Press: Review of exhibition opening – ‘Silafando’ – portraits of village chiefs by Jason Florio, The Gambia, West Africa

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Photographer, Jason Florio, and photography & expedition producer, Helen Jones-Florio, at the opening of ‘Silafando’ – photo © Anna Wedin, for Afrope.se

 

A big thank you to Anna Wedin, who came to review the opening of our ‘Silafando‘ exhibition, at Gaya Art Café, Gambia, a couple of weeks ago, for Afrope.se – Jason Florio’s award-winning portraits of Gambian village chiefs (‘alkalos’) and elders were taken whilst we were on ‘A Short Walk in the Gambian Bush – 930km African odyssey‘, completely by foot, in 2009

Read Anna’s review on the Afrope.se site. If you would like to translate the article, try translate.google.com

The exhibition runs through April 30th, 2015. Click here for location details.

HJF

Related posts: Exhibition Opening / Silafando / Photo Exhibition – Silafando

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Jason Florio – Image © Helen Jones-Florio

 

 

Press: Kids jumping into ‘exploding’ Lake Kivu, Uganda – image by Jason Florio

 

 

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Sons of fishermen jumping off fishing boats into Lake Kivu, Uganda – image © Jason Florio, for M.I.T. Technology Review/Redux Pictures NYC

 

A recent assignment took Florio to Uganda, and the border of DR Congo, to photograph, and film, a fascinating story with writer, Jon W. Rosen, for M.I.T. (Massachusett Institute of Technology)/Technology Review magazine. The piece is about Uganda’s ‘exploding lake (Kivu)’ – read Jon’s full article here, accompanied by Florio’s photographs and videography.

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Lake Kivu, Uganda – image © Jason Florio, for M.I.T. Technology Review/Redux Pictures NYC

 

HJF

Press and published work.

 

Photo shoot location – Watch out for the crocodiles! The Gambia, West Africa

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Those crocodiles are most definitely not ornamental! Jason Florio at work – image © Helen Jones-Florio

 

Kachikally Sacred Crocodile Pool is certainly an interesting place to shoot – you just need to watch your step, constantly. Thanks to Musa, our fixer (a person who is hired as a guide, due to their local knowledge of any given area, to help facilitate assignments) and caretaker of the pool, Jason and I met with some young Gambian boys, to work further on our traditional masquerade project, which we started last year, here in The Gambia.

The three boys turned up with a couple of rice sacks, a bunch of leafy branches, and what looked like a few scraps of bright red fabric. Within half an hour, they were transformed into Kankurangs, and  fully in character – jiggling branches, menacingly clashing machetes together, and omitting the rather alarming high-pitched screeches that seem to be the modus operandi of every Kankurang, and which always has the desired effect of unnerving everyone around them.

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Jason Florio at work – image © Helen Jones-Florio

 

I’ll be posting more updates about this ongoing masquerade project as and when we find more subjects to photograph.

HJF

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HJF – In search of masquerades at the Roots Homecoming Festival, 2014, The Gambia – image © Jason Florio

 

Related post: Kankurang on the beach

 

 

 

NGO, Concern Universal: Ebola, hygiene, and hand washing – image by Jason Florio

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Image © Jason Florio for Concern Universal, The Gambia and Senegal, West Africa (click image to ‘like’ CU’s FB page)

 

To view more of Jason Florio’s images, for CU, in West Africa, please visit their website.

Related posts:

‘Off to work we go… Ebola-free Gambia, for Concern Universal‘

‘The Gambia, West Africa, paying the price for being Ebola-Free‘

‘Hello…my name is Alieu…Tippy Tap hand-washing hygiene in The Gambia‘