Maggie Steber: Photography Can Save Us

I met Maggie Steber while in Mali, West Africa while I was living with the cliff-dwelling Dogon on a Fulbright for a year’s duration. Those photos were then published by Harry N. Abrams in my book, “Dogon, Africa’s People of the Cliff”. When I received the galleys for color proofing, I asked Maggie if she could assist. She was then the photo editor for the Miami Herald and graciously took time from a busy day to help me. That’s how Maggie is, blessed with a big heart.

I first met Maggie in Bamako when she was on assignment for a chapter of a National Geographic book, “Beyond the Horizon.” She asked if I could take the writer for the chapter to the “Pays Dogon” where I had forged relationships with isolated villages populated by reticent resident who lived in this inhospitable hot terrain of the Sahel. I took the NG writer on a four-day tour on my donkey cart, guided by my translator, Nouhoum. In return for his services, Nouhoum requested the writer purchase some sacks of millet for a village that had suffered crop failure. However at journey’s end, the writer said she had no cash left.

Maggie had warned me. Earlier she had headed out to take her photographs without the writer. Good choice.

Shortly after this picture was taken at the top of the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali. The Dogon man on the far right, carried my Peugeot motor bike balanced on his head down the cliff. To my right sits a cherished friend from Tireli who often trekked with me and my translator, Nouhoum, for days at a time.

Maggie just wrote this inspirational post on LinkedIn on the power of photography.

Photography Can Save Us:
As photographers we are drawn to cover a myriad of things going on in the world. Wars, famines, flood, hurricanes, the bombing of children and women, politics, child labor, sex trafficking, destruction of forests and our oceans and the animals that live there, but also the moments of great beauty and joy, the laughter of children,, the home team winning the final season game, the lioness in the jungle protecting her cubs, the full moon rising over the ocean.

What we decide to photograph describes who we are as individuals. We often run toward danger, driven by angst with the hope that images will save the world, and we photograph beauty of all kinds, which are the salves on our wounds. I think photography can save us as photographers because it gives us a way to make sense of the world and what is happening in our own lives. We can look at our photographs and remember the best things, the worst things, the important moments in our own lives and the lives of others as we try to make sense of this life and this world. Our photographs tell our story because they are personal, even if we think they are not. They are.
What we are drawn to photograph, where we go, what we do with our work, how we write or talk about it reveals our own story. We might not be able to save the world, even as we try, but photography can save us!

-Maggie Steber