot 

of the stereotypes, and it didn’t help me 

embrace my new position within the community. 

It was a hard challenge. But once 

I embraced this, that created this liberation 

where I was open to collaborate 

with the community to tell the story of the 

Bedouins from a totally different perspective. 

And including the community as part 

of the visual collaboration completely 

changed my practice because it took 

me completely away from documentary 

photography and photojournalism. At one 

point, I had a lot of reviewers tell me this is 

not photojournalism. But this is actually the 

new wave of documentary photography. 

The community asked to publish the 

project as a book because, for them, it 

became this alternative archive that they 

are part of. So that was also a big highlight. 

And thanks to them, I was able to 

publish the book in 2023. 


CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2024 AWARDEES 

EN FOCO 

PHOTOGRAPHY FELLOWSHIP 

CALI M. BANKS 

JORDANA BERMÚDEZ TORRES 

AVIJIT HALDER 

ANDREW KUNG 

OJI HAYNES 

SHINA PENG 

SHARON MILLER 

LIEH SUGAI 

JENNIFER TERESA VILLANUEVA 

CHEN XIANGYUN 

EN FOCO MEDIA ARTS FUND 

WORKS-IN-PROGRESS 

INITIATIVE 

LAURA DUDU 

DESHON LEEK 

AMBIKA RAINA 

POYEN WANG 

TANSY XIAO 

FOR MORE 

INFORMATION VISIT 

WWW.ENFOCO.ORG 

The Foundation for Systemic 

Change Congratulates ZEKE 

Magazine on its Twentieth Issue! 

foundationforsystemicchange.org 


Visual Stories About Global Themes 

Photo by Mariusz Śmiejek from Artisanal Gold Mining in Ghana. 

Social Documentary Network 

SDN Website: A web portal for 

documentary photographers to 

create online galleries and make 

them available to anyone with an 

internet connection. Since 2008, 

we have presented more than 

4,000 documentary stories from 

all parts of the world. 

www.socialdocumentary.net 

ZEKE Magazine: This print and 

digital publication allows us to 

present visual stories both in print 

and online with in-depth writing 

about the themes of the 

photography projects. 

www.zekemagazine.com 

SDN Salon: An informal gathering 

of SDN photographers to 

share and discuss work online. 

Documentary Matters: 

Online and in-person, a place 

for photographers to meet with 

others involved with or interested 

in documentary photography and 

discuss ongoing or completed 

projects. 

SDN Education: Leading 

documentary photographers and 

educators provide online learning 

opportunities for photographers 

interested in advancing their 

knowledge and skills in the field 

of documentary photography. 

SDN Reviews: Started in April 

2021, this annual program brings 

together industry leaders from 

media, publishing, and the fine 

art community to review work of 

documentary photographers. 

ZEKE Award: The ZEKE Award 

for Documentary Photography 

and the ZEKE Award for Systemic 

Change are juried by a panel of 

international media professionals. 

Award winners are exhibited 

at Photoville in Brooklyn, NY and 

featured in ZEKE Magazine. 

Join us! 



Midwife Dominique 

Clothiaux measures 

Michaela Banks’ belly. 

Photo by Benita Mayo. 

32 / ZEKE SPRING FALL 2024 2024

T 

he photos presented here in Black 

Childbirth show the love and respect for 

Black women during childbirth but also 

bear witness to the stark racial disparities 

in maternal health care in the United 

States. According to the Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black 

women in the United States have the highest 

maternal mortality rate that is approximately 

two to three times higher than that of White 

women. Research confirms that while holding 

other factors constant– such as income and 

education–the root of the problem is the racialization 

of the treatment of Black women during 

pregnancy and birth. With Black women lacking 

access, agency, and resources to maternal 

health care, Benita Mayo and Brian Branch- 

Price document the Black birth experience – a 

story that often goes untold. 

Black Childbirth 

by Benita Mayo & Brian Branch-Price 

Photographer Benita Mayo documents 

the Black birth experience of Michaela 

Banks, 27, and the birth of her daughter in 

July 2021. As a doula-in-training with Birth 

Sisters of Charlottesville (VA), a women of 

color community-based doula collective, 

Mayo photographically witnessed the trust, 

instinct, compassion, and power of this work. 

For her, becoming a doula was about more 

than acquiring knowledge and skills– it was 

about creating a supportive space for a Black 

woman during one of the most vulnerable 

moments of her life. 

Brian Branch-Price takes us through the 

final hours of pre- and post-birth of the first 

child for parents Ka’Cheena Lucas and 

Malcolm Sims from Newark, NJ. Surrounded 

by family and friends and their trusted healthcare 

providers, the childbirth is intimate – 

filled with a host of emotions, from joy to pain. 

Brian had the unique opportunity to do what 

only great photographers can — to almost not 

exist in the moment yet to be at the center of it. 




Chloe has arrived after 

four short hours of labor. 

Michaela is surrounded by 

her husband Zach Holmes, 

son, mother, mother-in-law, 

and sister. Michaela was 

determined to create the 

birth experience she wanted 

which included being 

surrounded by family and 

friends. Photo by Benita 

Mayo. 

34 / ZEKE SPRING FALL 2024 2024

ZEKE ZEKE SPRING FALL 2024/ 35

Michaela, pregnant with 

her fourth child, is in her 

kitchen with her threeyear-old 

and 18-monthold 

giving them a snack. 

Photo by Benita Mayo. 



Expectant mother, 

Ka’Cheena Lucas, 30, 

waits in her doctors 

waiting room for 

prenatal care. Photo by 

Brian Branch-Price. 






Midwife Atinuke delivers baby Choyce 

to mom Ka’Cheena while surrounded 

by medical staff at Overlook Hospital 

in Summit, NJ on Friday, February 

2, 2024. Ka’Cheena’s labor was 

considered short and she delivered 

Choyce by the third contraction, which 

Ka’Cheena had predicted. 

Photo by Brian Branch-Price. 



First-time mother Ka’Cheena 

Lucas, 30, holds her new son 

Choyce Atwell after a short 

but intense labor. Choyce 

was born at 8:42 am by 

contraction number three. 

Photo by Brian Branch-Price 


The Jungle is a 20-acre plot of land 

heavily covered in trees and bushes 

in Olympia, Washington situated 

between two wetlands. The summer 

is hot and wet, the fall is cold and 

wet, the winter is brutal and wet, 

and the spring season is just plain wet. 

It is also where approximately 45 

unhoused persons live in varying types of 

structures ranging from tarp-covered tents 

to cobbled-together wood and sheet metal 

structures. 

While some of the Jungle’s citizens 

struggle with substance abuse or mental 

health issues, there is a very strong sense of 

independence. Many have told me that they 

don’t want to live in “your” society; that they 

feel unwanted and unwelcome; that they 

like being right where they are. As cities and 

counties begin to criminalize homelessness, 

some of the unhoused look for places that 

are out-of-the-way such as here. 

Homeless in the Shadows of 

“I would rather be in the shadows here 

than out there in the light,” one homeless 

man told me. 

The site is a culture unto itself. It has 

its own language, its own way of doing 

things, its own rules—to say nothing of the 

fierce sense of independence that many 

inhabitants’ share. There also is a sense of 

cooperation, a sharing of information or 

resources is common. 

These photographs were taken between 

December 2023 and March 2024 in 

which I talked with many of those living 

there and made these images to provide a 

look into—and perhaps an understanding 

of—their society. 

Jess: Homeless since she was 18 (she was 23 

when this photo was taken), Jess stands in front 

of the structure in which she lives. 


the Jungle 

by John Simpson 





Colton: A bit of an outlier, 

he was adamant about not 

living “out with the rest of 

society.” He also said he 

wasn’t sure if he could fix 

the motorcycle’s engine. 


Mike and Zeus: Strongly 

independent, Mike said he 

did not have everything he 

would like but he had what 

he needed. He added that 

he built the structure from 

what he had found to work 

with in The Jungle. 




Christina and Justin: Bicycles 

are a popular mode of 

transportation in The Jungle, 

so Christina and Justin work 

at keeping them repaired 

for some of their homeless 

neighbors. 


Seven Photographers 30 and 

By Glenn Ruga 

While we strive for diversity of photographers 

contributing to ZEKE magazine, one gap 

less noticed is the lack of younger photographers. 

While we don’t have hard data as to 

why, there is plenty of room for speculation. 

One reason is that younger photographers 

haven’t had the life and professional experiences that 

nourish an environment conducive to creating quality 

documentary photography. Another is that younger 

photographers are laser focused–as they should be–on 

developing their careers as photojournalists or commercial 

photographers, and documentary just isn’t the 

genre that readily puts food on their table. And the last 

reason I would speculate is that we at ZEKE have a 

concept of documentary photography that is steeped in 

the tradition of Walker Evans, Bruce Davidson, Gordon 

Parks, and Margaret Bourke White—a concept that is 

now quite dated and less meaningful to someone born 

around the turn of the century. But we do know that 

photography programs at colleges and universities are 

booming, so photographers are out there. 

To find photographers 30 and under to feature for 

this article, we reached out to members of our Advisory 

Committee for recommendations resulting in the seven 

photographers featured here. 

While I was expecting, or perhaps hoping, to find a 

new vision for photography coming from this younger 

group, the facts shown here bear out a steadfast commitment 

to straight documentary photography as we 

have known it for a generation along with a continued 

commitment to document both bold and subtle themes 

of life wherever the photographer may be. If there is one 

significant difference, it is that a photographer today 

documenting life in Bangladesh would more likely be 

from Bangladesh (see Fatima Tuj Johora’s profile), and just 

as likely to be female as male. And it follows then that a 

random selection of younger photographers today would 

be more diverse than a similar number from a generation 

earlier. This is a positive and welcome development! 

We are thrilled to present here seven photographers 

from Kenya, Bangladesh, the U.S., and Ukraine who are 

30 and under, have agreed to have themselves and their 

work featured in this article, and are making a difference. 

Andrii, call name Sheriff, age 33, a Ukrainian soldier from the 17th Tank Brigade, and Pavlo, 

call name Master, age 28, a Ukrainian soldier from the 33rd Mechanized Brigade, in the kitchen 

of a rehabilitation center that makes prosthetics for wounded veterans. Washington, DC, 2024. 

Iva Sidash 

Nationality: Ukraine 

Current residence: Lviv 

IG: @Iva_Sidash 

Web: ivasidash.com 

Iva Sidash 

(b. 1995, 

Ukraine) is an 

independent 

photographer 

and photojournalist. 

She is a member of 

the Ukrainian Association of 

Professional Photographers 

and the National Society 

of Photo Artists of Ukraine. 

Sidash studied Documentary 

Practices and Visual Journalism 

at the International Center of 

Photography in New York. She 

is a 2024 Women Photograph 

fellow. 

Since the onset of the 

Russian full-scale invasion of 

Ukraine, Sidash has dedicated 

her work to documenting the 

conflict, with a particular focus 

on the experiences of wounded 

Ukrainian soldiers and civilians 

in frontline villages and cities. 

Her work has been published 

in INSIDER, The Financial 

Times, Fisheye Magazine, Der 

Spiegel, Forbes, and more. 

Sidash’s photography has 

been showcased in group 

exhibitions in the United States, 

United Kingdom, France, 

Germany, Sweden, Spain, 

Estonia, Poland, and Ukraine. 

She held two solo exhibitions, 

“The Wall: Witness to the War 

in Ukraine,” in Wisconsin, in 

October 2023, and in San 

Diego, in April 2024. 


Under Making a Difference 

Bridget Bennett 

Nationality: American 

Current residence: Nevada 

IG: @bridgetkbennett 

Web: bridgetkb.com 

Bridget 

Bennett is 

a visual 

journalist and 

educator in 

Las Vegas 

and Reno, Nevada. Her work 

focuses on labor, politics, environment 

and socio-economic 

issues. She is a frequent contributor 

to the New York Times 

and the Washington Post. Her 

work can be found in various 

outlets including The Wall Street 

Journal, Vogue, ESPN, and 

High Country News. Formerly, 

she was a staff photographer at 

the Las Vegas Review-Journal 

and a part-time instructor at 

the University of Nevada, 

Las Vegas. She is currently 

pursuing a master’s degree in 

journalism at the University of 

Nevada, Reno and expanding 

a project examining extraction 

industries’s relation to Western 

expansion. 

Desert Lily (hesperocallis undulata) blooms 

in an area near Dumont Dunes outside of 

Tecopa, California on April 1, 2024. After 

a wet winter, scientists predict tens of 

thousands of acres burst into bloom, creating 

a stunning wildflower season. 

Lidia and Serhiy Stepanchenko, refugees 

from Vinnytsia, Ukraine, photographed 

in their daughter Natalya’s living room in 

Manalapan, New Jersey. April 15, 2022. 

Nikol Mudrová 

Nationality: Czech 

Current residence: New York City 

IG: @mudrovanikol 

Web: nikolmudrova.com 

Nikol 

Mudrovа` 

is an audience 

editor 

for USA 

Today and a 

photographer in her free time. 

Before moving to New York, 

she worked as an audience 

editor and freelance photographer 

for a Czech online daily, 

where she mainly covered 

breaking news. Since moving 

to New York, she fell in love 

with observing the diversity 

all around her, the different 

lives people are living, and 

documenting it through her 

camera lens. Her recent work 

has included documenting life 

in different neighborhoods in 

New York and Philadelphia 

and Ukrainian refugees coming 

to the U.S. 

Fatima-Tuj- 

Johora 

Nationality: Bangladeshi 

Current residence: Dhaka 

IG: @fatima-tuj-johora 

Web: fatima-tuj-johora.com 

Fatima- 

Tuj-Johora, 

a visual 

journalist and 

National 

Geographic 

Explorer from Bangladesh, specializes 

in capturing the essence 

of human stories through her 

lens. Focused on daily life, 

children’s and women’s rights, 

and environmental issues, she 

blends artistry with information 

to create compelling narratives. 

With a background in 

biological science, Fatima’s 

transition to photography was 

driven by her belief in empathy 

as a catalyst for change. 

She sees photography as a 

medium that fosters connection 

and understanding, allowing 

her to shed light on pressing 

social issues like injustice, 

human rights abuses, and our 

complex relationship with the 

environment. Central to her 

body of work is a focus on the 

far-reaching impacts of global 

climate change, exploring 

its effects on both nature and 

human lives. Through her lens, 

Fatima captures moments of 

resilience and struggle, offering 

a nuanced perspective on one 

of the defining challenges of 

our time. In essence, Fatima-Tuj- 

Johora’s photography serves 

as a powerful tool for social 

change, inspiring empathy, 

understanding, and action. 

She has worked for the 

Malala Fund, National 

Public Radio (NPR), Save the 

Children UK, Bloomberg News, 

Liberation, Associated Press 

(AP), and others. Her work has 

appeared in publications such 

as The Daily Star, New Age, 

The Guardian, The Courier, 

Avax News, Hindustan Times, 

and many others. 

Fatima is a regular contributor 

photographer for ZUMA 

PRESS and a contract photographer 

for Reuters. 

Women gather wild shrimp larvae from a river close to the Sundarban in Koyra, Khulna, a 

coastal region of Bangladesh. The lack of an alternative livelihood for people involved in larvae 

fishing and the high salinity of the work environment brought about by climate change affect 

locals’ health, especially women. 


Samson Otieno 

Nationality: Kenyan 

Current residence: Nairobi 

IG: @otiienosamson 

Samson 

Otieno is a 

freelance 

photojournalist 

and 

documentary 

photographer based in Nairobi, 

Kenya. He was born and raised 

in Kibera where he documents 

the everyday life of ordinary 

people. His work focuses on 

daily life, environmental, cultural, 

political, and socio-economic 

activities of day-to-day life. 

Samson’s involvement in the 

selection panel for the African 

Resilience in the Wake of a 

Pandemic campaign demonstrates 

his recognition within the 

photography community and his 

commitment to using his talent 

to address pressing issues and 

collaborating with organizations 

like Bobby Pall Photography 

and the MasterCard Foundation 

Nathan Morris 

Nationality: American 

Current residence: Harrisburg, PA 

IG: @nmorrisphoto 

Web: nathancmorris.com 

Protesters chant slogans as they use a 

booth as a barricade to clash with police 

officers during an anti-government protest in 

Nairobi, Kenya July 2, 2024. 

during the challenging times of 

the COVID-19 pandemic. He is 

a contributor for the Associated 

Press. He was also chosen 

as one of 21 award-winning 

international photographers to 

exhibit at the Apfelweingalerie 

in Frankfurt, Germany. His 

photography has been the only 

place where he can open up his 

soul and express his imagination 

and ideas and change the 

global perception of different 

cultures, social statuses, and 

economic values. 

Vice President Kamala Harris smiles at the 

crowd at the end of a campaign event in 

Philadelphia, PA. May 29, 2024. 

Nathan 

Morris is a 

photojournalist 

based in 

Harrisburg, 

Pennsylvania. 

He graduated from New 

York University’s “Reporting 

the Nation and New York in 

Multimedia” Master’s program 

and attended the Eddie Adams 

Workshop XXXV, where he fell 

in love with documenting stories 

around him with his camera. 

For the past year, Nathan has 

been photographing politics 

within a battleground state, 

mostly as a photographer for 

the Pennsylvania House of 

Representatives. When not covering 

politics, he often likes to 

immerse himself into freelancing 

local community-based 

stories. Nathan has always 

been passionate about meeting 

individuals of all backgrounds 

to learn how they’re impacted 

by the society around them. 

Leila Karjalainen, 89, sits in the sauna at Kontu, a long-term care community in Tampere, 

Finland, on Juhannus, a national holiday in Finland to mark the summer solstice. 

Isadora Kosofsky 

Nationality: American and 

French 

Current residence: Los Angeles 

IG: @Isadorakosofsky 

Web: isadorakosofsky.com 

Isadora 

Kosofsky 

began photographing 

at the age 

of fourteen, 

documenting individuals in 

hospice care. She has gone 

on to document healthcare, 

aging, mental health, disability 

rights, the impacts of 

incarceration, substance use, 

gender violence, childhood 

trauma, and experiences of 

grief, loss, and resilience. 

She is a National 

Geographic Photographer 

and has contributed to the 

New York Times, TIME, The 

New Yorker, The Washington 

Post, Stern, Le Monde, Paris 

Match, The London Sunday 

Times, The Guardian, Slate, 

and others. She is a recipient 

of a 2018 grant from 

the Pulitzer Center for Crisis 

Reporting for her work on 

women identified as survivors 

of complex trauma. In 2019, 

The Royal Photo Society 

named her one of a hundred 

“heroines” in photography 

worldwide. 

She was the recipient 

of the 2012 Inge Morath 

Award from the Magnum 

Foundation for her multi-series 

work on the aged. She was 

a participant in the 2014 

Joop Swart Masterclass 

of World Press Photo. Her 

work has received distinctions 

from Flash Forward 

Magenta Foundation, Ian 

Parry Foundation, Social 

Documentary Network, 

International Academic 

Forum (IAFOR), Women in 

Photography International, 

Prix de la Photographie Paris, 

The New York Photo Festival 

and others. Her work is in the 

permanent collection of the 

Philadelphia Museum of Art 

and can be found in Family 

Photography Now (Thames 

and Hudson, 2016), a photographic 

anthology, and in 

Public Private Portraiture from 

Mossless. 

Her first monograph, 

Senior Love Triangle, was 

published by Kehrer Verlag in 

2020. For complete bio, visit 

her website at isadorakosofsky.com/about. 


Content Contributors 

Barbara Ayotte is the editor of ZEKE 

magazine and the Communications Director 

of the Social Documentary Network. She 

has served as a senior strategic communications 

strategist, writer and activist for leading 

global health, human rights and media 

nonprofit organizations, including the Nobel 

Peace Prize- winning Physicians for Human 

Rights and International Campaign to Ban 

Landmines. 

Michelle Bogre, Professor Emerita, 

Parsons School of Design, is a teacher, 

copyright lawyer, documentary photographer 

and author of four books: Photography 

As Activism: Images for Social Change, 

Photography 4.0: A Teaching Guide for the 

21st Century, Documentary Photography 

Reconsidered: History, Theory and Practice, 

and The Routledge Companion to Copyright 

and Creativity in the 21st Century. She regularly 

lectures, writes and teaches workshops 

on copyright and photography. Her photographs 

and/or writings have been published 

in books, including the Time-Life Annual 

Photography series, The Family of Women, 

Beauty Bound, The Design Dictionary and 

photographer Trey Ratcliffe’s monograph, 

Light Falls like Bits. She is currently trying to 

finish a long term documentary project on 

family farms, published on Instagram as 

@thefarmstories. 

Brian Branch-Price began his career 

as a freelancer for the Washington Post, 

then staffing with the News Journal in 

Wilmington, DE, and followed up with the 

Associated Press in Trenton, NJ. Now with 

Zuma Press, Brian focuses on portraiture, 

reportage, and fine art photography, often 

exhibiting his work at public libraries and 

historical societies. Brian earned a B.S. 

in Environmental Geology and a minor in 

Fine Arts from Howard University and is 

now a member of the American Society 

of Media Photographers and the National 

Association of Black Journalists: Value Task 

Force and VTF Parliamentarian. 

Daniela Cohen is a freelance journalist 

and non-fiction writer of South African origin 

based in Vancouver, Canada. Her work has 

been published in New Canadian Media, 

Canadian Immigrant, eJewish Philanthropy, 

The Source Newspaper, and Living Hyphen. 

Daniela’s work focuses on themes of displacement 

and belonging, justice, equity, 

diversity and inclusion. She is also the 

co-founder of Identity Pages, a youth writing 

mentorship program. 

Alice Currey is currently a student at 

New York University with an individualized 

major in photojournalism. Having 

spent her childhood in Kenya and her teen 

years in Uzbekistan, she has adopted a 

cultural insight and empathy that uniquely 

understands the power of visual storytelling 

in implementing global change. As both 

a writer and photographer she hopes to 

contribute to the reconfiguration of photojournalism 

as a method of advocacy. 

Benita Mayo is a visual artist based in 

Charlottesville, VA. She is an inaugural member 

of the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective 

and a resident artist at the McGuffey Art 

Center. Mayo holds a B.A. in Rhetoric & 

Communications from the University of 

Virginia (UVA), and she was a fellow-inresidence 

at the UVA Equity Center, creating 

a photo essay highlighting the pregnancy 

risks that Black women face in the U.S. and 

the positive benefits of doula support. 

Eleanor Moseman is a photographer, 

adventuress, and storyteller focusing on 

social and cultural narratives involving 

women and persecuted groups of people 

around Asia. More specifically, she visually 

conserves the politically sensitive regions 

of Tibet and Xinjiang, drawing international 

awareness to the humanitarian 

issues of persecuted Buddhists in Tibet and 

the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang. As one of 

the few photographers working continually 

in the region, she feels a responsibility to 

document and share what has transpired 

politically, physically, and culturally since 

COVID-19 changed the world. 

Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez 

was born in Mexico City in 1990. He is 

a freelance archaeologist and documentary 

photographer dedicated to covering 

stories about cultural identity and conflict for 

national and international media. His work 

has been exhibited in more than 10 countries 

and is represented by the international 

agency Getty Images. As a photographer, he 

has covered Latin America, the United States, 

Peru, Ukraine, and Ethiopia among others. 

Molly Roberts is a documentary 

photographer, visuals editor and curator 

residing in Baltimore, Maryland. Roberts’ 

35+ year career includes creating visuals 

and managing contributing photographers 

at The Washington Post Magazine, USA 

Weekend, Smithsonian Magazine and 

National Geographic Magazine. She 

is the recipient of multiple awards for 

her magazine work including the NPPA 

award for Best Use of Photography in a 

Magazine, finalist for National Magazine 

Award, special recognition for photography 

features by Communication Arts, 

American Photography, and Society of 

Publication Design. 

Glenn Ruga is a photographer, graphic 

designer, and curator. He founded the 

Social Documentary Network (SDN) in 

2008 and in 2015 launched ZEKE: The 

Magazine of Global Documentary. As a 

photographer, he has created traveling 

and online documentary exhibits on the 

struggle for a multicultural future in Bosnia, 

the war and aftermath in Kosovo, and an 

immigrant community in Holyoke, Mass. 

John Simpson is a retired history 

instructor at Pierce College in Lakewood, 

Washington. From 1992 to 2022, he 

worked part-time as a photojournalist and 

journalist for the Ranger newspaper, a 

publication that covers Joint Base Lewis- 

McChord located near Tacoma, WA. 

Between 2005 and 2012, he was embedded 

with combat forces from bases in both 

Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2023, he has 

documented the growing issue of homelessness 

in the world’s wealthiest country while 

focusing his efforts on the homeless living 

in Olympia, Washington. 

Nima Taradji is an Iranian-American 

editorial and documentary photographer 

focusing on cultural, social, and political 

themes. He aims to photograph people 

and create stories that witness the multiplicity 

of human experience. His photographs 

have appeared in various national and 

international publications such as The 

Washington Post, The New York Times- 

Lens, CNN, CBS Chicago, ABC News, 

and Time. He is a proud member and cofounder 

of Argo Collective. 

Lauren Walsh, Professor at New York 

University and Founder and Director of the 

Gallatin Photojournalism Intensive, is the 

author of numerous books on the visual 

coverage of conflict and crisis, and peace 

journalism. Walsh heads media and visual 

literacy educational initiatives globally, 

with an emphasis on ethics as well as 

safety and mental health concerns for 

journalists. She is the lead educator who 

oversaw the development of media/visual 

literacy curricula, including a focus on 

generative AI, for the Content Authenticity 

Initiative. 


BOOK 

REVIEWS 

BETWEEN FEARS AND HOPE 

by Fabrice Dekoninck 

Hemeria, 2024 

272 pages / $67 

Between Fears and Hope, a photo 

book by Fabrice Dekoninck, opens 

with an epigraph that takes us 

backwards in time. Dekoninck quotes from 

the first canto of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, 

words that encapsulate the Italian poet’s 

fear and vulnerability: 

Midway upon the journey of our life 

I found myself within a forest dark 

For the straightforward pathway had 

been lost. 

Dante then proceeds through the dark 

terrain of hell, his rich allegory a commentary 

on morality, human behavior, and 

society. 

With that opening, 

Dekoninck 

molds his own 

framework for 

guiding his readers 

through another 

kind of hell: by 

showing the 

ongoing impact 

of the Bosnian 

War. Dekoninck’s 

commentaries are manifold, focusing on 

injustice, trauma, and, at times, cautious 

hope for the future. Ultimately, Between 

Fears and Hope serves to better our 

understanding of a painful history, one 

defined by still festering wounds. 

“I am a photographer of memory, a 

collector of what used to be and of what 

will disappear. I explore traces of the traumas 

of my contemporaries.” This is how 

Dekoninck introduces himself in the book, 

which opens with essays before proceeding 

to the main breadth of imagery. 

For background, Dekoninck describes 

a disillusionment during the first months 

of the conflict in Bosnia: “By not naming 

the attacker, the international community 

did nothing else but deny the humanity 

of the Bosnians, especially the 

Muslim Bosniaks….it encouraged 

the attacker to pursue its criminal 

intentions.” In short, a refusal, as 

Dekoninck says, of the truth. From 

there, he names the perpetrator: 

“the ominous project of ‘Greater 

Serbia’: a nationalist doctrine 

promoted by Belgradian ideologists 

and fed on the devouring 

ambition of a power-hungry 

politician, Slobodan Milošević.” 

This opening essay gives 

historical context, describes 

Dekoninck’s role as an outsider to Bosnia, 

and lays out why he has conducted this 

work, which is, in part, to fight a culture 

of silence that has dominated in areas, 

particularly the Serb-majority state of 

Republika Srpska. Accordingly, Between 

Fears and Hope tackles injustice, genocide, 

denial, and how the past seeps 

forward through generations. 

Before we encounter Dekoninck’s 

photographs, we read words by Philippe 

Simon, a correspondent for France Interradio 

in 1993. His essay includes a petrifying 

excerpt, apparently from the draft 

of a column he wrote in November of 

that year. Describing a schoolroom scene 

where a teacher and her students were 

finishing class as a mortar shell landed just 

outside, the write-up ends with gruesome 

details of death. The chilling final words 

simply state: “The class was over.” 

So begins our journey through a 

modern-day hell. Where Dante gave 

us visually vivid text, Dekoninck offers 

actual imagery. Organized by sections, 

corresponding to cities around Bosnia 

(Srebrenica, Prijedor, Sarajevo), the 

reader encounters a spectrum of photographs, 

ranging from grainy black 

and white scenescapes, to detail shots, 

to desaturated color visuals that present 

an otherworldly place long since 

uninhabited. When we do see people, 

they are anything but otherworldly—that 

is the point. The traumatic legacy exists 

ingrained in society and impacts a current 

population in ways that are, at times, 

nearly imperceptible. But what seems a 

pedestrian moment becomes much more. 

Darko Cvijetic is a Bosnian-Serb writer, filmmaker, and poet, 

renowned for his novel Schindler Lift. In this book, he depicts the 

gradual disappearance of a once peaceful and tolerant way of 

life through the daily lives of residents in a multi-ethnic residential 

building in Prijedor. Photograph by Fabrice Dekoninck. 

As Dekoninck says, “Photography is my 

way of questioning the world”. In turn, he 

prods his reader to push deeper into a 

history that carries into the present. 

The images themselves are not heavyhanded, 

which contributes to Dekoninck’s 

emphasis on the everyday quality of this 

festering history. Moreover, the layout provides 

a rhythm, alternating text and imagery, 

single page photos and full two-page 

spreads. Of particular note are the many 

portraits throughout, each accompanied by 

the individual’s story. For instance, Almasa, 

whose 17-year-old brother Abdulah was 

handed over to Serb forces by Dutch 

peacekeeping soldiers. His body was later 

found in a mass grave. 

In the end, this book stands as a call 

to action toward remembering the past, 

and for establishing justice. We are told 

that thousands of war criminals have gone 

unpunished for their crimes during the 

Bosnian War. But Dekoninck knows that 

courtroom justice is unlikely for those thousands 

and is not the only form of justice 

for society. He posits the idea of a protected 

collective historical memory such 

that partisan biases cannot occlude the 

factual realities of crimes committed. This, 

he conjectures, may be a way of moving 

toward a space of greater reconciliation 

in a region still rife with civil, religious, and 

cultural animosity. 

This haunting book will leave its reader 

uncomfortable—in a most productive way, 

demanding that we confront the legacy of 

war and injustice. 

—Lauren Walsh 




MANIFEST: THIRTEEN 

COLONIES 

by Wendel White 

Radius Books, 2024 

298 pages / $70 

Wendel White is a documentary 

and fine art photographer 

whose powerful renderings 

of African American artifacts have 

recently culminated in an exhibition and 

book in conjunction with the Peabody 

Museum of Archeology and Ethnology 

at Harvard 

University in 

Cambridge 

MA. The book, 

Manifest: Thirteen 

Colonies, co-published 

by Radius 

Books (Santa Fe, 

May 2024) contains 

220 images 

which have been 

carefully collected 

by numerous museums and institutions 

in America, many as part of their 

American history and African American 

culture collections and chosen by 

Wendel White for their impact, beauty, 

and storytelling value. Also included 

in the book are the writings of Brenda 

Dione Tindal, Cheryl Finley, Deborah 

Willis, Leigh Raiford, and Peabody 

Museum Curator of Visual Anthropology, 

Ilisa Barbash. 

White describes the making of this 

book as a very gradual process which 

ultimately became a body of artifacts 

gathered to retell the narrative and evolution 

of African American communities in 

America. He has pursued fellowships, 

assignments, self-assignments, and traveled 

across the country to gain access 

to the various items that have become 

central to the book. 

White has said that the project actually 

started by accident. He had begun 

another project at the University of 

Rochester where he discovered a lock 

of Frederick Douglass’ hair. Confronting 

the power of that human specimen, he 

abandoned the other project entirely 

and developed a new sort of compulsion 

to think about and respond to the way 

in which African American history and 

culture has been accumulated and held 

in public institutions. In the 19th century 

it was actually common to ask for a lock 

of hair from an esteemed person, but it is 

unsettling to confront such a personal item 

in a museum collection today. 

The technique that White uses adds 

to the eerie and timeless transformation 

of the objects. All are photographed on 

black velvet, which makes the objects 

seem to float in a void. And regardless of 

the scale of the actual object, things exist 

in a similar way; he photographs them at 

relatively the same size within the frame 

of his view camera. So, a door from the 

devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina 

in 2005, photographed at the National 

Museum of African American History and 

Culture, is the same size in the photograph 

as the previously mentioned Douglass’ 

lock of hair that’s just sitting on a piece of 

paper. He is working with the idea of the 

past as something that is not completely 

opaque to us, but recedes away, as the 

objects in the photographs recede away 

from the viewer. And, of course, not all of 

these objects in collections are accessible 

to everyone, so in making these documents, 

he makes these historical objects 

available to a larger audience. 

He finds photographing the items often 

emotionally and psychologically draining, 

depending on the piece. Some of 

the objects are very painful representations 

of the African American experience, 

while others may be joyful in terms of 

what it represents about Black life and the 

accomplishments and achievements of the 

African American community. But the work 

involves absorbing one story after another 

that reveal the obstacles that African 

Americans have had to contend with in 

the trajectory from enslavement through 

Jim Crow segregation, incarceration, and 

to the contemporary moment. 

All of these objects seem to have a 

spiritual quality; they whisper the stories 

and represent ancestors and are “resonant 

in one way or another of a human 

life,” White explained. 

White counts Deborah Willis, James 

Van der Zee, Nell Irvin Painter’s The 

History of White People, Gordon Parks, 

and James Baldwin among his influences. 

While the Manifest project is continuing, 

there are many more states and collections 

to be mined, White’s next project 

may include subjects who will be able to 

speak back to him. He is planning on a 

portrait project in the near future. 

—Molly Roberts 


WE CRY IN SILENCE 

by Smita Sharma 

FotoEvidence, 2022 | $50 

Text in English, Hindi, Bengali 

There’s absolutely nothing beautiful 

about human trafficking. It is one of 

the most brutal crimes on this planet, 

yet photojournalist Smita Sharma’s photographs 

defy the horror, refusing to give in 

to it, and ensuring that beauty and dignity 

have the final word. 

This compact 

hand-sewn 

hardback book 

packs a powerful 

presence. 

At first glance, 

the rich colorful 

photo spreads 

that include 

unique quarterpage 

foldouts, 

flowers, rooms 

sheathed in beautiful fabrics, and children 

jumping rope, seem innocent enough. 

What could be wrong? Why would these 

subjects be crying, as the title forewarns? 

Reading the foreword by Dr. PM Nair, an 

international expert on human trafficking, 

the context becomes clear. “Trafficking in 

persons is the gravest abuse and exploitation 

of the rights, dignity and freedom of 

human beings…all of us are, in fact, duty 

holders in the process of preventing and 

combatting human trafficking… Sharma’s 

work both brings out the intimacy with the 

survivors, inspiring empathy and reveals 

the psychological manipulation of the traffickers.” 

Nair explains further that Indian 

law prohibits identifying trafficking victims, 

so the job of visually depicting survivors 

is extremely difficult. In Sharma’s photographs, 

“shadows are as significant as the 

light in her work. They speak volumes.” 

The book is organized into sections 

of full-bleed photo spreads divided by 

bright yellow text on sky blue color panels. 

The GIRLS section shows young girls 

going to school, riding bicycles, fetching 

water. All seems normal, until you reach 

the back of the book to find detailed 

descriptions of their horrifying stories. 

A., who is now 19, eloped with a man several years ago. After she overheard him making plans to sell her to a 

brothel in Kolkata, she managed to escape. She was found at the railway station in Canning, West Bengal, India 

and taken to a shelter where she was counseled by mental health experts. Photo by Smita Sharma. 

I am usually not a fan of hunting down 

captions at the back of a book, but in this 

instance, it seems like Sharma was intentional 

in not shaming or stereotyping the 

girls from the get-go. Looking at the photographs, 

you assume nothing is awry. 

But that is the point—these girls should 

be viewed with dignity, their whole being 

not defined by their trafficking stories. 

This is not avoiding or delaying their 

stories, it is showing their strength. 

With each section, TRAIN STATION, 

THE POLICE, MISSING, THE BROTHEL, 

the painful process of trafficking becomes 

clearer. Girls swept up at train stations, 

lured into work, missing, forced into sex 

work, or in the case of Indigenous girls, 

into domestic servitude. What’s even more 

horrifying is that often the girls’ parents 

are involved in the trafficking. 

Yellow pen illustrations by Nitin Chawla 

and Loveleen Chawla intersperse the photographs, 

part of an accompanying zine 

insert to raise awareness of trafficking and 

how to seek help. Emergency call numbers 

in large blue text also appear in the final 

sections of the book for how to seek help in 

India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. 

The last section, THE SHELTER, features 

some of the most beautiful images in the 

book—colorful portraits of survivors posing 

with flowers, their faces in shadow. 

From their postures, it is clear there is a 

sense of release, relief, and even resilience. 

They are safe. But again, half page 

foldouts behind the flowers reveal the 

details of what happened, in gruesome 

detail, to the women. But, their beauty is 

the first thing you see. 

Despite working on this project for 

over six years, Sharma says she never 

intended to work on the issue of human 

trafficking. She was “sucked into this dark 

world…the topic chose me rather than 

the other way around.” In 2015, she met 

a 17-year-old girl in West Bengal, India, 

who had received a random call from a 

man who said she was beautiful and in 

love with her and that they should meet. 

When they did, he had a gift for her and 

proposed marriage. They met his parents, 

who were not really his parents but part of 

the scheme. She believed his charms and 

ended up locked in a brothel 1,000 miles 

away from home in Delhi. The story left 

Sharma “utterly shocked and distraught.” 

She was compelled to look into why 

it was so easy to trap a girl, why were 

they so vulnerable? Patriarchy is deeply 

ingrained in the societies of these regions 

along with deprivation of affection and 

care for young girls. They develop a sense 

of dependency on their trafficker. 

Sharma says, “Human trafficking stares 

us right in the face but it is so perverse, 

and we are so discomforted by the hard 

truths, that we simply ignore it and block it 

from our consciousness.” 

As this book so powerfully shows, we 

all need to do more to stop this atrocity. 

Girls deserve to grow up in dignity with 

self-worth and without stigma or shame. 

No one should cry in silence. 

—Barbara Ayotte 


ON THE NATIONAL 

LANGUAGE 

by B.A. Van Sise 

Schiffer Publishing, 2024 

176 pages | $50.00 

the wind erased their tracks 

— Apache for “died” 

B.A.Van Sise’s new book, On the 

National Language, is a paean to 

the people who are trying to save 

and revitalize languages, endangered 

or soon to be. Of the 7,000 spoken or 

signed languages existing, more than 

3,000 of them are in danger of having the 

wind erase their tracks. Saving languages, 

Van Sise says, is the “search for home.” 

Van Sise—a linguist, photographer, 

and poet—spent three years traveling to 

48 U.S. states, using his charm and persistence 

to cajole more than 100 people 

into participating in his collaborative 

portrait project. He asked each speaker to 

suggest a meaningful word or poem that 

became the generative idea for the portrait, 

carefully crafted and composed, usually 

humorous, rich with internal narrative, 

sometimes literal but often metaphorical. 

The book’s design pairs a paragraph 

about the history of the language, the 

person featured, and the chosen word or 

phrase. Van Sise is as good a writer as 

he is a photographer, so his poetic and 

lyrical text and images are intertwined. In 

his hands, photography and poetry are 

fundamentally the same medium. Both 

are arbitrary selections of a moment. A 

condensing of an expression. A snippet of 

an idea. Both work best when they elicit 

an emotion from the viewer. 

waawaate, Ojibwe word for “there are northern lights.” Photograph of Stella Hunter in Fairbanks, Alaska by 

B.A. Van Sise. 

Color also is a character in Van Sise’s 

photographs while light is the protagonist. 

He isn’t afraid to bury most of the image in 

deep shadow, only lighting the essence. 

Other times he blasts the scene with light 

and color so bright it is hard to look at. 

But he doesn’t just play with light and 

color, he also plays with the language of 

documentary photography, pushing at its 

edges, asking us to reconsider our definition, 

even suggesting that the genre must 

evolve to survive. Throughout the book, 

he intersperses straight documentary 

images—drawing on his background as 

a photojournalist—with ones that are best 

described as conceptual or creative documentary, 

discarding allegiance to truth, 

authenticity, and sometimes even gravity. 

He challenges us to figure out which 

are which and he delights in fooling us. 

Some images that we swear are manipulated 

are not. For example, in the cover 

image, Maggie McGhee, who spent five 

years learning Lakota and now teaches 

it at a local school, chose a Lakota word, 

unkupelo (we are coming home). She 

stands holding her child, in front of a 

close up (eyes to lips) of the massive 

Crazy Horse Memorial in Crazy Horse, 

SD. She is photographed only from 

the waist up, a small speck in the dead 

center of the frame. The disparity in size 

screams Photoshop. But no. Van Sise and 

McGhee climbed the memorial to create 

this photograph. 

Or another image that features 

Barbara Amos, who is helping to revitalize 

Cup’ig, a dialect of the Yup’ik language, 

still spoken only by a few elders of 

Nunivak Island, Alaska. She sits on a rock 

ledge, laughing. Behind her a whale’s 

tail pops out of the water. Because of the 

other more fantastical images in the book, 

our first inclination is that this image was 

constructed. It’s not hard to digitally add 

a whale’s tail. But like the cover image, 

it’s not. Van Sise was just lucky and quick 

enough to capture the action. 

In some of the more obviously manipulated 

images we might even assume he 

used AI. 

For example, one image features two 

people, one facing the camera and the 

other sitting on the tailgate of an SUV. The 

image is a mash of dark blues and greens, 

reflected in a background of brilliant 

green Northern Lights. This is obviously 

a constructed image and the Northern 

Lights background screams AI, a technology 

that would have created it in minutes. 

Rather than defaulting to AI, Van Sise 

spent days stitching his images together 

because even for his more conceptual or 

constructed images, he believes in adhering 

to the photographic principle that all 

digital manipulation should be something 

that could have been done in the darkroom. 

Think Jerry Uelsmann. 

Through his portraits and text, Van Sise 

is saying that spoken and visual languages 

are important, regardless of the 

process employed to revitalize or create 

them. And we should continue to protect 

them, or in Seneca, dëyethiyë ‘ nyadö:g. 

—Michelle Bogre 


BRIEFLY 

NOTED 

EDITED BY ALICE CURREY 

A SENSE OF SHIFTING: QUEER 

ARTISTS RESHAPING DANCE 

By Coco Romack and Yael 

Malka 

Chronicle Books, 2024 

208 pages | $27.50 

Enter the groundbreaking world of 

queer dance in this gorgeous collection 

of stories and photographs. This 

book showcases twelve individual artists 

and dance companies who are reclaiming 

traditional genres and building inclusive 

dance communities. Whether professionals 

or amateurs, ballerinas or experimental 

performers, pole dancers or line 

dancers, these artists embody the queer 

experience in unique ways. Photographer 

Yael Malka invites us into an intimate, visceral 

experience of rehearsals and performances, 

and writer Coco Romack offers 

reflections on the creative process drawn 

from in-depth interviews with the dancers. 

The collection explores an array of 

experiences of dancing in a wheelchair, 

navigating the intersections of gender and 

race, engaging with cultural inheritance 

on one’s own terms, and even striving to 

make non-activist art when simply existing 

as a queer person can be a political 

action. This beautiful book documents the 

rise of a new generation of artists and will 

inspire dance lovers, LGBTQIA+ creators, 

and anyone who delights in the power of 

the human body in motion. 

THE NEW CUBANS 

By Jean-François Bouchard 

powerHouse Books, 2024 

256 pages | $50 

Jean-François Bouchard’s cinematic 

photography illuminates the previously 

under reported culture of contemporary 

Cuba, revealing a polymorphic, 

intimate community in which personal 

expression and gender diversity are 

vivaciously celebrated. Preconceptions 

of communist social uniformity and Cold 

War-era clichés are cleverly subverted 

in this ambitious photographic journey 

that reveals the emerging subcultures 

in Havana. Comprising more than 150 

intimate, revealing photographs, The New 

Cubans is augmented with profiles of the 

fascinating individuals who welcomed 

Bouchard into their world. Texts include 

an interview with renowned photographer 

Matthew Leifheit, an essay by Cuban 

art critic Jorge Peré, and heartfelt contributions 

from the photographer’s close 

collaborator, Devon Ruiz. Showcasing a 

Cuba few outsiders have seen or possibly 

even know exists, the book celebrates the 

lesser-known but vibrant Cuban inclusiveness, 

gender-diversity openness, and 

the lifestyles of the younger, connected 

Cubans who will shape the future of the 

island or leave it behind in search of new 

possibilities. 

BORDERLANDS 

By Francesco Anselmi 

Kehrer, 2024 

136 pages | $54 

Borderlands is a documentary essay 

shot along the U.S. side of the 

border with Mexico between 2017 

and 2019 at the height of the Trump era. 

Transcending the immediate emergency 

narrative associated with border-related 

issues, this series instead offers a nuanced 

exploration of a region teeming with life, 

stories, and contradictions. Borderlands is 

accompanied by an essay by Francisco 

Cantù that weaves through the landscape 

and the lives captured by Anselmi, inviting 

readers to confront the myths, the realities, 

and the human experiences of the boundaries. 

Through Anselmi’s gaze, the borderlands 

reveal themselves as a unique 

space, distinct from the countries it divides. 

From the Rio Grande Valley to southern 

Arizona and California, Anselmi’s work is 

a testament to the power of photography 

to bridge divides and foster a deeper 

understanding of our shared humanity. 

Anselmi invites us to engage with the 

borderlands’ landscapes and narratives 

on a personal level, to understand the 

myriad ways in which borders shape and 

are shaped by human lives. 


MY AMERICA 

By Diana Matar 

GOST Books, 2024 

110 pages | $65 

In the U.S., approximately 1,000 

people continue to die each year in 

encounters with police; more than any 

other industrialized nation. My America 

is an archive of and memorial to victims 

of these encounters. The black and white 

photographs—taken at locations where 

citizens were shot or tasered by law 

enforcement officers— create a quiet 

but chilling critique of the contemporary 

United States. At seemingly banal 

landscapes of city parks, shopping 

malls, parking lots, mobile homes, empty 

fields, and roadside highways, Diana 

Matar declares that what happened at 

these locations matters and questions the 

link between landscape and memory. 

Traveling alone on highways, back roads, 

and city streets to reveal something 

beyond statistics, the result is a book 

designed with respect to the victims but 

also rich with information about the structural 

reasons why these events continue to 

occur at such a high rate. The scale of the 

book attests to the scale of the problem 

yet Matar asks us to remember these are 

individuals. 

YEARS LIKE WATER 

By Nadia Sablin 

Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2023 

128 pages | $49 

Years Like Water is a decade-long 

look at a small Russian village, its 

inhabitants, ramshackle institutions, 

nature, and mythology. The series loosely 

follows the lives of four interconnected 

families – the children growing up unsupervised 

in a magical wilderness, while 

the adults struggle for survival. Over more 

than ten years of visits, photographer 

Nadia Sablin attended birthdays and 

funerals, drank tea with the grandmothers, 

and listened to stories of the villagers’ 

loneliness and love for one another. 

Sablin’s ongoing projects are primarily 

based in rural Russia and Ukraine, spanning 

years of children growing up, elders 

growing old, and the practical ways in 

which people cope with the passage of 

time in unstable economic environments. 

Most of her work explores the larger 

world through intimately observed narratives, 

memory, fact, and myth. Sablin’s 

photographs from Alekhovshchina 

explore and describe a world that doesn’t 

fit into the neat narrative of “Putin’s 

Russia” presented by both Eastern and 

Western media. It is more complicated 

– interweaving beauty, poverty, trauma, 

and hope. 

A POOR IMITATION OF 

DEATH: YOUTH IN THE 

CALIFORNIA PRISON SYSTEM 

By Ara Oshagan 

Daylight Books, 2024 

150 pages | $50 

A 

Poor Imitation of Death is a complex 

and collaborative narrative between 

photographer Ara Oshagan and the 

incarcerated youth he photographed from 

2000-2003. Meshing photographs with 

the youth’s handwritten letters, poems, 

and artwork, this work creates a unique 

and authentic voice that speaks about 

the realities of life in prison. It tells a harsh 

story: full of despair, raw emotion, and 

injustice but also of incredible resilience, 

inner strength, and huge potential 

for change. Upon entering the metal 

gates and barbed wire at a California 

prison, Oshagan discovered kids who 

were respectful, asked questions, were 

engaged, and who also carried extremely 

hard histories that included marginalization 

and abuse. For Oshagan “this project, 

beyond being about incarceration, is 

about connection, about breaking down 

barriers of perception, about a process 

to humanize these youth against a vast 

system—internal and external—that incessantly 

and ruthlessly dehumanizes them.” 

Beyond highlighting some of the inherent 

and inhumane problems with the justice 

system in the United States, this project is 

a statement of solidarity and celebrates 

the resilience of the youth and honors their 

stories and voices. 


Documentary Photography 

Workshop in Nepal 

Join SDN 

March 1-10, 2025 

9 days/9 nights in Kathmandu and 

surrounding areas. 

Photo by Mani Karmacharya 

Explore Nepal with a National Geographic photographer and 

Nepalese photojournalist to learn techniques and skills of visual 

storytelling while photographing some of the many challenges facing this 

mountainous nation sandwiched between the high Tibetan Plateau and 

subtropical northern India. 

Trip Leaders 

Award-winning French photojournalist 

and documentary photographer 

William Daniels will lead the group 

for the first six days while providing 

daily feedback and instruction. 

Nepalese photographer and social 

activist Uma Bista will take over for 

the final three days providing insights 

and introductions from the perspective 

of a visual storyteller steeped in the 

culture, traditions, and challenges of 

her home country. 

$4,900 single 

$4,500 per person double 

Learn more at: 

www.socialdocumentary.net/ 

nepal2025 

Workshop Themes 

Theme 1: The first five days of the trip, 

under the guidance of William Daniels, 

will focus on climate change and how 

it is affecting daily life in Nepal. 

Theme 2: The final four days, under 

the guidance of Uma Bista, will focus 

on Women in Nepal: At home, at 

work, and in daily life. 

You will learn techniques and theory 

of ethical photographic practice while 

also learning from leading professional 

photographers how to work in the 

field under changing and challenging 

conditions, and coming back each day 

with meaningful photographs that will 

tell stories about conditions in Nepal. 


Thank you to all the donors to ZEKE’s 

Twenty for Twenty campaign 

$20 for twenty years of ZEKE! 

Vincent Albano 

Julien Ayotte 

Cathi Baglin* 

Sara Bennett 

Kevin Bjorke 

Domenico Ceffa 

Eric Chang 

Natalie Chilo 

Esha Chiocchio* 

Enos Ignacio Cozier 

Jeanine Cummins* 

Cathie Davies 

Kathleen Dreier 

Michael Ensdorf* 

Ellen Feldman* 

Morrie Gasser 

Julie Gendich* 

Rosalyn Gerstein 

Alan Grate 

Eric Hoffner 

Raymond Holman 

Jynx Houston 

Toni Jepson 

Mary Ellen Kelly 

Allan Lee Koss 

Elizabeth Krist 

Deborah Lannon 

Eric Luden 

Winslow Martin 

Benita Mayo 

Patrick McCarthy 

Kevin McKeon 

Martin Miklas 

Anthony Morganti 

Mark Phillips 

John Rae 

Molly Roberts 

Deborah Shriver* 

Maggie Soladay 

Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano* 

Harvey Stein 

Jamey Stillings* 

Paula Tognarelli 

Frank Ward 

Bob & Janet Winston* 

Andrea Zocchi 

Michele Zousmer 

vasa-project.com 

• Donated more than $20 

Winners of 2024 ZEKE Awards on 

display at Photoville, Brooklyn, NY 

June 2024 


Fall 2024 VOL.10/NO.2 $15 US 

ZEKE 

THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

Published by Social Documentary Network 

ZEKE is published by Social Documentary Network (SDN), 

a nonprofit organization promoting visual storytelling about 

global themes. Started as a website in 2008, today SDN 

works with thousands of photographers around the world to 

tell important stories through the visual medium of photography. 

Since 2008, SDN has featured more than 4,000 exhibits 

on its website and has had gallery exhibitions in major cities 

around the world. 

Executive Editor: Glenn Ruga 

Senior Editor: Barbara Ayotte 

Intern: Alice Currey 

SDN and ZEKE magazine 

are projects of Reportage 

International, Inc., a nonprofit 

organization founded in 2020. 

ZEKE does not accept unsolicited 

submissions. To be considered for 

publication in ZEKE, submit your 

work to the SDN website either 

as a standard exhibit or a submission 

to a Call for Entries. 

Reportage 

International, Inc. 

Board of Directors 

Glenn Ruga, President 

Eric Luden, Treasurer 

Barbara Ayotte, Secretary 

Dudley Brooks 

John Heffernan 

Maggie Soladay 

Documentary Advisory 

Group 

Bill Aguado, Bronx, NY 

Cathy Edelman, Chicago, IL 

Jill Foley, Silver Springs, MD 

Lori Grinker, New York, NY 

Michael Itkoff, Bronx, NY 

Lou Jones, Boston, MA 

Ed Kashi, Montclair, NJ 

Lekgetho Makola, Johanesburg 

Mary Beth Meehan, Providence, RI 

Marie Monteleone, New York, NY 

Molly Roberts, Washington, DC 

Joseph Rodriguez, Brooklyn, NY 

Jamel Shabazz, Hempstead, NY 

Nichole Sobecki, Kenya 

Jamey Stillings, Sante Fe, NM 

Steve Walker, Danbury, CT 

Lauren Walsh, New York, NY 

Frank Ward, Williamsburg, MA 

Amy Yenkin, New York, NY 

ZEKE is published twice a 

year by Social Documentary 

Network, a project of Reportage 

International, Inc. 

Copyright © 2024 

Social Documentary Network 

ISSN 2381-1390 

61 Potter Street 

Concord, MA 01742 USA 

617-417-5981 

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PROFILE: COVER PHOTOGRAPHER 

Benita Mayo 

Pausing to Bear Witness 


Benita Mayo’s journey into photography 

began when she bought her 

first real camera before embarking 

on a trip to Italy. “I took some 

two-hour workshops on shutter speed, 

ISO, the whole nine yards, so that I 

could come back with these fabulous 

pictures.” When she returned to northern 

Virginia, she submitted a photo 

she’d taken of the Duomo in Florence 

to a camera club contest and won a 

blue ribbon. She enjoyed the feeling so 

much, she subsequently joined the camera 

club. Unlike other pursuits which 

quickly bored her, Mayo’s interest in 

photography didn’t wane. “I truly had 

no intention that it would become my 

mistress,” she said, “that it would just 

consume me.” 

For Mayo, landscape photography 

was the “gateway drug” into portraiture 

and social documentary photography. 

Initially, she was petrified of taking 

pictures of people. A workshop facilitator 

helped her generate the courage to 

approach a distinguished man with a 

crooked cane who she wanted to photograph 

in South Carolina but didn’t 

know how to approach. “It was really 

not a good photograph, but it showed 

me I could do it,” Mayo said. 

A key purpose of Mayo’s work is to 

bear witness. “Growing up, I didn’t feel 

seen, although you don’t really have 

the words to express not being seen,” 

she said. For her, helping others feel 

seen starts with making a connection. 

During a visit to the Taos Pueblo, a 

Native American community in northern 

New Mexico, Mayo recalls being 

invited into a resident’s home to photograph 

him, a special honor in a culture 

that believes an image is a way of stealing 

part of a person’s soul. “Hopefully, 

through that exchange, I’m actually 

showing the world who the person is,” 

she said. “Not who I wish them to be 

or who the audience wants them to be, 

but actually their authentic selves.” 

Mayo’s focus on “the soft spaces 

easily overlooked and often ignored,” 

allows people’s vulnerabilities to be 



portrayed. The proximity between herself 

and the people she is photographing 

is representative of the type of relationship 

she aims to foster. “Not everyone 

has the privilege of tapping into their 

core self, and I think that’s because we 

walk around in the world with this 

armor on. And it blocks other people,” 

said Mayo. “I think it’s such a privilege 

if you are able to allow your vulnerabilities 

to be seen.” 

In her project “Bearing Witness,” 

she showcases this vulnerability 

through a photo essay illuminating the 

unique risks for Black women during 

pregnancy and the benefits of having 

doula support. Undertaken as a 

fellow-in-residence at the University 

of Viriginia Equity Center, the project 

emerged from Mayo reading about the 

disparities of Black maternal health, 

learning about the role of a doula as 

a coach for women giving birth, and 

her growing interest in documentary 

work. Mayo also decided to become a 

doula herself, complimenting her work 

as a Yoga teacher. 

The cover photo of this issue of 

ZEKE shows Michaela, the woman 

Mayo was photographing, with her 

baby in her arms while up on her 

knees delivering the afterbirth. Mayo 

explained that the afterbirth is the placenta 

that also needs to be pushed out 

of the body. Being present at the birth 

was profound for her – the visceral 

experience as well as the sense of privilege 

in being there. The memory of her 

own mother hemorrhaging after giving 

birth to Mayo, and only now realizing 

it was because she hadn’t been allowed 

to deliver the afterbirth, added another 

layer of depth to the experience. 

“I’m a Black woman, but I never 

even considered any of [the health 

disparities] until someone brought it to 

my attention, and once you see it, you 

can’t unsee it,” said Mayo. With her 

work, she aims to get people “to pause 

and to think about exactly what they’re 

seeing.” 

In her recent exhibition, “Womanist: 

The Tao of Midlife and Menopause,” 

Mayo said she has used her own story 

as “a catalyst to start a conversation,” 

showcasing women over 50 “who 

are the opposite of what society says a 

woman in menopause is supposed to 

look like.” The feedback from participants 

has reiterated the benefit of being 

seen and acknowledged. 

For Mayo, photography is her way 

of doing something to contribute to a 

better world. 


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