No Photos! Photos

I call these my "No Photos!" photos. Throughout Senegal I have to take my pictures quickly, because in general when the women see me taking pictures of them -- or even in their general direction -- they give me one of three gestures:

1) The finger waggle (tsk, tsk, tsk, accompanied by the click of a tongue)

 

or the finger-point variation, accompanied by a sharp "no" sort of noise.

 

 

2) The dismissive hand wave.

 

Or the full face cover.

 

If you can't figure out why I include the last photo (above), it is more subtle, but take a gander at the woman sitting behind the seated woman in blue. I believe she sees me coming and puts a plastic bag over head to cover it for the photo. Unless she happens to hang out at the market in a plastic bag.

 

I am told that the main reason they don't like having their photos taken is that occasionally one of them will end up seeing her own photo on a postcard or in a guidebook -- thereby unwittingly serving as an unpaid model. Whether that's their real beef, I don't know, because I generally snap quickly, apologize if I need to, and move on.

 

In one case, I am chastised for taking this photo below, by a woman who comes out of the house that's on the left edge of the picture after I snap.

 

 

She's not even in the photo, which is of laundry. And not even her own laundry, mind you: her neighbor's laundry.

 

The worst reaction I get the entire trip is from a man who gets very angry and aggressive. Ironically, this is one time I honestly am not taking his picture. In fact, the man isn't even accidentally in the picture I take, which is of Anthony in the background at the market (a picture of him that I love, by the way). I shoot over the angry man's head so completely, I think only the very tip of his hair shows at the bottom-center of the photo. Needless to say, though I would love to have a picture of this man to show you, I do not actually take one of him yelling at me. That seems too suicidal, even to me.

 

 

In general, I take fewer pictures of the men, who are often dressed in more European/American style. But not always. They can be pretty colorful, too.