THROUGH THE LENS with Jeannée Sacken

THROUGH THE LENS with Jeannée Sacken

Why did you set Behind the Lens and Double Exposure in Afghanistan?

This is the first question people usually ask me. The answer is fairly straightforward. My main character, Annie Hawkins Green, is a conflict zone photographer, so I needed a war. I also wanted a U.S. military presence. That narrowed things down quite a bit. Plus, over the years, I’ve come to love Afghan literature and culture as well as the Afghan people who are known for their warmth and hospitality. Afghanistan it was. The second question isn’t nearly as simple to answer: How autobiographical are your novels? Authors often put something of themselves and their experiences into their fiction, but in this case many people suspect Annie is me. We both have red hair. We’re both photojournalists, and we both travel the world. But there are differences. Annie has a teenage daughter; I don’t have children. Annie takes photographs in war zones; I do my best to avoid wars. Nevertheless, I have, indeed, used some of my favorite images and photographic experiences to create my main character and many of the events in each novel in the series.

Photographers are often identified with one single image. In my case, it’s probably “Mayan Girl with Corn Dolls.” Years ago, I was in a village high in the Honduran mountains to photograph a young mother. After many hours, however, I was getting nothing usable. No telltale tingling in my fingers (yes, Annie’s fingers also let her know when she’s captured the image). We took a break, and turning toward the door, I caught sight of ten-year-old Suyapa standing in the shadows, cradling the corn dolls she’d made.

That’s when I learned that although education is free in Honduras, the family must buy school uniforms and books, which are changed each year, preventing any hand-me-downs. Sometimes the best a poor family can do is to educate the first-born son. Suyapa spent her days dying cornhusks (see her stained fingers) and making dolls to sell to tourists in the market so her brother could attend school. She was literally and metaphorically in the shadows. This image—a one-off—launched my career in photography and reinforced my commitment to educating girls in t h i r d - w o r l d countries.

Annie is known for her Pulitzer Prizewinning photograph of Malalai, a feisty ten-year-old girl living in an Afghan village—unknown to her, it was a Taliban village. The taking of this picture is the inciting incident of Behind the Lens and, to an extent, for Double Exposure as well. It also compels Annie’s commitment to educating girls in a country where the Taliban forbid them learning to read and write. Know your subject. A photographer’s mantra, it allows me to anticipate what’s going to happen next.

Before the Golden Eagle Festival in far-western Mongolia, I prepped like crazy, finding out as much as I could about the festival and how hunters train their eagles. All of which informed my shot when this Kazakh hunter suddenly raised his eagle above his head and she unfurled her wings.

Although Annie doesn’t encounter eagles or any wildlife, she well knows that if she lowers her camera just a bit, her subject will assume she’s gotten her shot and relax, letting the inner self show. Being able to anticipate her subject’s automatic reaction allows her to capture the shot. Patience, patience, patience. Sometimes the best thing a photographer can do is wait and become invisible. That’s exactly what happened in this Guatemalan market place where I photographed a weaver setting up her backstrap loom. She spent hours untangling the threads until finally all were straight. During this time, she literally forgot about me.

Annie shows her patience in Double Exposure when photographing the workers constructing the new Wad Qol Secondary School for Girls. Preparing to pour a new concrete floor, the workers are so used to Annie’s presence with her camera that they forget she’s there. That’s when she captures compelling images.

Respect. Whenever I go on a photo shoot, I learn as much as I can about the culture. And this was definitely the case for the remote Hmong villages I visited in the mountains of Laos. I wanted to know as much as I could about the people, their religion, their way of life, their language—all of which informed the way I framed my shots, as I did with this woman in her traditional bridal finery.

Respect of other cultures is a critical aspect of Annie’s character and manifests in such details as the keffiyeh she wears to cover her hair, the modest shalwar kameez she dons, and asking permission before she takes a shot.

Live to tell the story. No matter how prepared and careful I am, I sometimes end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s when things go sideways fast, as happened when I was lining up this shot at a camel race in Mongolia. I clearly drew the animals’ attention, causing them to veer off the race track and head straight for me. The riders lost all control, and I ran faster than I thought I could.

A scary moment with a lot of adrenalin flowing— something I tapped into for Annie’s character when she’s trapped in a Taliban village, when she’s grabbed in the Bazarak market, and again when she’s abducted from Wad Qol.

I’ve had my share of adventures while on photo shoots, moments fraught with emotion that I’ve been able to recast in the Annie Hawkins series. Having my lodge burn down around me late one night in Namibia. Being airlifted out of the Kalahari Desert. Stepping off a narrow foothold into thin air while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Driving off-road through a blizzard in Mongolia. Hiding from armed marauders in the back of a car under a pile of horsehair blankets in Honduras. Not for the feint of heart, but these experiences have been a gold mine when writing suspenseful women’s fiction.