Trust the camera to always seek the truth
Monday, May 12th, 2008Erin O’Dwyer; 10/5/08;
Conversations With The Mob; Megan Lewis; UWA Press
When photo-journalist Megan Lewis won a Walkley award for her series on the Martu people of the Western Desert, photography critic Robert McFarlane described her work as detailed and heartfelt but “only intermittently touching”. “Her comprehensive essay” he wrote in the Herald, “on this rarely photographed, remote community is not helped by garish colour prints, so deeply saturated as to add an unnecessary air of unreality to an already exotic subject” It was stinging criticism and, I would argue, unwarranted. Conversations With The Mob is a stunning collection of more than 200 photographs and oral stories that capture the grief and joy of a community that see-saws between traditional and Western cultures. For the past few weeks, it has lain on my coffee table and I’ve dipped into it countless times. Lewis’s own stories of living with the Mob, as the Martu call themselves, are compelling, insightful and beautifully written, in a spare style that balances candour and colour.
