1001 - Jacob Simkin Is In Afghanistan

Jake has been on RedBubble almost since the very beginning. An early subject of The Couch, Anneli touched on Jacob’s fascinating and overwhelming images from the third world.

Jacob often sells his images and sends the proceeds to help fund the building of new schools and gives cameras to children to record the story. He is a photographer and a cinematographer who documents the hope of little kids no matter what their situation in the world and brings them to people like me. I hope that his work inspires our guilt and pity for these places, because without guilt and pity, we are apathetic, and how can you look at eyes like this:

...and be apathetic.

Jacob Simkin is compiling 1001 Faces of Afghanistan, a photo-documentary of the lives of Afghan people, as he explains though, it is never truly a portrayal as it is difficult for women to agree to photographs. You can view some of them here

He is also involved in the Through My Eyes Project which is about letting kids tell their own stories through a camera.

I interviewed Jake recently…

1. Browsing through your “Children on Afghanistan” images, I became entranced by the big hypnotically deep eyes of the children you have photographed. What is outstanding in your memory of their little faces?

My memory is like that of all children around the world I have met when posing for a camera; that they all want to smile and laugh and be children in front of the lens not matter of the conditions they live in.

1. You have spent time as a volunteer in many extremely poor and disaster stricken places in the world. Have and/or how have your experiences abroad in this humanitarian capacity altered your interactions in society in Australia?

Spending time in extremely poor and disaster area made me appreciate being alive and being fortunate to be able to take things almost for granted. In these places, most people can barely eat let alone think about doing something recreational. Children are forced to work from an early age then get to play. I’ve seen six year old putting gun powder into bullets for $2 a day. I have a better outlook on life having been here and become more outspoken about my adventures. You can sit at your local and some asks you where you been. You tell them and they are surprised, think you are crazy. But you can tell them all about it. Slowly you make them aware of a world out there they never ever knew about. This is the contribution I do, try and make people aware of a world out there.

1. From an artistic perspective, what do you like most about the way you are able to compose your visions in such sad places? How does this affect your philosophy and influence your style?

Connection. I feel like I must connect with the person and the landscape I am in. I would say my photos aren’t great composition wise sometimes but the connection between the subject and the lens (me) captures feeling and their expressions that surpasses being technically great.

1. What was a most surprising realisation arising from the “Through My Eyes” project? How do you hope to promote these stories?

With the “Through My Eyes” project I want to capture children’s stories from around the world that lived in poverty, war torn and disaster areas. I would like to convey their stories hopefully (in these country we use the word inshallah (god willing)) to the western world so children can see how these children live and play and try to be children.

At the moment I am working with street kids In Kabul, Afghanistan which i dub the “bubblegum boys”. They are children who go out everyday after school trying to sell maps and bubblegums for their families.

I found a boy called Gulgu who is 11 years old and trustworthy boy having learnt English through 2hrs a day of school. I traveled with him watching him sell maps and even be invited to meet his family, his father immobilised by a land mine and mother hidden under a burqa tending to his brothers and sisters. Gulgu manages to scrap $2 dollars if he is lucky a day to help feed his family. Their dinner is generally just naan bread. How many families you know rely on their 11yr old son to bring the food for the family? At the moment I have given him a automatic film camera to photograph his life and journey with him to document a day in his life.

This is what the project is about. Telling children’s stories to other children out there.
I have had interest in presenting this multimedia photography and video project at ACMI [Australian Centre for Moving Images] in the future once I have gathered the stories I want to share.

1. Quote: “once again children find that need to smile, the camera is a weapon but not of destruction”.
   Can you please elaborate on the feelings that formed the above statement? What memory comes to mind when you reflect on it?

The Quote, comes from the story of why I love taking photos of children in these areas. My first photo assignment was to cover the second tsunami in the Banda Aceh/ Sumatra area on an island called Nias. I had just got off the plane and after a scary food supply truck ride where a landslide almost toppled the truck we made it.
When I was there i found it almost impossible to cover the amount of dead people in body bags with my camera so i spent my time distributing food and digging dead bodies from the rubble.

After the fifth day of not being able to photograph the horror around me, I went to the beach to cry alone and think about coming home. There i found three children playing with mud pies on the beach calling me to take their photo. I played with them for a bit then I took their photo on my Leica. The feeling of happiness engulfed me stronger than I had ever felt before. Happiness is a warm gun like the Beatles song. The camera is a weapon, you make people aware of what happens here. Children smile, dance and play even in the worst of it all.

These places have had so much war and torture engulf them. You know the Russians during the Afghan war made landmines out of toys to dismember children as a way to affect their parents from fighting.

Children should always be smiling, children should always have dreams. No child should have to suffer in this world but they do.

I like to feel I do a little something to help end suffering in this world. I hope you take in the time to appreciate life.

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1001, afghanistan, interview, jacob, kathleen and simkin