Bangkok Photo Rambles: You have a lot of breadth in your photos, but your street photos are especially stunning, with the rich contrast. How did you get started in this genre?
Silvia Dona: I started taking photos of friends while still in high school and over the years experimented with different types of photography including travel and wildlife. Portrait and documentary photography remain my preferred mediums. I love storytelling. It was only once we moved to Asia that I started taking more classic “street photographs” - images of more candid and chance encounters.
BPR: You recently documented your family during the pandemic lockdown, as seen in the featured photo above. Was this a way to keep your photography going? What was your family's reaction?
SD: Photography was the one thing that kept me sane during the lockdown! It was a coping mechanism for me; it helped me trudge along and kept me grounded during what was a difficult time.But more so, I wanted to create a gift for our boys, in the form of visual story - a future retrospective. I titled it, “Love Letter in Time of Coronavirus” and it was coupled with excerpts from poems and literature that I was then reading and which were a source of inspiration for me. My family are used to me carrying a camera everywhere but it was the first time that the camera was pointed at them for such an extended period. I think they were happy when I backed off a little.
BPR: As a result of this portfolio, you were invited by the Social Documentary Network of Boston to discuss your pandemic photos in a webcast. What was that experience like for you?
SD: It was a real honor to be 1 of 5 international photographers invited to discuss my work and a thoroughly enriching experience. Loved it.
The body of work that was put together was intensely moving. The premise of the webcast was a visual representation of how people from around the world were coping with the pandemic. The images of the 34 photographers chosen, including mine, will be published in the upcoming Fall issue of Zeke magazine which I am excited to see.
BPR: You have documented tribal life in Tanzania pretty extensively, as seen in the photos below. Why Tanzania?
SD: I was born in Uganda and brought up in Kenya, so East Africa is where I grew up. During my PhD research in Ethnolinguistics I was able to spend considerable time in Tanzania, working alongside the Hadzabe people in the north of the country, regarded as the last true tribe of hunter-gatherers in Africa. I did my field work amongst them. The Hadzabe live in close contact with other neighbouring tribes, including the Mangati (or Datooga) and the Iraqwi and because of this I was able to work with these tribes also. I was completely drawn into their culture and way of life.
BPR: What has Thailand been like as an environment for your photography?
SD: Thailand is such a vibrant and eclectic place to shoot in. From modern sky scrapers and slick malls to traditional wet markets and real Thai life along the khlongs. Thai people are so open, and happy to have their photo taken, it makes shooting on the street a real joy. The challenge is not to take for granted all the prevalent scenes so common in Thailand yet absent from the rest of the world and to maintain a childlike wonder when I approach each shoot.
