Learning from those named Nelson

The past few weeks have led to much deep thinking around Zielenbach world headquarters. Alison’s father has been sick, and is still hospitalized in London, and will have some major adjustments in his recovery.

Ali and Sam popped across the pond for 12 days during the time surrounding his surgery. Josh and I stayed here, and we got to spend a great deal of time together that does not happen nearly enough. He missed Mama, and so did I. Josh and I bugged out of town for one weekend, visiting a good friend of mine and his similarly aged son.

We also hit a children’s museum with a Curious George exhibit, and a zoo which housed some elephants, but no hippos. Josh was disappointed about the lack of hippos… but too tired to mention it to the caretakers. He was puzzled that we couldn’t get closer to the elephants… “Daddy, you’re so close to that one at home… I want to be there too!” Ja, well, no, fine… um, that was in Zimbabwe Squashie… and we can’t go there now.

So… I digress. I’ve been photographing people and emotions and moments for the past twenty years. I picked up my Dad’s camera in high school and started working for publications when I was 17, primarily shooting sports which I could no longer play due to a screwed up back. I thought that the coolest thing that a person could do with a camera would be to be on staff at SI, bouncing from Olympics to World Cups to Super Bowls to Masters to everything else.

After a short while, I looked to the world around me and said, what the hell matters more? 1989 was a momentous year… China Awakened, Khomeini’s funeral, the fall of the Berlin Wall… once in a lifetime events. On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison near Paarl as a free man for the first time in 27 years. I was glued to coverage of all of these events… on the screen and also in print.

While a student at Indiana University, I was offered an internship on the photo staff of the largest newspaper in South Africa. So, in January, 1992, I made my way to a country that would change my life in so many ways. During the ten months I spent there in 1992, I worked on projects for the Johannesburg paper, as well as for the New York Times.

My second day on assignment for the Times involved covering an ordinary press conference… a guy in a suit behind some microphones, with a whole bunch of journalists waiting to hear what he had to say. I made what I thought was a decent image from the situation, which was my first encounter with Nelson Mandela.

The editors thought it was decent enough to run on the front page. Two months shy of turning 21, I had my first NYT front. But, as any photographer knows, you’re only as good as your last picture or body of work. That page would be wrapping fish or lining birdcages the next morning. The scan that is shown here is the front from Friday, March 20, 1992, part of the paper’s digital archive. Not the greatest reproduction nor use of the image… but there it is.

I ended up moving back to Johannesburg in 1998, covering news and feature stories for the next four years. Politics, and coverage of South African President Mandela were a focus for my work. In May of 1999, I was car-jacked in Alexandra Township, just north of Johannesburg, while on assignment for a major US publication. I lost my car, my gear, but thankfully no shots were fired when the guys relieved me of my possessions.

Three days later, I was put on assignment — using a mish-mash of borrowed gear — to cover President Nelson Mandela hosting a Saudi Minister for a couple days. The Saudi plane was delayed, and Mandela was actually waiting in his car for the minister’s 747 to pitch up at the airport. When the stairs were rolled to the plane, The octogenarian Mandela stepped out of his car and ambled by… stopping to thank the Zulu dance troupe that had been playing in honor of his arrival. The old man broke into The Madiba Shuffle, his dancing move which could vaguely resemble The Robot.

He was beaming, so was the dancer. I was photographing this from in close, moving around for different angles as I do while shooting. He looked over my way and exclaimed, “Ah! It’s you again. Let’s dance!” So, he and I shuffled for a few seconds, which is something I will not easily forget. After I was taken out, I ended up working for about four months on an extended photographic essay on violent crime in Johannesburg. It was cathartic, but also a story that needed to be told. Unfortunately, it was never published in the United States, only in Europe, Australia and Asia.

Soon after I finished that project, I met a lady from Cape Town named Alison. We’ve been married for 8.5 years now, and on 30 March 2005, we welcomed Joshua Nelson Zielenbach into our lives. There was lengthy discussion about the first name, but the second one had been etched in stone for a long time. If I had packed it in and moved out of South Africa following my incident, that would have been one understandable option. Nope, too stubborn for that. Like so many people across Africa and around the globe, I have experienced the Madiba Magic. The man makes it possible to believe in hope, change, forgiveness, and moving forward. I firmly believe that those few moments dancing with him, in one of the worst, most confused, frightened and angry states of my mind had a small effect on me.

For the first 16 years of my career, I was most concentrated on my work, and felt that my work as a photographer defined me as a person. When Josh arrived, and then Sam, I evolved to realize that what defines me is how I can raise them and be a good father and husband.

I still care immensely about what I shoot, and how people are affected by the images that I make. But the most memorable words I have heard about my work lately came from our first born earlier this week. I was scrolling through some images of Sam on the laptop, and Josh yells out “That’s a great picture Daddy!” Melted my heart.