Dangerous dreams Photo

Photographer’s Note

For the last several years tens of thousands of Africans have dared the dangerous waves of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, dreaming of getting into the European Union to create better lives for themselves, their families and sometimes even for their whole villages. Thousands have died before they reached the Canary Islands, southern Italy or Greece.
It's from beaches like this, at Saint-Louis in northern Senegal, that the open wooden boats set out for Europe. Boats like those in the background of this picture can take up to a hundred people, crammed together with no protection against the waves or the sun.
The people on this picture have no direct connection with the wave of migrants, as far as I know. They are mending their fishing-nets or just contemplating on life, watching the sea. But who knows what thoughts they had in mind? African small scale fishing has difficult times because trawlers from Europe, Russia or Japan take almost every fish available. And going back to their villages to grow cotton is not much of an option, because it's not easy for African producers to compete on a world market dominated by subsidised American cotton and protective European and American customs.
This picture from 1990 is scanned from a Kodachrome slide.

LeeLoo, jonathan_hart, Merlin, fanni, saxo042, molla, skippy007 has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

LeeLoo (5236) 2008-11-12 2:10

Dear Gert Holmertz!
Very interesting people.
Interesting scene.
Nice colors.
Good take.
TFS!

jonathan_hart (22767) 2008-11-12 2:28

interesting POV to show these Africans, the composition works very well and can illustrate at the perfection the photographer's note . Indeed the problems are well summarized in these words, about the domination of western countries and about risky migrations
seems you lost quality with the noise filter, but the spirit of the photo is excellent
regards
jc

Merlin (194) 2008-11-12 3:01

Very very good and interesting shoot.
regards
Maciej

Buin (38628) 2008-11-12 3:37

Hallo Gert!
A thought-provoking contribution - and an interesting picture. I like the nearly picturesque composition here with these partly strong colours. Yes, there's a lot wrong in ur world...
Greetings from autumnal cool Germany!
Frank

mafegan (4635) 2008-11-12 4:28

Hello Gert
I notice you are working through your slides from Senegal at the moment and I am becoming convinced that your supply of quality interesting slides scans will never end. A colourful all male scene with a thought provoking message. TFS, Marlene

fanni (9045) 2008-11-12 4:58

Hej Gert,
very interesting note to go with the original photo! It's so colourful and yet, judging by your note, it's also sad. We never know what the future will bring...
Very good composition. I like the rich bright colours!
The man's white shirt looks a bit overexposed, but I guess that's the effect of bright sun and lighting... and, besides, with "traditional" films you never know what kind of photo it is until you have the film developed! Good scan!
good luck, and warm greetings,
Elena

saxo042 (16590) 2008-11-12 7:02

Hej Gert,
Very colourful picture and a fine composition. Good note as well!
Hälsningar
Gunnar

archimatica (13486) 2008-11-12 12:14

Hallo Gert!
The picture illustrate at the perfection the very interesting note. This is a professional photo journalism job.
Regards
Renzo

molla (6935) 2008-11-13 7:04

hej Gert, so true about refugees from this part of the world, and I think it's just the beginning of it. as long as we dont pay more effort to Africa.
The Photo has the same kind of dreamy mood as the last one and a certain smoothness over the ruff sea by or not by any postediting
Anders

skippy007 (7451) 2008-11-15 5:36

Hello Gert, A good reproduction, some detail is always lost but with something like this a little loss of detail is not so important because you have managed to produce a good old image which is very appropriate to a new problem. I like the colour & com[position.
Nice one,
Regards
Santo