AAA is pleased to share the following entries for the “People” category in the 2012 AAA Photo Contest. Voting by AAA members begins August 31 and will be open through October 1. Directions for voting (along with login information) will be emailed to current AAA members. Voters will see thumbnails of the photos in the ballot and will vote for their top choices in each category.
To get a better look at the People photos, please peruse this gallery. To see a photo in its entirety, just click on the thumbnail of the photo you wish to view. Be sure to also check out the Place, Process and Practice entrants too.
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- Title: Tourists Adjust a Snake placed around a Boy’s Neck for a Photo Opportunity, Cocullo Snake Festival in Italy, 1 May 2012 Caption: The Marsi of the central Italian Abruzzo venerated snakes as pagan symbols of the rejuvenating life cycle. With the advent of Catholicism, the cult of Saint Domenic was superimposed on this cultural practice. The result is a strange syncretism of the Catholic veneration of saints with the symbolic power of snakes – of all animals – when a statue of Saint Domenic adorned with dozens of snakes is carried along the streets of Cocullo. With its festival, this small hamlet attracts over 20,000 visitors every year. The photo shows snakes placed around a boy’s neck for a photo opportunity – a very common sight in Cocullo throughout the day. Other visitors adjust the snakes.
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- Title: El Machismo Mata: Managua, Nicaragua Caption: This picture shows women’s organizations speaking with a police officer in Managua, Nicaragua during an organized public march against the 2006 anti-abortion law. The sign is part of a protest against “machismo” relating to masculine control over women’s reproductive decisions.
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- Title: Students during Orthodox Easter at Hawassa University, Ethiopia Caption: Students at Hawassa University in Ethiopia in procession during Orthodox Easter (April 15, 2012) from the campus to St. Trinity’s Church nearby. The degree of religious devotion among Ethiopian students seems unsurpassed, whether they are Orthodox Christian, Protestant evangelicals, or Muslims. But the Orthodox students in particular can be seen early everyday (between 6 AM and 8 AM) making their way to church for prayers, and returning before classes begin. All wear white shawls; student in the middle is a Deacon who is leading the singing.
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- Title: Anthropology Soccer Team, Hawassa University Ethiopia Caption: Hawassa University Department of Anthropology’s Soccer Team and fellow undergrads, glowing after defeating the Department of Veterinary Science, 2-1, October 22, 2011. Like most university students in Ethiopia, they have very little money to spend so dedicating the department to purple tee-shirts shows tremendous commitment to the sport and their chosen discipline.
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- Title: Face of Change Caption: Babushka Daria Mulingaut was a well known and respected Koryak healer from Vyvenka, a coastal village on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Northeastern Siberia. When this 2011 photo was taken, she was at least 103 years old, though she often said she was much older. Born to a family of nomadic herders whose reindeer were collectivized during the Soviet era, she was fond of telling how her father traded reindeer meat for Winchester rifles with American whalers. After learning Russian in boarding schools, working in Soviet era collective farms, and surviving the chaos of perestroika, she finally passed on to another world in 2012.
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- Title: The Chief’s Widow (March 9, 2012, Yasawa-i-rara Village, Yasawa Island, Fiji) Caption: Surrounded by decorated barkcloth (masi) and pandanus mats interwoven with yarn, the wife of the late Tui Yasawa sits alone with his casket on the morning of his burial. She slept the night there in the chiefly Great House, wailing with women from her husbands clan. She will follow the procession of the casket to the Methodist church and then to the chiefly graveyard, where she will watch the late chiefs vasu relations wrap his casket in these mats and masi and lower it into the earth. When others disperse for feasting, she will remain behind with his sisters and nieces, weeping into the dirt under a rising tropical sun.
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- Title: Malang (Muslim ascetic) performing power; Rajasthan, India, November 2010 Caption: A troop of performing ascetics were a featured attraction at the annual death anniversary celebration (‘urs) for Gaji Pir, a saint whose tomb is on a hill overlooking the town of Jahazpur, Rajasthan, India. Young men watch with mixed reactions. Older spectators advised me to feel no alarm, assuring me that the malang were merely wielding the magical power of illusion and not actually harming themselves.
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- Title: Dominican Smiles Caption: Strong social networks help young women form alliances based on “confianza” (social trust).
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- Title: La Bruja Caption: La Bruja (the witch) is popular among anxious villagers for her money-making magic in a Dominican coastal town undergoing rapid development.
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- Category: PEOPLE Title: Steampunk Cosplayer By: Matt HaleTitle: Star Wars Cosplayer. DragonCon, Atlanta, Georgia. United States. Caption: DragonCon is an annual pop culture convention or Con held in downtown Atlanta. Its September 3rd, 2011, the Cons 25th anniversary. Over 46,000 attendees are present. Minutes before the DragonCon Parade begins, hundreds of costumed individuals move into formation, arranging themselves by genre. Encircled by a group of Stormtroopers, this young lady, dressed a Princess Amidala from Star Wars: Episode I, poses for other Congoers. They stop, complement her costume, and take photos. The ritual concludes, the photos stop, her posture loosens. Another wave of admirers approach, she shifts into her character. The act is repeated until the parade starts, marking a successful intertextual display.
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- Category: PEOPLE Title: Steampunk Cosplayer By: Matt Hale DragonCon, Atlanta, GeorgiaTitle: Steampunk Cosplayer. DragonCon, Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Caption: Steampunk is a generic complex reified in various expressive forms: Costume, gesture, literature, art, craft, digital media, etc. The term unites two words, the first indexing the aesthetics and technology of the 19th century, the later, the punk movement of the late 1970s. Steampunks look backwards in time to re-imagine history as it never was and what it might look like. On Sept. 3, 2011, members of the Atlanta steampunk community gathered to participate within the annual DragonCon parade. Moments before the precession began, I met Jeni Hellum and photographed her costume which comprised of a leather corset, medical mask, cylindrical brass backpack, and a mechanical armband.
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- Title: Reaparición con vida de los 119 (Santiago de Chile, April 11th, 2012) Caption: Last April, Londres 38, an ex-illegal detention center, organized an activity for the public. They described it as a memorial in vivo for the 119 people that were executed during the dictatorship. As a member of the Directors staff, explained me: it was done to make life reappear in the streets. Posing and acting as if they were alive. By bringing them back to the streets, the staff wanted to shed light on the Disappeared and Executed in Chile. Finally, each of the 119 represents themselves though a small board containing the persons characteristics like: name, age, occupation, date of detention, what may have caused their imprisonment.
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- Category: PEOPLE Title: Afghan Farmers By: Jesse Karnes Near Route 601, Lashkar Gah district, Helmand, Afghanistan. December 2011. Caption: Farmers in Helmand struggle to make a living and often turn to narcotic poppy growth to suppliment their income. Poppy cultivation is destructive to the fragile eco system. I asked this man what he thinks will happen for his children when the land is no longer productive and he fell into thought before answering: We just don’t know what will happen.
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- Title: Street Artist in Florence, Italy Caption: The elemental human impulse for artistic creativity, beginning with the cave art of the upper Paleolithic and so well expressed during the European Renaissance, still lives in the soul of this street artist in Florence, Italy, who is portraying a Madonna figure on a busy pedestrian walkway near the famous Duomo of Florence, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
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- Title: Preparing puaka tunu (Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga, 2011/12/24) Caption: I believe one of causes which I have gained 7 kg within half a year is this delicious food! Sefo and boys are preparing a roast piglet, puaka tunu in Tongan language, for the farewell party which will hold in this evening. In Tongan society, cooking a roast piglet is the work for men, which father and elder brothers teach younger brothers how to make it as well as how to crack coconuts. However, as Sefo is still a 3-year-old little boy, he just helps elder boys. A roast piglet is the most popular food for every kind of feast such as wedding, school anniversary, church event and so on. Therefore, pigs are their important property which can be consumed themselves and sold to get money.
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- Title: Cyclone night (Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga, 2012/2/14) Caption: In the afternoon when the warning of Cyclone Jasmine was given to Tongatapu Island, the electric power was cut. Since the power wasnt recovered until evening because of continuing the heavy rainstorm, Atu Falevai prepared candles with a practiced hand. Although Atu usually used a mobile phone and a computer at night, they slept early on this day without complains. Under the candle light, I felt it was not bad like this night, remembering the government, the electric power company and the media of Japan which receive criticism on a problem of the nuclear power plant after a big earthquake in Japan.
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- Title: Woman with portrait of Tajik President, Dushanbe, August 19, 2010. Caption: A woman who works in the Tajikistan National Museum stands in front of a large portrait photograph of the Tajik president Emomalii Rahmon on August 19, 2010. One might quickly interpret this image to symbolize the power of patriarchy and of political hegemony. Both are pervasive in Central Asia. Yet this particular woman was happy to pose for a photo with her President — perhaps out of sharing a moment with a stranger, or out of duty towards a guest. She may have also felt esteem for her President. Ethnography could provide a glimpse of how she has come to understand and act on what power she does have, potentially initiating conversations on the quality of her social relationships.
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- Title: samba Caption: This photo was taken at a 2012 Carnaval celebration in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. It is a local gathering in the Tijuca neighborhood. Members of two different samba groups are shown in the picture. They proudly display their samba school colors. Music, friendship and dance unite even the strongest competitors.
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- Title: Mother and dauther, Hani people, Zuofu Village in Yunnan, China, February 1, 2011 Caption: The trans-national people generally known as Akha reside as separate groups in five different countries in Asia. In China, they are know as the Hani minority, inhabiting the southern part of Yunnan. The Hani speak a variety of dialects related to the Tibeto-Burman language group, their written system was developed in 1957 based on the roman alphabet. Hani clothing usually includes black and homespun dark blue cloth, with silver adornments being used by both men and women. Different female hats are used at different ages and vary from community to community. In the poor village of Zuofu, the silver coins and ornaments are rare. The Hani are one of the poorest minorities in China.
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- Title: Inauguration of a new leader (Cameroon, March 2011) Caption: The picture shows Lawan Babay who was just inaugurated as the new leader of a group of FulBe Mareen mobile pastoralists in the Far North Region of Cameroon. In an elaborate ceremony he received a new white turban and green gandura from the Kotoko Sultan of Logone-Birni to signal his new status as supreme leader. However, notwithstanding the spectacle and large audiences, Lawan Babay did not receive an official title, nor did he gain control over his followers as pastoralists continue to vote with their feet.
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- Title: Striking a herders pose (Cameroon, March 2011) Caption: We have been studying pastoral mobility in the Far North Region of Cameroon at different spatiotemporal scales using spatial and ethnographic analyses. We have followed herders on daily herd movements from 6AM to 6PM during which herders are continuously on their feet. They rest their body by striking one of few characteristic herder poses in which they lean their body on their herding stick. The poses are an excellent example of embodied culture; they easily distinguish herders from farmers. Here a FulBe herder demonstrates one of these characteristic poses in his best clothes before leaving for wedding festivities in another camp.
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- Title: “Chiefly Revel” Caption: Young attendees celebrate the wedding of a Xhosa chief in the former Ciskei Homeland of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Though historically diluted through colonial legislation that did not recognize chiefs, traditional authority in the Ciskei is ever-present in many rural areas.
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- Category: PEOPLE Title: A Boy Who Goes to Hospital is Never a Man By: Christopher Morris Eastern Cape, South Africa Caption: Two Xhosa boys in the process of becoming men in the Victoria East District of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Despite its risks, ritual circumcision in the bush is strongly preferred to a hospital procedure in many areas of the Eastern Cape. These two boys were ritually circumcised by a local initiator (or “cutter”) and now reside in a makeshift shelter. As their bodies heal over many weeks, the boys will be educated in the ways of Xhosa manhood.
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- Title: Baah, albalou (yay, sour cherries); Melbourne, 24/12/2011 Caption: Many migrants struggle to find their traditional foods in host countries. For Iranian newcomers in Australia, albalou (sour cherry)- a favourite fruit for making jam, syrup or traditional dishes Such as albalou polo (sour cherry & rice) – seems unreachable, because they are rare or not available in the big Australian supermarkets. Some farms do sell sour cherries, (pick your own), but migrants who have just arrived and have weak social networks may struggle to find them. For Ali, in this photo, it took two years to find out that sour cherries do exist in Melbourne, just 40 km from his house. He was so excited to have so many sour cherries after longing for them for two years.
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- Title: World Refugee Day at the Erie Art Museum. June 27, 2012 Caption: World Refugee Day at the Erie Art Museum brought together the growing refugee community in Erie, Pennsylvania. A city of some 101,786 residents as of 2010, an estimated 30,000 are of refugee status. Majority of the refugee population hail from Southern Sudan, the Congo, Bhutan, Syria, Ukraine, and Burma. Pictured is Oliver Okende and his sister Grace. As teenage refugees from the Congo, the struggles of their travels to Erie from refugee camps are encapsulated in Swahili praise and worship songs. Their voices in a cappella rang through the square and brought light to many of the refugee faces in the crowd.
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- Title: Undocumented & Unafraid (Phoenix, AZ, March 20, 2012) Caption: One of six undocumented youth was arrested for civil disobedience in Phoenix, Arizona for protesting the DHS Secure Communities policy and the work of Sheriff Joe Arpaio that are separated families through record numbers of detentions and deportations. One of the undocumented youth arrested explains, “I am afraid of being out here and doing this, you know, being arrested. But I am willing to face that fear because that is the fear that is in our community everyday. It is in our hands. Everything that this fear takes away from us, we are letting it go . . . to gain our dignity. The same thing that they use to keep us down, it is the same thing we will use to get back up.”
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- Category: PEOPLE Title: Undocumented & Unafraid By: Stephen Pavey Portland, Oregon. May 1, 2012.Title: Undocumented & Unafraid (Portland, OR, May 1, 2012) Caption: One of four undocumented youth arrested for this civil disobedience in Portland, Oregon for protesting the DHS Secure Communities policy that is separated families through record numbers of detentions and deportations. One of the undocumented youth arrested explains why she is doing this, “I cannot allow fear to control my life. I am tired of just sitting around and waiting for change. I have decided to become that change and take action. I cannot sit around and watch as the full implementation of Secure Communities in my state continues to criminalize and tear families apart.
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- Title: Lillian comes for a visit. Padibe East, Northern Uganda, 2010. Caption: Lillian finally moved out of Padibe Internally Displaced Person’s Camp with her grandmother in January 2009. Although not often spoken about in International media that concentrates exclusively on Joseph Kony, the Ugandan Government’s policy of forced displacement to squalid makeshift camps were responsible for most of the deaths in the 2-decade conflict in northern Uganda. A 2005 study, for example, found that there were over 1000 excess deaths per week as a result of the terrible conditions in the camps.
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- Category: PEOPLE Title: Birthing Haiti By: Bonnie Ruder Jacmel, Haiti. June 2010. Caption: A seventy-year-old matwon (traditional midwife) holds a baby outside her birth clinic in the mountains surrounding Jacmel, Haiti. She is accompanied by her apprentice and granddaughter, who is also holding a baby delivered at their birth center.
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- Title: Iulian Caption: In over 100 interviews with patients, no one spoke with more love about their family than Iulian, a 42 year-old XDR-tuberculosis patient living in a mountaintop Romanian TB sanatorium. His family was unable to survive without the money he earned as a day laborer. He was tortured by his inability to care for them. When he was healthier, he would interrupt treatment and return to work. Over the course of two years, I watched this young man weaken and die of a curable disease because he was poor. No one should have to choose between their familys survival and their own. Iulian chose theirs. After his death, I visited his wife and 7 year-old daughter and gave them this picture.
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- Title: Women’s Work Caption: In the Mende culture, gender roles are well defined. Women spend long hours in the kitchen preparing food for their families before going to their farms to work until dark. This photograph captures the essence of what is considered to be women’s space showing the key elements needed to prepare a meal; mortar, stool, pots, fire, wood, and large stones to hold the pots over the fire. All but the pots come from the bush that surrounds the village where women also grow and gather the fish, vegetables, fruit, and herbs that will become the nourishment that sustains them.
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- Title: “Mohabbat-e Madar Bozorg Bozorgtar az Aasemon-e Mazandaran ast.” -Bandar-e Turkoman, Iran (August 28, 2011) Caption: “Grandmother’s affection is greater than the Mazandaran sky.” As labor migration moves towards urban Tehran, Iran and other cities, grandmothers are left to care for small children. Two elderly Turkoman sisters were caring for and holding one of their grandchildren as they sat facing the Caspian Sea in Bandar-e Turkoman, Iran.
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- Title: Tibetan Monk on a high altitude Kora , October 2011 Caption: This young monk stopped briefly to take in the views from this high altitude kora around a Tibetan monastery near Lhasa. Tibetan monks have been a driving force behind protests against Chinese occupation. During the summer of 2011 China celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet and during the celebrations the region was closed to foreigners because of political unrest. This photo was taken shortly after the reopening, when Chinese army sharpshooters sat on roofs, and fire extinguishers adorned the places where devout civilians and monks prayed in case one would set themselves on fire out of protest.
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- Title: A Fine Balance (Battambang, Cambodia, August 2011) Caption: Following the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge genocide, Cambodian refugees created the Phare Ponleu Selpak Fine Arts School and Circus in Cambodia’s northwestern territory of Battambang to help revive Cambodian culture. Today, the circus flourishes as a major tourist attraction and has even toured Europe. In this photo, students between eight and twenty four years of age perform for a mixed audience of Khmer and foreign nationals, demonstrating that a nation once walking a tightrope of survival has found balance once again.
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- Title: Feeding the Lion, Little Saigon Tet Festival, San Diego, California, 2/5/2011 Caption: A little girl feeds money to a lion during a traditional Lion Dance at the Little Saigon Tet (New Year) Festival in San Diego, California. Students from the local martial arts school dress up as the lion and grab various fruits and vegetables from around the venue. Red envelopes containing money are typically attached to the fruits and vegetables and the money is considered payment for an enjoyable performance as well as a donation to the martial arts school. In this photograph, a little girl is directly feeding a red envelope of money to the lion in the hopes of bringing good luck and fortune to her family and community.
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- Title: Holding My Goat, San Diego County, California, 5/10/11 Caption: A boy holds a goat that he helped organically raise on a farm in northern San Diego County. The farm on which this boy lives is one of a growing number of farms in the region providing organic fruits, nuts, vegetables, eggs, milk, and cheese. The farm is operated completely by volunteers and is affiliated with The Twelve Tribes, a Christian religion outside the mainstream probably best known for running Yellow Delis in various locations around the world. Organic farms are a major component of sustainable community and carbon emission reduction strategies for local and regional governments throughout California.
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- Title: Precision Caption: A salesman of Osaka open air market carefully slices a cut of fresh tuna. A very delicate but large type of fish meat the cut must be made with exacting precision and deftness. This slices of tuna with find their way to local sushi bars and homes.
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- Title: Get ‘Em Here! Caption: A hot day in Dodger Stadium, a seller calls out his frozen lemonade to over warm park-goers as the Dodgers take the field.
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- Title: Continuing prayer wheel (2011, Qinghai TAP, China) Caption: Old Tibetan women do not have to do any labor work. Grandmother was sitting in the corner of the house, with a prayer wheel. Other people were busy with cooking, cleaning, and all kinds of preparation for hosting a lunch with the living buddha. “The continuing prayer wheel is her blessing to us. Her serenity keeps everything in order.”
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- Title: Father – Son Reunion in Niamey, Niger Caption: After receiving his father’s permission, Koche “Yagi” Dan Jima (seated on the left) left Togone, his home village, 30 years ago as a teen to establish himself as a small-scale dry goods trader in Niamey, Niger’s capital city. Yagi has assiduously maintained ties with Togone over three decades through visits on special occasions such as naming ceremonies and funerals and by sending remittances to his father, Bizo Dan Jima. This photo depicts one of Bizo’s annual trips to Niamey to check up on his son.
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[...] entirety, just click on the thumbnail of the photo you wish to view. Be sure to also check out the People, Place and Process entrants too. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: [...]