2003 Mimi Chakarova

When Mimi Chakarova's family left her native Bulgaria and migrated to Baltimore in 1989, the teenager felt alone and out of place. Desperate to find a niche, she saved her money, bought a simple point-and-shoot camera, and started taking pictures.

"Baltimore was a very segregated town, both economically and ethnically," recalls Chakarova, now a lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism. "My family was both poor and foreign, so we struggled. Since I couldn't speak English, I used the camera as a way to communicate."

Her unique ability to communicate through photography has earned Chakarova the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship.

"It's important to respect and learn from those who have come before you," she explains. "Seeing how the masters chose to document their subjects helped me develop my style."

Starving for a more diverse and active environment, Chakarova left Baltimore and moved to San Francisco in 1994, where she studied photography—first at City College, then at the San Francisco Art Institute. She earned her degree, but felt "there had to be something more."

"I was trained as a fine-arts photographer, which means you spend a lot of time exploring yourself," she says. "I found I was more interested in others than looking inward."

Though she initially pursued documentary filmmaking, Chakarova was discouraged by the field's expense and lack of opportunity. She decided to try documentary photography, and found a career that, over the years, has taken her around the world, often to places most people would like to avoid, like the impoverished shantytowns of South Africa.

"The residents there were so surprised to see me," she explains. "One woman told me that in the 30 years she had lived there, no one from the outside had ever come to see the horrible conditions in which they existed."

She also traveled to Jamaica to explore life for people living in the shadows of giant luxury resorts. But those in the community where she stayed were distrustful of a white woman with a camera around her neck, and gave her a chilly reception.

"They assumed I was there to take pictures for calendars or postcards; that they were once again being exploited for profits they would never see," she says. "I was shut out, and almost gave up on the project. But I was eventually befriended by a young, mentally retarded man, and he introduced me around the village."

Once the community came to trust Chakarova, she was able to document their deplorable lack of basic needs, including electricity, running water, and proper education. Back in the states, she used the photos to inform others about the situation there, and sold prints to raise money for the village's one-room schoolhouse.

"I go wherever stories are not being told, or are being told through a slanted perspective," says Chakarova of her projects. "To be successful, my photos must not only educate people, but motivate them to take action."

Among her most recent work are photos depicting life at the Creative Growth Center in Oakland, a facility where people with mental, emotional, and physical disabilities produce works of art that are later sold, with the artists receiving a percentage of the profits. She'll use the fellowship money to complete the second phase of this project, profiling people with disabilities as they go through their everyday lives.

But first she's off to Eastern Europe to document the trafficking of women there, a trade that has flourished in recent years. "I want to find out why this is happening," she says, "and see if I can help bring an end to this awful enslavement."

While Chakarova has been praised for having an "unfailingly good eye," she says the most important part of documentary photography is not the technical aspect of operating a camera, but the relationships one must build with his or her subjects.

"Anyone can learn about light, composition, aperture settings, and developing film," she says. "The most difficult skill to acquire is the ability to connect with people."

Photo Gallery

In 1973, Creative Growth in Oakland, California was the first independent visual arts center for severely disabled adults in the U.S. Today, it continues to provide creative art programs, educational and independent living training, counseling and vocational opportunities for over 120 adults who are physically, mentally and emotionally disabled.

Portrait of woman in glasses wearing a knit cap

Dorothy Doran, Creative Growth, Oakland, 2001
Dorothy spoke of kittens and how their soft fur feels on her fingertips. She died last year.

man with mouth wide open

Carl Hendrickson, Creative Growth, Oakland, 2001 Carl always got excited when he saw the camera; he would drop his tools and crawl on his hands and knees toward me. At that time, he was working on building himself a new chair made of wood and a folding lunch try on which two words are inscribed: YES and NO.

young man with curly hair looking straight at viewer

Luis Aguilera, Creative Growth, Oakland, 2001 Luis was involved in several romantic relationships that often distracted him from making art and kept him preoccupied with his girlfriends' jealous outbursts, tears and kisses.

man wearing Disney cap staring past viewer

Allan Lofberg, Creative Growth, Oakland, 2001
Allan often wore his Disneyland cap and would spend hours staring into space. Whenever he felt the presence of the camera, he would smile nervously, grab a crayon and pretend to be busy drawing. As soon as I would walk away, he would stop, fold his hands as in the photo and return to his usual behavior.

South African boy standing at a hole in chainlink fence

Little man, Guguletu township, South Africa, 2001
Under apartheid black men were allowed to work in the cities but had to leave their families behind in homelands. Employers provided them rooms in hostels. Since 1994, these mens' wives and children have joined them, and entire families now live in single rooms.

Jamaican girl standing behind chainlink fenceSchoolgirl, Port Maria, Jamaica, 2000

shirtless man working on a sculptureA self-taught sculptor, Port Antonio, Jamaica, 2000

Project Proposal

Where stories are not being told: Oakland's Creative Growth Center

Below, Lange Fellow Mimi Chakarova outlines the documentary photography project that she will pursue with the aid of the 2003 fellowship. Chakarova has said, "I go wherever stories are not being told, or are being told through a slanted perspective. To be successful, my photos must not only educate people, but motivate them to take action." The project she proposes follows those principles.

"It's tough to be a black hero" reads an illustrated brochure with Afro-wearing action figures. Next to it is a letter William wrote to his psychiatrist. "I don't want Diana Ross no more. For years she gives me nervous and makes me upset."

"Why did you break up with her?" I ask.

He needs a church going girl to get rid of the voices in his head, he explains. William shows me his new drawings. "My new citizen girlfriend," he slides one sheet of controlled charcoal strokes.

I met William at Oakland's Creative Growth Center. In 1973, Creative Growth in Oakland, California was the first independent visual arts center for severely disabled adults in the U.S. Today, it continues to provide creative art programs, educational and independent living training, counseling and vocational opportunities for over 120 adults who are physically, mentally and emotionally disabled. But most importantly, the center facilitates a notion of purpose and hope for those who spent years of their lives in mental institutions.

Over 54 million Americans live with disabilities. The federal definition of developmental disabilities covers people whose disability occurs before age 22 and includes a mental or physical impairment or a combination of both. There must be a substantial limitation in three or more of these major life areas: self-care; expressive or receptive language; learning; mobility; capacity for independent living; economic self-sufficiency; or self-direction. In California alone, more than half a million people cope with developmental disability.

I first began photographing at Creative Growth in 2001. I met people with mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and related developmental health problems. After three months of working on this project, I was able to establish trust and form relationships with the adults, which allowed me to make the portraits I am submitting. All photographs are black and white, shot with a 35-mm camera.

At this stage of the project, I would like to intimately profile several people coping with disability as they go through everyday life in their homes and public spaces where people often judge them wrongly and classify them as "retards." Although some are mentally retarded, most of the people I photograph are fully aware of the prejudice or pity that others feel toward them. They desperately try to integrate themselves in this society, but nevertheless are always perceived as "other" because they still live with their parents or appear physically different. Naturally, those with disability form romantic relationships with others like them, which is also part of this documentation. I anticipate the duration of my project to be at least one year. My goal is to have a collection of intimate environmental portraits encapsulating daily life as well as conducting interviews with those participating in the project.

Photography has the visual power to educate by allowing us to enter the lives and experiences of others. Dorothea Lange, a master of capturing the human condition with compassion and dignity, once said, "the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." Documentary photography pieces together one's story over a period of time, illustrating fragments of reality. But most importantly, the viewer becomes a witness to another person's condition and afterwards, as a witness, carries a sense of social responsibility.