Andrea Diaz: A student at Escuela Helen Keller, a school for the blind and visually impaired uses her sense of hearing to listen to the braille machine as she learns to use it to write on Monday, May 25, 2009.

Hi everyone! After a long hiatus, we are finally beginning to plan the next Truth With a Camera workshop. We’re excited to announce that we will be returning to Guadalajara which was the site of our May-June 2009 workshop.

No firm date has been set yet for this workshop, but we hope to have that pinned down soon. Please keep an eye on this blog for details.

You can also like us on FACEBOOK at https://www.facebook.com/TruthCamera. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at @TruthCamera.

What sets Bosnia apart from the other Truth With a Camera workshops previously held in Ecuador and Mexico is how much of the country I was able to see and experience. As a faculty member, I’m usually stuck in a hotel or classroom while the students do all of the exploring. My broader view of the previous workshops has come from the window seat of a passenger jet upon landing and take off.

As we planned out the schedule for Bosnia, my attention was focused on the final Saturday. In addition to our usual gallery exhibition, we had plans to go to Visegrád to witness a ceremony in which 3,000 roses are thrown into the Drina River from the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge.

The bridge was the site of much brutality during the Bosnian War. Many Muslim civilians were executed there and their bodies thrown unceremoniously into the river below. The Roses represent the 3,000 genocide victims who were from the Visegrád region.

Halfway along the three-hour journey from Zenica to Visegrád we stopped to meet up with members of the Missing Persons Institute. Our workshop coordinator, Dijana Muminovic, has been documenting the group’s efforts in finding and investigating more than 100 individual and mass grave sites across Bosnia.

Among the group we met Hikmet Karcic who gave us a thorough briefing of all that happened in and around Visegrád during the war.

We also met investigators Samir Sabanija and Suvad Halilovic. Dressed in combat boots and black utility pants, these men looked as serious as their mission.

Samir is a man with his own gravitational pull. He looks a little like a Bosnian Matt Dillon. I think I can speak for my entire group when I say that everyone liked him instantly.

While I served in the U.S. Army, I would have never considered myself a professional soldier. However, there were guys in my unit who I knew were the real deal. They were the guys you could depend upon when the proverbial shit hit the fan. To me, Samir fit that mold perfectly.

Fast forwarding a bit to give an example, after the bridge ceremony in Visegrád, we followed the large group of Muslims across the river where there would be a funeral for the recently identified remains of 17 genocide victims. The town’s residents are primarily Serbs. While there were no outward signs of animosity that I witnessed, there was a certain amount of tension in the air. The recent arrest of alleged war criminal Ratko Mladic, considered a mass murderer by Bosnian Muslims and hero to many Serbs, gave reason to believe that this year’s rose ceremony might not end peacefully.

As we were walking, Serbs from all directions watched the procession. Samir quietly and calmly informed me in his heavily accented English, “Dave, tell your friends to be careful. These (meaning the Serbs) are the people with the guns.” And with that he walked off to join the crowd.

Two other men we met from MPI were Azmir Sabonovic and photographer Velija Hasanbegovic. Azmir’s father’s remains were recently found in one of the mass graves being investigated by the Institute.

As a teen living in Visegrád during the war, Velija along with his father and older brother were brought down to the banks of the Drina to be executed by Serb militiamen. Among his would-be executioners was one of Velija’s friends from high school. The trio managed to escape when Bosnian snipers from the other side of the river opened fire on the Serb execution squad.

Upon hearing Velija’s story, I wondered about the former high school friend and what kind of life he’d be living now. Hikmet assured me that the man is living a normal life within the comfortable borders of Serbia. I asked about the possibility of the man ever being brought to justice and Hikmet responded, “In a country where so many are wanted for crimes of genocide, little attention will be paid to someone wanted for attempted murder.”

After we resumed our trek to Visegrád, our guides made a brief stop in the small village of  Rogatica. We were brought to the Kruscica neighborhood. Among the populated homes, stood the skeletal structure of a house burned to the ground. Buried in the rubble, the suspected remains of at least eight Muslims. Exhumation and DNA testing of the evidence found at the site continues.

During my time in Bosnia, I constantly wondered about how the war and its genocide affected the people I saw all around me. On the road to Visegrád, I was hearing it directly from the victims themselves. I was standing on the historical sites of horrific events. My inability to grasp the reasons for the inhumanity grew deeper, while my respect for my new friends grew stronger.

We made one last stop just before reaching Visegrád. This time in the town of Medjedja. Signs of the war both old and new stood in stark contrast to each other. Up high sat the new white mosque that had replaced the old one which had been destroyed when the Serbs took the town many years before. Down low stood the bullet-riddled road sign that directed travelers towards Sarajevo and Dubrovnik.

It was here where we met the dozen or so buses that carried hundreds of Bosnian Muslims to the bridge. The team from MPI would lead the convoy under police escort the rest of the way to the bridge ceremony.

At the bridge, I failed as a photojournalist. I misjudged the crowd and the logistics of the event. I missed my chance to stake out a good spot for making pictures. Instantly, I was swallowed by the sea of faces with little room to move or to photograph a clean composition.

My disappointment faded quickly, because as a human being this was one of the most momentous events of my life. As I moved along with the tide of people, I felt connected.

Old women in their traditional clothing, their head’s covered in the Muslim hijab, would reach out and gently touch my hands and arms while offering a smile. One woman asked me in English if I was an American. She then told me that she had flown all the way from Chicago back in the U.S. to return to her homeland for this event.

For the first time in Bosnia, I did not feel judged by the men. On the bridge, they looked me in the eyes and offered greetings. Some even tried to make room for me when they noticed that I was a photographer.

Singled out as a foreigner everywhere else that I traveled in the country, on these once blood-stained bridge stones I was one of them. I would not trade that feeling for any of the pictures that I failed to make.

For as many people who were on the bridge, the ceremony felt very brief. A few speeches were made and then individually people would quietly offer a prayer while throwing a rose to the brown waters below. Here and there, outward signs of long held grief would appear, but overall the remembrance was hushed and efficient.

The bridge emptied quickly as the Muslim crowd moved on to attend the funeral for the 17 genocide victims. Many stopped along the way at a small mosque to offer more prayers.

Because of the need to get back to Zenica in time for the gallery exhibit, we could not stay to witness the funeral.

I walked back across the now mostly empty bridge as an American in a foreign land still unable to understand all that has happened to Bosnia.

Around the bridge, life went back to normal. As I arrived at our van, I stopped to give a few coins to a begging Roma (gypsy) woman. Then I was asked by a couple to take their picture with the bridge in the background. They were tourists out cruising the countryside on a motorcycle.

As I took the picture, I wondered what they were smiling about in a landscape full of such sadness.

photo by Josh Meltzer // TWAC

Text by Joanna Whitehead

Today I traveled to Nemila, an urban area outside of Zenica to meet, learn, and document a family of six; three boys including twins and the youngest a girl. The family is living in extreme poverty, most likely the result of the war suffered in 1990.

photo by Joanna Whitehead // TWAC

photo by Joanna Whitehead // TWAC

I arrived early mid-day along with Truth With A Camera coach Josh Meltzer and a translator to help explain my role and purpose. The first hour was a bit awkward especially for the children. But as the hours passed, the comfort level grew and the atmosphere the Muslim Bosnians provided seemed nothing less of warm, friendly and inviting.

Despite the success of post-conflict rebuilding, the economy has not returned to its pre-war level and the country is now one of the poorest in Europe. However, what I have witnessed from my limited stay here in country is that the poverty situation in Bosnia is unique. The aftermath of the war has left some families with little to get by on. The family maintains a small steep hillside garden of potatoes, a cow and calf for milk and chickens for eggs and meat.

The ability to connect with your subject is vital in photojournalism.  After a short while the children forgot I was there. We shared a cup of Bosnian coffee and I photographed the daily Islamic prayer, known as Salat, all the while with a peaceful silence of the language barrier.

***Joanna is a relative newcomer to the world of photojournalism after making a recent career switch. She has been learning the skill as she goes while attending various photography workshops.

by Britney McIntosh

What is the most important and imperative skill a photojournalist can possess?  Creativity perhaps and obviously the ability to use a camera; or maybe its persistence or just flat out being charming. Some might argue for the importance of understanding light and the necessity of thoughtful framing.

After two days at Truth With a Camera in Zenica, Bosnia, and only about two hours of shooting time (total) with my NGO, I’ve learned that perhaps without patience and ingenuity none of those other skills would matter. That without the ability to drop your camera (or just put it down gently…) and exercise your plain old journalism reporting skills, then it doesn’t matter how amazing your tilt-shifted–rule-of- thirds–multicolored-over-saturated-5D–Mark- II-shot is: it means nothing. 

The NGO I received, well asked for actually, is Pazi Mine, an organization focused on removing landmines from post- war Bosnia. A few people called me stupid, sure, for voluntarily going into a mine field, but I was really pumped about it. That is, until after my three hour journey to get there I realized they weren’t going to let me go up into the mine field with the workers, which left me stuck on a 8×8 foot plot of grass outside the woods sitting in a Land Cruiser with two chain smokers for 8 hours. Naturally I wasn’t going to make a 6 hour round trip to subject myself to such misery again so today, day two, I intended to head to a mass grave excavation. Small catch, the mass grave I was supposed to go to fell through also, again leaving me stuck all day waiting – this time in a classroom eating cornflakes and surfing the Internet.

Now that sounds really awful.  But honestly it has probably been the best learning experience so far of any workshop I’ve attended – and I’ve been to a lot. I’ve had to be patient, learn to lay groundwork, and after reading and reading about the aftermath of the Bosnian War, looking through the photos I already have, and bouncing ideas off the poor workshop coaches who are desperate for me to stop bugging them and go shoot- I’ve managed to come up with a plan for a photo essay, that if done right, could turn out to be the best piece I’ve ever shot.

So day two is almost over… in the culmination of the 12ish hours I’ve waited for things to happen I have: ridden a horse, learned to understand Bosnian, chased a herd of cows down a street and seen the tops of the Balkan mountains. Pretty much everything except shoot pictures.

And I finally stopped pouting and realized that great journalists aren’t made by being handed things, they are made great by learning to fight, by learning to research, and by learning not to give up on a story just because you don’t speak a language or because it doesn’t turn out to be what you thought it would be. Great journalists are defined by their ability to report, to get access, not by how well they can manipulate a metal box and push a button.

So maybe I haven’t shot very many photos… but here in Bosnia, I’m learning from some of the best in the business exactly what it takes to be a great journalist.  Sometimes it just takes a little waiting.

• This is Britney McIntosh’s second Truth With a Camera workshop. She previously attended the 2010 workshop in Quito Ecuador.

Old communist architecture mingles with the advertising of modern capitalism in war scarred Sarajevo. Dave Ellis // TWAC

Ever since we settled on Bosnia as the location for this workshop, I felt a stirring deep in my soul. When I think of this country, all that comes to mind is the war that raged for three years in the early 90’s.

I was serving in the U.S. Army as a helicopter crew chief at the beginning of the conflict. I remember being at a loss as to why we were not intervening and saving lives. A pilot overheard my remarks one day and simply said, “That’s something you don’t want to get mixed up in.” I ignored his comment then, but it has always stuck with me. I still felt drawn to Bosnia.

As far as I know, I have no Eastern European blood running through my veins. I am man without religion or cultural identity. I have no direct connection to these people and I’ve struggled to figure out why I am so affected by the events that took place here.

Ethnic cleansing was the twisted machine that powered the war. Fathers and sons systematically murdered, while mothers and daughters were raped –”if you can’t wipe them out, then breed them out.” Sisters, brothers, uncles, nieces and in some cases entire families were erased from this world.

And therein lies my connection. I have a family. A wife and two sons. I have nieces and nephews, cousins and in-laws.

What if this happened in my reality? What if this were to happen to my family?

A woman tends to her field in the village of Bukovci. The remains of the home belong to a family who fled the country the country during the war. Dave Ellis // TWAC

In the cities of Sarajevo and Mostar, evidence of the war is still visible in the bullet riddled facades of office and apartment buildings. The skeletal remains of destroyed homes whose inhabitants are long gone dot the countryside.

As I walk the streets of Zenica (pronounced Zen-itza), I search the faces of the people for any hint of their past. I look for the scars of the wounded and the eyes of the haunted. I wonder who among the men I see sitting at the cafes sipping cappuccinos  were once so full of hate that it drove them to kill anyone who was not like them.

Fifteen years ago, peace for this region was finalized in Dayton, Ohio. The people of this land – Bosnians, Serbs and Croats – have found a way to move on and to live in relative harmony.

I am left to wonder how.

A woman smokes at a cafe in Sarajevo's old town square, Bascarsija, on Thursday, May 19, 2011. Dave Ellis // TWAC

Prior to enrolling with the workshop, Joseph was the executive director for a non-profit serving a community in the San Francisco Bay area. He hit the ground in Guadalajara armed with a Leica and little experience as a photojournalist.

Since then, he has gone on to found  Joseph Smooke Consulting. The firm seeks to support community based, social justice oriented non profit/ non-governmental organizations in succeeding with their advocacy and base building work.

You participated in the Guadalajara workshop in 2009. Tell us a little about your experience? The experience in Guadalajara was extraordinary. I photographed for FM4 Paso Libre, a young organization of volunteers supporting migrants from Central America and Southern Mexico traveling on top of the freight trains that pass through Guadalajara on their way to the United States. Instrumental to the success of my time there was the instruction from Chris Tyree, our team leader, who worked tirelessly to critique our work at the end of each long day of shooting, and who provided us with clear and insightful direction for each next day’s shooting. The design of the Truth With a Camera workshop to have each of us shoot alongside a photographer from Guadaljara and to establish a connection with the University of Guadalajara gave us the ability to maneuver our way around and gain access to people and places we would never have been able to access if we were working entirely on our own.

How did that experience prepare you for the work that you are doing now? I have worked for NGO’s for many years, most recently as the executive director for a community based advocacy and service providing organization in San Francisco, CA. I have also done photodocumentary work and photographic work in support of non profit organizations in San Francisco. This experience in Guadalajara allowed me to dig deeper into this confluence of my directorial work and my photographic work to tell the story of a developing non profit doing challenging work. Since my experience with Truth With a Camera, I have gone on to do more photodocumentary work to support NGO’s most recently in northern India. I am also shifting my career away from administering an NGO toward doing organizational development consultation and photodocumentary work for NGO’s. There is no way that I would have been able to make this career shift without the invaluable experience I had while shooting with Truth With a Camera.

Tell us about your PhotoPhilantrophy award. The award I received from PhotoPhilanthropy could not have happened without my connection to Truth With a Camera, partly because the images were from my session with TWAC in Guadalajara, and in large part because months after the conclusion of the Guadalajara workshop, Chris Tyree called me to let me know that he had just met the founder of PhotoPhilanthropy. Since the founder lived in the San Francisco area, Chris thought of connecting us, and it was that introduction that led to my entering in the first round of PhotoPhilanthropy awards. I am so proud to have been recognized by PhotoPhilanthropy, and this recognition would never have happened were it not for the relationships and support I found from TWAC, but also because of the depth of content and quality of the work I was able to produce with under the guidance of the Truth faculty.

What does the future hold for you? I recently shot for three NGO’s in northern India, and this summer, I will be starting my own consultancy to support community based organizations with their organizational development needs, and I will continue to shoot to support social justice organizations and movements. I have recently received an opportunity to return to the Philippines to shoot in July, and I see this as only the beginning of an exciting new chapter in my career as a photographer and builder of capacity of organizations to work for social justice.