South African photographer Jodi Bieber took one of the most iconic images of our time: the photograph of the beautiful, but disfigured young Afghan woman Bibi Aisha. The photograph made the cover of TIME magazine in July 2010 and won the World Press Photo prize. (Visit TIME to see the image.) Jodi spoke to IdeasTap about how she got into photography – and tells the story behind that career-making shot...
I was working as a media manager when I decided in to go travelling for 10 months.
Because I wasn’t very eloquent with words, I took my dad’s camera with me, travelling through eastern Turkey, Egypt, Scandinavia, and Europe. Instead of writing a diary I took very bad photographs. That was the beginning of it.
When I got back to South Africa, I started attending the Market Photography Workshop in the evenings. I took pictures every opportunity I had, building up a portfolio. Then I found out the Star Newspaper had a training programme.
All at once, a big advertising agency tried to poach me from my job. At the same time I was offered three months at the Star on a very low, cadet wage. I thought “bugger this” and I went for photography. I never looked back.
The training programme was run by Ken Oosterbroek of the Bang-Bang Club [a group of photographers active in the violent townships of South Africa during Apartheid.] Those guys were my inspiration. But my work is totally different from theirs. When the gun shots were going off, I wanted to run away, not take pictures.
A year or so ago, my agent suggested I go to meet TIME. I showed them Real Beauty, my portraits of women in Soweto. I never thought I would get an assignment. But not long afterwards TIME asked if I would photograph 80 women that had been interviewed by the journalist Aryn Baker. I travelled to the Women for Afghan Women’s shelter in Kabul with my translator. That’s where I met Bibi Aisha.
I was told Aisha’s story. She said that men took her, held her down and cut off her ears and her nose, because she ran away from her husband and they wanted to show the other women in the village that this is not what you do. I went in. Aisha was with her social worker. I knew that she was vulnerable, and I decided not to ask about what had happened to her.
When I’m in a situation like that, I don’t make excuses for disability. I don’t allow the awkwardness to be. I’m quite straightforward, and I just treated Aisha normally. I feel responsible for the people that I photograph; I try to make it a collaboration.
What I’ve learned as a photographer is that people survive. They adapt. It’s amazing how they manage to keep their lives together. That’s what I try to show. I could have photographed Aisha looking more like a victim. But I thought no, this woman is beautiful.
Aisha couldn’t have known how big it would become; none of us knew. There has been controversy. People say I’ve been used, but I don’t get it.
The most important person here is Aisha. If I had heard that Aisha was freaking out and her life was a mess, I would feel awful. But she’s not. The Grossman Burn Foundation uses that magazine cover to get funding for her nose surgery. People should donate to the Bibi Aisha Fund, or to Women for Afghan Women.
How you react to the photograph is your business. I will go to sleep comfortably tonight.
Jodi was talking to Naomi O’Leary. Visit Naomi’s website.
Apply for the IdeasTap Photographic Award (in partnership with Magnum Photos) for the chance to win expert mentoring and cash prizes. Read about last year’s winner.
