Photos are equal to video documentation or short essays. They can comprehend the real situation of a time or place. They can depict the situation of a specific city, town or village. They tell the human part of the then people at that area.
A photo can say a lot. A single photo can narrate a history of a given country, city or town. It may tell the socio-cultural and economic paradigm of a given country. Sometimes a photographer can be equal to an essay.
Histories might be narrated in a wrong way. History writers may add their own resemblances. The writer may be biased when presenting the fact. Photographs, however, displays the real situation of the occasion. Thus, they are more credible than literature.
Johaness’s photos are more than historic documents. His photos are adorned with framed black and white portraits of family photos. They retell the history of the 1950s and 60s Ethiopia and Germany.
Johaness Haile, a famous photographer who lived from 1927 to 2016 studied photography at the Pratt Institut in New York and at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and worked in Ethiopia and German as a photographer, learnt from his biography.
Johaness was born in Harar. He had his first photo when he was 11 years old. He wanted to be cameraman the day he touched camera. He rides bike from Harar to Dire Dawa taking photos along the way.
He had taken countless photographs as a UN official photographer. He made them artistic photographer. The images are proof of his passion and love of photography.
Starting in the late 1950s, he was commissioned by the UN to photograph the agricultural development projects. He later accompanied UN missions to Congo, Kenya, Zambia, and Mauritius.
Meskerem Assegid, a friend and co-worker of the photographer, told The Ethiopian Herald that Johaness was ethical and does not expose people’s privacy. This is an implication of his devotion towards the profession. He works hard to keep the privacy of the people’s he had photographed, she said.
As to Meskerem, the photos depict the socio-economic history of Germany and Ethiopia in the 1950s and 60s. The booming economy of the then Germany was well represented by his photos. They also uncover the real guilt, shame, and horror of the Nazi period as well.
She also added that Johaness was invited by the government of Germany after considering his skill in photography to serve the country as a photographer in 1961. Thus, hewent to Germany. He was the first African photographer to serve the Europeans.
The 1960s era of art, music and literature, theater, cinema and literature for and decade of renaissance for Ethiopia was well presented by his photos. He worked as a photographer for Haile Sillassie I.
His photos also tell about the establishment of African Union. At that time, Johaness was a personal photographer of Haile Sillassie I. They give a flashback of the role of Ethiopia in the foundation of the Union, explained Meskerem.
The co-worker also mentioned that his photographs in East Berlin reveal the then German Industrial Revolution activities from his point of view. The photos of people working in the factories, farms, educational institutions, laboratories, and fellow school children and immigrants, narrate the history of the city. They show the birth and death of a city.
“Photos of Johaness are not random; are well thought and planned. The photos speak the then situation of a city or a town. The photos reflect the commonalities of humanity. They demonstrate how people he had barely met opened up their hearts and homes to him,” said Meskerem.
The photos depict part of the harm made on the Jews by the Nazis. A photograph of an elegantly dressed man standing in front of the door to a building in Berlin reveals the deprivation of license of Paul Abu, a Jew, by the Nazis in 1933, as to her.
She forwarded that another image, a half-ruined statue, reproduced in an invitingly large format was used for the 1964 exhibition poster in Addis Ababa. The show was entitled ‘An Ethiopian sees Germany’.
The Ethiopian Herald November2, 2019
BY GETAHUN LEGESSE
