http://www.macfound.org/programs/fel/fellows/sheikh_fazal.htmIt's weird seeing him up there. I knew him about 17 years ago in Johannesburg. He had just graduated from college and was starting his first photography project, travelling across Africa, starting in South Africa. I hung out at a student/activist commune in Braamfontein, near the university, which was run by an Indian-South African, and somehow Fazal ended up staying there for a while. All the Indian girls had huge crushes on him.
Fazal had grown up in Africa (Kenya I think) in his earliest years, then in the US. If I remember correctly, after his parents split up, his father lived in the same very remote part of Virginia my father's family was from, and we had a lot of Hamden-Sidney/Farmville/Rice experiences in common.
As a result of his early African experiences, he knew a lot about hiking and rock climbing, which I had been doing, so I invited him on one of my field trips to Bophutatswana. I don't remember what we did in the morning (I assume I was interviewing and he was taking pictures), but in the afternoon, I took him to the koppies outside the village of Mokolokwe and we went rock climbing. Toward the late afternoon, we were menaced by a troop of baboons, and Fazal said you just have to stand your ground and yell back at them, which we did loudly.
Haven't seen him since, but have come across his work from time to time.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
