Geneva Camp Butchers

 

There are places in the world where the boundary between art and life dissolves. These places are not museums, galleries or curated exhibitions, but rather are in narrow alleys and crowded spaces where people work with their hands and live their common lives – “extraordinary people doing common things”.

In Geneva Camp, in the tight weave of Mohammadpur’s passages, I watched butchers quietly processing cattle heads on wet concrete, their movements deliberate, practiced, and almost ritualistic. The scene felt uncannily familiar—not because I had been there before in February of this year, but because I had seen its visual language echoed across centuries of European paintings so many times before – in the Louvre, Musee D’Orsay, Tate Gallery, The Rijksmuseum, National gallery, and the National Gallery of Art as well as on television series and in books on the history of Western Art. In those moments in Geneva Camp, the present in Dhaka and the Dutch Golden Age were not opposites but mirrors, each revealing the dignity of labor, the intimacy of survival, and the quiet beauty that emerges when a human being is fully absorbed in necessary work.

Allen A Hale - _D860081

When I transferred a photo from my camera into my computer for editing and post processing I saw - A Bihari man squatting in the street - more like a typical narrow alley within Geneva Camp.  He is in front of his "shop" - a darkened concrete alcove of a typical structure.  He is using knives to process the cattle heads - a heavier knife to cleave off the horns, a smaller as well as thinner knife to skin the hide from the heads.  In front of him are several heads in various states of processing - behind the heads are brains laying carefully on the water and blood covered concrete.  One head, in particular, is particularly stunning - facing upwards on a 45 degree angle with its hide pulled back to create a white cape behind it. The white heavily textured of its "face" is broken up by the large clear dak eye in the skull.  The butcher is 3/4 complete creating the white cape on the head that he is working on.  Behind the butcher is a small pile of fresh wet hides.  A butcher knife and sharpening steel lay on the wet concrete between him and the 45 degree head.  The overall tone of the photograph is brownish and very subdued accentuated only by the white of the processed heads and red of the concrete.

The photograph resurrected long time memories of classical painting that I have experienced:

              Dutch Market Scenes – Works by Aertsen, Beuckelaer,and Wtewael

 

              Flemish Baroque – Works by Snyders, and Teniers the Younger

 

              Dutch Golden Age Realism -  Works by Pieter Claesz, and Isack van Ostade

 

              German Still Lifes – Works by Flegel, Stoskopff, and Cranach

 

Further research into the echoes of the Masters and this photograph revealed the following connections:

Rembrandt – The Slaughtered Ox

• The upward tilt of the head
• The exposed textures of flesh and hide
• The chiaroscuro created by a dark alcove behind the subject
• The quiet dignity of labor implied but not shown

The “white cape” of pulled-back hide echoes Rembrandt’s dramatic use of exposed surfaces as a kind of involuntary drapery.

Snyders & Teniers – Flemish Butcher Shops

• Multiple heads in different stages of processing
• Tools laid out on wet stone (Concrete and brick)
• A worker absorbed in the task
• A sense of abundance and necessity rather than spectacle

The subdued brown and black tones with punctuations of white and red is straight out of Snyders’ tonal palette

Aertsen & Beuckelaer – Market Scenes

• The foreground dominated by meat
• The worker framed by a dark interior
• The moral ambiguity: is this abundance, survival, or commentary

The alleyway alcove functions exactly like their shadowed kitchen interiors.

Courbet – Realism of Labor

• The squatting posture
• The unvarnished honesty of the task
• The refusal to romanticize or sanitize

Allen A Hale - _D860038

I did not settle for just a single photograph of the scene.  I knew that were other photographs - different compositions, different participants, different actions – all sharing the same themes, symbolism, and connections to the works of the past Masters.  Where the Masters captured their moments to share their reality, perspectives and stories, these photographs capture today’s reality and demonstrate a continuum of humanity and the human condition.  As my Thai wife often shares with me “Same. Same, but different”

 

Allen A Hale - _D860082

Flemish painters like Frans Snyders and David Teniers the Younger filled their canvases with butcher shops overflowing with game, heads, hides, and tools. They understood the butcher’s stall as a stage where abundance, survival, and social commentary intersected.

My Dhaka scenes share their visual vocabulary — the arrangement of heads, the wet pavement, the tools laid out with unconscious precision — but it rejects their theatricality. There is no performance here. No allegory. No moralizing.

Just men doing the work that feeds a community

Allen A Hale - _D860083

In the 16th century, Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer pioneered the “kitchen and market scene,” where the foreground was dominated by meat and produce while the background held a small moral or biblical vignette. Their compositions often placed the worker in a darkened interior, framed by shadow.

The butcher’s alcove in Geneva Camp functions the same way — a pocket of darkness that throws the labor into relief. Unlike Aertsen’s moralizing contrasts, there is no sermon here. The only message in this photograph is the one the viewer brings from their own experience and perspective. 

 

Allen A Hale - _D860083

Gustave Courbet insisted that the lives of ordinary people were worthy of monumental treatment. His workers bend, squat, lift, and strain with the same gravity once reserved for saints and kings.

The squatting posture of the butchers in Dhaka — close to the ground, close to the work — is pure Courbet. It is realism without apology. It is the body in honest relation to its task

What stays with me is not the intensity of the compositions, but the tranquility inside it - a man, a task, a narrow alley, a rhythm older than any museum. The Old Masters painted these moments as allegories—symbols of abundance, morality, mortality.  But here, in Geneva Camp, the symbolism is not imposed. It rises naturally from the work itself: the upward tilt of a head, the white cape of pulled hide, the tools resting on wet stone, the body bent in concentration. These are not metaphors. They are truths. And in witnessing them, I am reminded that understanding does not come from distance or theory, but from returning—again and again—to the places where life unfolds without pretense. This is where art begins. This is where humanity reveals itself. And this is where I continue to learn what it means to see and I begin to understand – to understand the truths of this life.

Revealed by the Light

 

Sunrise light reveals a young girl's features from the early morning darkness of her workplace, the garbage dump in Sylhet, Bangladesh, illuminating a moment of unguarded curiosity. Elements of my photographs often contain themes of mythology, faith, culture, ritual, and symbolism. Often I seek a composition that contains juxtaposition to create an interesting story. Two of my favorite juxtapositions are - young “Monks”; “holy men” acting as the young boys that they are and the second, as in this photograph, - finding beauty and dignity in the most unexpected locations, places where you least expect to find it …

The Split Mind of the Portrait Photographer

There is a moment in photography — a moment so fleeting that it barely exists — when something in the world calls out and something inside us answers. If we’re honest, that moment is rarely conscious. 

 

 

We like to believe we decide to take a photograph, but more often, the photograph decides for us. Years of seeing, studying, absorbing, and remembering - all accumulating beneath the surface. They form a silent intelligence — a visual instinct — that recognizes meaning before the conscious mind can name it. 

This subconscious eye is shaped by: 

     • the symbols we’ve internalized

     • the gestures we’ve witnessed 

    • years of visual memory 

    • the rituals we’ve observed 

    • the emotional rhythms of human life

     • the mythic echoes that resonate across cultures 

    • the rhythm of human behavior

The subconscious sees patterns that the conscious mind cannot yet articulate. It senses alignment, tension, harmony, and story. It responds to the world with intuition rather than analysis.

 Our subconscious recognizes the moment before our conscious mind can name it. It sees the gesture, the alignment, the symbolic echo — and it acts. 

This is why the best photographs feel received rather than constructed. 

We don’t take them. 

We allow them. 

Only afterward, the conscious mind steps in. 

After the photograph is taken, in the quiet realm of post processing, the conscious mind begins its work.

 It analyzes the frame, interprets the moment, and constructs meaning. It says: “Ah, I took this because the light was perfect,”, or “I was drawn to the gesture”, or “This composition echoes a painting I love.” 

These are explanations, not causes. These explanations are retrospective. They are stories we tell ourselves to justify a decision already made. 

 The cause happened earlier, in the part of the mind that doesn’t speak — the part that simply knows.

The subconscious creates. The subconscious is not the enemy of intention. It is the wellspring of intuition. 

Our conscious mind is the editor, the interpreter, the curator. 

Our subconscious is the hunter, the listener, the seer. 

Creativity happens when the two collaborate: 

        • The subconscious recognizes the moment. 

        • The conscious mind later understands why it mattered. 

This is why my work feels mythic — because my subconscious is constantly matching the world against a deep internal library of symbols, gestures, and archetypes. 

I don’t think my way into those moments. I feel my way into them.

In Islamic thought, creativity is often framed as something granted rather than owned. 

The phrase “Mashallah” (As God has willed it) reflects a worldview in which human creativity is not a personal achievement but a blessing — a trust. This perspective carries a profound humility. 

 

It suggests that the artist is not the source of creation, but the vessel. That inspiration is not manufactured, but it is received. That the moment of seeing is not seized, but granted. As a photographer, this resonates deeply with me. 

  

The truth is: 

We do not control the world we photograph. 

We do not command the light, the gesture, the expression, the timing. 

We simply remain open — receptive — ready. 

In this sense, the subconscious moment of creation feels less like a decision and more like a gift. 

I have long believed that every portrait is also gift from the photographed person to the photographer. 

It is a moment of mutual recognition — a silent agreement that says: “I see you.” “You may see me.” “Let us share this moment.” 

 

 This exchange is not transactional. It is relational. It is human. The subject offers presence. The photographer offers attention. The photograph becomes the artifact of their shared experience.

This is why the best portraits feel alive — because they are born from collaboration, not appropriation or exploitation. 

 

 They emerge from respect, empathy, and the acknowledgment of a shared condition. 

 

 

In this way, portraiture becomes a spiritual practice - a practice of humility, a practice of gratitude, and always - a practice of seeing.

MEMORIES of the PAST

 

A Manta Woman on the Bukhainagar River  

As 2025 comes to a rapid close, I am, like so many other people, reflecting upon the past year.  The accomplishments, disappointments, joys, and changes come foremost in my mind.

I started my travels in February with a 20 day tour of Bangladesh - definitely one of the "places less visited".  I was shocked!  Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine that Bangladesh would become my favorite destination.  Yes, Bangladesh!  We are all familiar with all the reasons why Bangladesh is not on most people's bucket list of places to visit.  But, what I was shocked to experience there was the beauty and hospitality of the Bangladeshi people.

 

One group of people that I spent some time photographing were the Manta people - landless people who live on small boats in Barisal Division.  They were very friendly and had no problem being photographed.

 

I do not photograph people as "subjects".  I photograph them as participants in their own stories.  My lens seeks truth, not performance.  I wait for the moment when a person forgets the camera - not to catch them off-guard but to honor who they are when they are most themselves.

 

Later in the year, I became involved with an Internet photography community and experienced a great change in how I edited my photographs.  The group has also been very supportive and encouraging in my photography goals as well as visions.

 

With better refined techniques and skills, I revisited some of my photographs from my February tour of Bangladesh.  In a new look at the above photo, I was struck by how much it reminded me of my past.  Thirty eight years ago, I was going through a divorce.  In setting up a new home, I placed a poster that resonated with me on my bedroom.  This photo brought back memories of that time.  I did not remember the name of the painter or the name of the work of art.  Technology has also evolved and changed over that period of time, so it was easy to determine that the poster was of "The Lady of Shalott" by Waterhouse from 1888. 

"The Lady of Shalott" painting is based on the poem "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Tennyson’s poem was inspired by the Arthurian legend—specifically the story of Elaine of Astolat, a maiden who appears in medieval tales about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

In the poem, she has been cursed to live isolated in a tower near Camelot, only able to view the world through a mirror and weave what she sees into a tapestry. When she defies the curse by looking directly out her window at Sir Lancelot, she is doomed to die. Waterhouse’s painting captures the poignant moment when the Lady leaves her tower, setting out in a boat toward Camelot, fully aware that she is embracing her fate

 

My photograph shares so many elements and symbols in common with the painting:

 

A lone figure on water, suspended between worlds — resonates with the same mythic tension that energizes Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott:

• Isolation within openness
  Both images place a solitary figure in a vast, reflective environment. The water becomes a psychological boundary, not just a physical one.
• The threshold moment
  In the painting, the Lady is caught in the instant that she breaks the curse, sealing her fate.
  In the photograph, the Manta woman is caught in a moment of transition — not dramatic, but existential - returning from the village, a land based world, across the Bukhainagar River to her water based world of her home aboard a slightly larger boat.

        The mythic undertone
        My photograph isn’t a reenactment, but it rhymes with the painting:
        a human suspended between fate and agency, between enclosure and the world

 

 In Lady of Shalott: the water is the path to Camelot — a journey toward truth and death.

 

In my photo: the water is a space for contemplation, anonymity, and possibility. The Manta woman, by choice, fate or a curse is in a journey between our world and her world. 

 

In my photograph there is no Camelot, no curse, no rich tapestry.  The photograph is of a human being in the world - quiet humanism versus the tragic romanticism of the painting.

 

I guess that is why the photograph feels mystic to me without being theatrical. 

 

I now question creativity - "Is creativity born or is it influenced by our experiences?'  

 

If I had never seen Waterhouse's "The Lady of Shalott", would I have taken this photograph? 

 

If Waterhouse had never read Tennyson's poem, would he have created this powerful painting? 

 

If Tennyson had never experienced the Arthurian legend, would he have written his poem?

 

All questions to be contemplated and written about in a future blog. 

 

One thing that I am sure of all works can be appreciated on their own merits regardless of their provenance or inspiration.