GREETINGS.
Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Lindsay Donald, a Jamaican photographer who first came to live here in London in 1962. For a very long time in my youth, the world seemed like a calendar. Sunset after sunset, day after day. Perfect. The quintessential English chocolate box cover. After graduating in 1968 and over a three-year period, I taught myself the craft of photography. But slowly and subtley the calendar view of the reality I was seeing was being cut. I then began to experience a quality of struggle between what is called my 'clarified sense of perception' and my 'learned photographic responses' to the outside world. In 1971 I was invited to study in Sweden for two years with two of the country's most well known classic photojournalists of that era, Lief Erickson and Tomas Sodergren. I returned to Jamaica in 1973 for six months and was first introduced to Robert Nesta Marley whilst working as a "runner" on the set of the movie, "The Marijuana Affair", starring Calvin Lockhart which was being shot in Kingston. After finishing work on the film, I began a solo adventure of touring West Africa. For three years I travelled through Morocco, Algeria, across the Sahara desert to Niger, Burkina Fasso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. During my travels in Africa I met many wonderful,delightful and totally extraordinary people amongst whom was one of Africa's most celebrated, charismatic and volcanic musician, Funmilayo 'Fela' Anikulapo-Kuti. It was to be my good fortune to be in Nigeria in 1977, when FESTAC, the greatest ever celebration of Black Arts and Culture, was taking place. I spent four weeks at Fela's home, Kalakuta Republic, in the Yaba section of Lagos but unfortunately for me, I was in the house on February 14th,1977, when soldiers came to the house on a raid to find marijuana. They found what they wanted to find and burnt the house to the ground. They then physically abused everyone using gun butts, sticks and whips, and I was detained in prison on charges of being a CIA spy. Naturally, I have never worked for the CIA and after five months and five days they reluctantly released me. It was during this time whilst being in detention, that I was to learn one of life's most enduring secrets. One of my fellow prisoners, who was detained on political purposes for taking part in an unsuccessful military coup and who later was executed, told me that I must learn to sit down and to meditate. Deep meditation slows down the basic speed and aggressive quality of the mind and it also allows the senses to operate in a more natural and uncluttered environment. Somehow, I slowed down and really began to sit quietly on my own and I saw that with the technical knowledge of photography and my meditation, I was able not to seperate them into seperate compartments. I also learnt not to go along with the feeling of having to conceptualize too much about my work. Whilst shooting the bulk of my work between 1977-87, I was aware that I was being caught in a mind trap. I was not shooting what I saw. In the first instance, a fresh perception would occupy my thoughts of how I would have liked to shoot the same subject. I would inevitably lose that fresh idea and photograph along a predictable conditioned response. This split between my first and second thought became extremely frustrating. But through all of that I was blessed when I became a friend and was able to work with a true Legend. The Hon:Robert Nesta Marley. My association with 'Tuff Gong' lasted over a seven years period. It was an awe inspiring period to be up close and involved with The 'Gong' during his Heights and a key moment for me was being on that stage photographing the "ONE LOVE CONCERT" in Kingston in April 1978. In the summer of 1980 Bob gathered together a selected group of influential Rastafarian's to launch the world's first Rastafarian newspaper,SURVIVAL. Mortimo 'Brother Kumi' Planno, the Elder who had guided Bob through the spiritual tenets of the Rastafarian movement and who also greeted H.I.M.Haille Selassie when the Emperor made his trip to Jamaica, was appointed editor. Arthur Kitchin, one of Jamaica's leading Rastafarian jounalist was appointed chief writer. I was then asked by Bob to be chief photographer. But sadly, due to the political turmoil and unrest that was engulfing Jamaica at that time, only four editions were ever published. The few surviving copies of SURVIVAL have now become rare collectors item and are reportedly traded for thousands of dollars over the internet. Also during this turbulent period in Jamaican history, I was assisting JanHoi JaJa, an influential Jamaican photographer,in establishing DIPLOMAT, one of Jamaica's best known photographic studio's at that time. I also had to find time and space to document some of the truly greats of popular cultured Jamaican music some of whom included: BYRON LEE, BURNING SPEAR, LEE SCRATCH PERRY, PETER TOSH, GREGORY ISAACS, BURNING SPEAR, JIMMY CLIFF, RAS MICHAEL,JUNIOR TUCKER, THE I THREES, BARRINGTON LEVY, JACOB MILLER, BLACK UHURU, BIG YOUTH,ERROLL SCORCHER, NADINE SUTHERLAND,EEK A MOUSE, MAXI PRIEST, SHABBA RANKS, YELLOWMAN,LLOYD PARKS, THIRD WORLD, RAS MICHAEL,DENNIS BROWN, HAILE MASKEL and the RASTAFARIANS and a young and then unknown BEENIE MAN, now revered Internationally as 'THE DANCE HALL KING'. In 1980 I was invited by Sista Rita Marley to photograph the first publicity photographs featuring a young ZIGGY MARLEY and THE MELODY MAKERS to mark thier first single,"Children Playing In The Streets". In September 1980, I left Jamaica and travelled with Bob on his final tour to the United States and was with him in Miami when he finally flew to Mount Zion in May, 1981. After Bob went to higher ground and as my work progressively developed meditatively, I returned to London and freelanced for many years with some of Europe's major black publications and for three years was the picture editor for the Caribbean Times, Britains largest black weekly. I also became involved with youth work and taught photography on one of Britain's largest housing projects, the Broadwater Farm Estate, scene of a major riot in 1985. It was only after a period of nearly fifteen years that I began to realise that my images were coming closer to recording things I was actually seeing. From that point of view, I feel it has been a journey, which can only proceed by trusting further that sense of first thought in a much more direct way. I have been trying to express my experiences of the world in the most simpliest of ways. I am currently archiving my library of negatives from which I will self-publish a book 'untitledelement' containing 144 images and am searching for anyone who may be able to assist me in this project. The small selection of images seen here in my slide-show are taken from my website: http://www.untitledelement.com
After twenty five years I have now made available a selection of my work for publication and exhibition and will also be marketing a range of Original Limited Edition T-shirts.I also seek investors for my self-publication book. Give Thanx, JAH Bless and ONE LOVE.
Contact Tables
