📸 Dark and Light: Returning from Photojournalism in Northern Uganda
I lowered my camera the moment the boy stopped blinking. Not because the light was wrong — golden hour had just spilled across the cracked clay floor of his family’s homestead near Pader — but because I realized I’d spent three days framing his silence before hearing his name. Returning from photojournalism in northern Uganda wasn’t about finishing a story; it was about unlearning how to look. The real work began only after I put the viewfinder down — when I traded aperture priority for presence, and exposure compensation for accountability. That shift — from observer to participant, from extraction to exchange — is what reshapes you long after the memory cards are backed up and the visa stamps fade.
🌍 The Setup: Why Northern Uganda, and Why Then
It started with an email from a Kampala-based NGO working with formerly abducted youth in Acholi and Lango sub-regions. They weren’t seeking a photographer. They were asking for someone who could listen first — and shoot only if invited. I’d spent eight years documenting displacement in East Africa, mostly from refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. My portfolio carried weight, but also fatigue — both mine and the communities I’d repeatedly framed in crisis. When the invitation arrived in late March 2023, it came with two non-negotiable conditions: no embedded security detail, no pre-approved shot lists, and at least one week spent living without Wi-Fi or electricity in a host household outside Gulu.
I accepted — not out of idealism, but exhaustion. My last assignment in South Sudan had left me questioning whether my images served anyone beyond editorial gatekeepers. I booked a flight to Entebbe, then took the 5-hour 🚌 bus north via Masaka and Mbarara — not the faster private shuttle, but the local route where women balanced baskets of matooke on their heads and men argued cricket scores over lukewarm Nile Special beer. The landscape shifted gradually: rolling hills gave way to flat, red-earth plains dotted with termite mounds taller than houses, acacia trees bent eastward by the prevailing wind, and roadside signs that read ‘Kotido – 120km’ in faded blue paint. By the time we reached Gulu, the air smelled of woodsmoke, wet earth, and roasting groundnuts — sharp and grounding.
⚠️ The Turning Point: When the Lens Stopped Working
In Pader District, I stayed with Grace, a former teacher who now ran a small weaving cooperative for women affected by the LRA conflict. On Day 2, I asked permission to photograph her daughters repairing a fishing net beside the river. She nodded slowly, then said, ‘Take one picture. Then sit. Eat with us. Tell us what you see — not what you shoot.’
I did. And nothing happened.
My camera felt inert. The light was perfect — soft, diffused through the low-hanging clouds of the early rainy season 🌧️. The composition was textbook: hands mid-motion, water glinting, fabric taut between fingers. But the image lacked resonance. It looked like every other ‘resilience’ photo I’d made — dignified, composed, emotionally sterile. Later that evening, as Grace stirred posho over charcoal, she told me: ‘You look at our hands, but not our eyes. You record what we do, but not why we choose to do it again.’
That night, I deleted 37 frames. Not because they were technically flawed — they weren’t — but because they reproduced a visual grammar I’d internalized without consent: poverty as texture, trauma as backdrop, recovery as quietude. The conflict wasn’t logistical (no permits, no transport delays), nor physical (I was safe, well-fed, respected). It was epistemological: my training had taught me how to see, but not how to receive.
🤝 The Discovery: What Happens When You Stop Shooting
I began carrying my camera less — not abandoning it, but letting it rest in its bag unless explicitly requested. Instead, I walked with Joseph, Grace’s 17-year-old son, who’d been displaced twice before finishing secondary school. He didn’t speak English fluently, so we communicated in broken Luo and gesture: pointing at birds, miming rain, sketching maps in dust with sticks. One afternoon, he led me to a hilltop overlooking the Aswa River. No photos. Just silence — broken only by the call of a grey crowned crane 🌅 and the distant chime of goat bells.
‘This place,’ he said, tapping the ground, ‘was where my uncle buried his radio when the rebels came. He dug deep. Not to hide it — but to remember the sound of music.’
That was the first time I understood: documentation isn’t about preserving evidence. It’s about honoring continuity — the stubborn persistence of rhythm, ritual, and reference points that survive violence. In Lira, I met Okello, a former child soldier turned drum maker. His workshop smelled of cured cowhide and sawdust. He showed me how each drumhead was stretched using tension ropes tied in patterns passed down for generations — not for tuning, but for storytelling. ‘The knot tells who made it,’ he explained, running a finger along the braid. ‘Not the name. The intention.’
Practical insight arrived quietly: traveling without agenda meant learning to read pace, not schedules. Buses 🚌 didn’t run on timetables — they left when full. Markets opened when elders arrived, not at 7 a.m. A ‘yes’ rarely meant immediate agreement; it often meant ‘I hear you.’ I adjusted my own rhythm: waking with cockcrow, napping during the hottest hours, eating when food appeared — not when hunger struck. I drank more ☕ — strong, sweet, boiled with ginger — and learned to accept refusal gracefully. When a woman declined to be photographed, she offered me roasted maize instead. I ate it. We sat. We watched goats climb a baobab trunk. That shared stillness mattered more than any frame.
🚂 The Journey Continues: From Fieldwork to Frame
By Week 3, something shifted. People began asking me to take pictures — not of themselves, but of things they valued: a repaired roof beam, a newly planted cassava field, the handwritten ledger of the women’s savings group. One morning, Grace handed me her daughter’s school notebook — pages filled with math equations and careful English sentences — and asked if I’d scan them. ‘So my grandchildren can see how hard she worked,’ she said. I did. Not for publication. For backup. On a borrowed laptop powered by a solar charger.
I traveled onward — not by road, but by foot and bicycle taxi — to Kitgum and then to a remote settlement near the South Sudan border. There, I met teachers using chalkboards made from flattened oil drums and students reciting poetry in both Luo and English. I photographed only when invited, and always shared digital copies on-site using a portable SSD and a small screen. No promises of ‘exposure’ — just files named clearly: ‘Aisha_Kitgum_School_Poetry_2023’. When internet access allowed, I uploaded backups to a shared folder accessible to community coordinators — not to stock agencies or editors.
The logistics were unglamorous: charging devices required planning around generator hours; data bundles cost 12,000 UGX (~$3 USD) per 1GB and expired in 72 hours; malaria prophylaxis needed consistent dosing despite stomach upset from local diet shifts. But none of those challenges felt burdensome once the relational terms were clear. Travel here wasn’t about optimizing efficiency — it was about sustaining reciprocity.
💡 Reflection: What This Taught Me About Travel — and Myself
Returning from photojournalism in northern Uganda didn’t leave me with a portfolio I could pitch to magazines. It left me with notebooks full of names, phone numbers scribbled on napkins, and voice memos of songs sung in transit. It taught me that ethical travel isn’t defined by avoidance — of exploitation, appropriation, or harm — but by active calibration: constantly adjusting your position relative to people, power, and purpose.
I’d assumed ‘dark and light’ referred to contrast in imagery — shadows and highlights, trauma and recovery. But the duality ran deeper. Light wasn’t just illumination; it was visibility granted, not taken. Dark wasn’t absence; it was space held intentionally — for grief, for privacy, for stories not yet ready to be told. My role wasn’t to illuminate what was hidden, but to honor what remained in shadow.
And I learned humility isn’t performative — it’s operational. It means carrying cash in small denominations (500–2000 UGX notes), knowing when to walk instead of haggle for a boda-boda ride, accepting that ‘tomorrow’ may mean three days later, and understanding that ‘help’ often looks like showing up with pen and paper, not gear and grants.
📝 Practical Takeaways Woven into the Journey
These aren’t tips — they’re patterns observed, tested, and verified across five weeks:
- 🧭 Transport isn’t linear: The Gulu–Pader 🚌 route runs daily, but departure depends on passenger load and fuel availability. Always carry water and snacks — and confirm with the conductor the night before. Private vehicles charge ~120,000 UGX ($32) for the same trip, but local buses cost 12,000–18,000 UGX ($3–$5) and offer far richer context.
- 🏠 Homestays require advance coordination: Most NGOs and community centers facilitate stays, but expect to contribute meaningfully — not just financially (a modest fee of 30,000–50,000 UGX/night is customary), but through participation: helping cook, fetching water, attending local meetings. Declining these invites can unintentionally reinforce hierarchy.
- 📷 Photography ethics start before the shutter opens: Ask explicitly — not ‘Can I take your photo?’ but ‘What would make you comfortable with this image? Where might it appear? Who decides how it’s used?’ Document consent in writing when possible, and revisit permissions if context changes.
- 📶 Data is scarce, not broken: Mobile coverage varies significantly between districts. MTN offers the most reliable signal in Lango; Airtel dominates in Acholi. Verify SIM compatibility before arrival — and assume offline functionality is the default. Download offline maps (1) and phrasebooks ahead of time.
⭐ Conclusion: How This Trip Changed My Perspective
Before northern Uganda, I believed impact lived in distribution — how many eyes saw the image, how many grants followed the story. Now I measure impact in quieter units: the number of times someone said ‘you remembered my name’, the frequency of unsolicited invitations to return, the weight of a hand on my shoulder saying ‘next year, bring your sister too’. Returning from photojournalism in northern Uganda didn’t end a chapter — it rewrote the syntax. Travel is no longer about what I capture, but what I carry: not just memory cards, but mutual obligations, unspoken agreements, and the slow, daily practice of seeing without taking.
