Photography For The People

Zambia Mon 14-08-2006

Photography For The People
By Martin Chemhere

Thomas Nsama, one of Zambia’s finest young photojournalists has several nerve wrecking tales to tell about his short but already drama filled career. An award winning photojournalist with a couple of awards to his credit, he has had field experience that would scare some of the hardest photographic hearts into submission.

Nsama who was in Harare for the Gwanza 2006 Master Class Workshop talked about his work as well as how, like colleagues elsewhere on the continent, has managed to survive doing his work as photojournalist in Zambia.

A confrontation with the Army Generals at an army headquarters, escaping death by a whisker from a horde of protesting students, being denied medication on political grounds, have all marked significant events in his career. Like a soldier at the battlefront, he seems propelled by such life threatening realities, as he searches to document some of Zambia’s landmark events as they unfold.

Born in 1977 in Lusaka, Zambia, Nsama has gone through some of the most challenging experiences that tell much about the dangers awaiting those who have chosen to tell the story through the picture.

Nsama came into photography from a background of street photography. His media breakthrough came after his photograph appeared on the front page of The Times of Zambia in 2000. “After my first photograph appeared in The Times of Zambia, there was interest in me to go and study the course at the Zambia Institute of Mass Communication”, he recalled. Following that success he enrolled at the Zambia Institute of Mass Communication and the American Centre in Lusaka.

He then joined The Post, a private newspaper in his country, where he said the bosses took a “long time” to recognize his talents, as he had a government background. “It took time for the bosses at The Post to recognize me as good photographer because I had a government background. I understood their stance, because the way things are done in the government media is different from the way they are done by the private press”.

With The Post, he also faced challenges at first, as he was “not used to covering risky assignments”. Before long he was given an assignment to take photographs of bodies of Zambian soldiers who had died on a piece-keeping mission in Sierra Leone.

The bodies were coming aboard the UN plane and landing at the Zambia Air force base in Lusaka. It was very difficult for the private media photographers to take pictures in government circles for security reasons. He had two Press (Identity) Cards and on anticipating the difficulties with his private Press Card from his current employers (The Post) he flashed his Freelance Press Card from his previous employer The Times of Zambia.

He was allowed in and a few minutes before he took any pictures, there was another photographer coming but from the public The Times of Zambia. The Army Generals manning the gate summoned him back to the gate and he was reprimanded for being a cheat. He denied that accusation and said, “I did not tell any lies, I told you that I work for Times of Zambia but you did not ask me whether I was working as a freelance or full time.

The Army Generals understood their mistake, laughed away and allowed him back to take his pictures. Instead, he used the pictures for the private The Post.

Protest by Thomas Nsama

^{Protest by Nsama Thomas}

At one time he said ruling party supporters beat him up in full view of the police. The supporters chanted party slogans, grabbed away his cameras and left him battered and bruised. When he reported the matter to the police, he was denied the opportunity to open a docket and at the hospital the nurses were afraid to treat him because he was from the private press and had been attacked by “ruling party people”.

Perhaps one of his most harrowing experiences was during the night when he attempted to take photographs of a private vehicle that had been set on fire by students from the University of Zambia Students Union (UNZA) in Lusaka. Nsama had rushed to the scene in a company car with a workmate. On arrival, they found the blazing vehicle by the roadside and before he could take any pictures, there were loud shouts and hurling of stones.

A group of students, wielding all sorts of weapons had taken cover a few meters from the burning vehicle waiting to pounce on anyone who would try to douse the burning vehicle. The colleague who was driving panicked and Nsama fell out of the vehicle as he positioned himself to shoot with the door open and his leg out of the slowly moving car.

He fell off the vehicle amid louder shouts of “kill him, stone him so he won’t publish the story tomorrow”. Somehow, he said, he managed to crawl and within the vicinity found refuge in a tunnel. The students kept closing in and found that he had hidden by going underground the tunnel.

“The tunnel was full of dirty water, stinking and had all sorts of rubbish packed in it. I never gave it a thought as I just pushed myself in”, he recalled with some bit of grief. “The students shouted even harder as they milled around chanting and throwing stones and other hard objects inside”, he said.

After discovering their target could not come out, they began burning tyres at the entrance to suffocate him. “I could hear them shout burn the tyres, he will die inside Today is his last day”.

“I was terrified to bits and I crawled further inside. After some time, I braved myself and turned around. I said to myself, let me go out and face them. I am already dead in side here”. On coming out, they manhandled him, but some of them just stood and looked.

They took away his camera and with some godly intervention they began to talk after which they set him free. All this has left Nsama as a battle hardened photographer at an early age. His series of photographs project him as a fighter for freedom and democracy.

“I am trying to fight for press freedom to prevail in Zambia through photography. I am trying to tell the government that the people have spoken and so let their will be heard. I also want to show the world how people are suffering in Africa at the hands of their governments”.

“As photographers we should be able to portray the suffering of our own people. We are the mirrors of society. We speak for the voiceless”, he said.

Demonstrations by Thomas Nsama

^{Another Demonstration}

He urged other African journalist to work hard to show the outside world that the continent has some of the best photographers in both photojournalism and documentary fields. Nsama also wishes to see the day when photojournalists are well recognized by their own people. He also deplored the way photojournalists were sometimes treated by their colleagues in the newsrooms saying that photojournalists were not respected as an important part of the story telling process.

“In the newsrooms, editors and management tend to favour news writers. They don’t know that without the photographer the story would be dry and incomplete.” As a photojournalist, he said, his work was not to support the writer of the story but to “tell the story in full”.

His observation is that Africa would be far poorer had it not been for the hard and challenging work done by photojournalists over the years. “Its only through photography that some African governments have responded well to the suffering of their people”.

Posted By: African Colours

skip to top

Your Comments

skip to top

African Artists Portfolios

Attukwei 'Serge' Clottey is a Fine Artist

Click To View All African Artist Portfolios

Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery

Shades of Time: An exhibition by Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery National Museum of Kenya

Features By Regions

Featured Artist Portfolio

Title: Making Ways
Name: Tabitha Wa Thuku
Country: Kenya
Medium: Mixed media on heavy canvas
Size: 149 X 140 cms
Click here to view