Final analysis
Untitled from ‘The Uncanny’, 2013, by Léonard Pongo
Photographer Léonard Pongo works in the Congo DR. Once you know that it’s hard to forget. A good strong surname can be advantageous to a career. I’m on solid ground with Dench. Then there’s (and I’m by no way comparing myself), James Nachtwey, William Eggleston and Muir Vidler. You don’t even need two names: Weegee, Rankin, Platon and Normski are testament to the success of the singular. It’s even better if your name reflects what you photograph. I’ll never forget the wild horses of Utah photographed by Brian Clopp (AP 28 March 2020), the floral creations of Fleur Olby, portraits of Olympic divers by Richard Splash and the food photography of Victoria Sponge. I made up the last two but you get the point.
My early impression of the Congo was shaped by the racist colonial adventures of Tintin, the advert for juice drink Um Bongo, the movie The African Queen, Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, and by human rights photographers. The Congolese, usually portrayed as subversive, victim or aggressor. Rarely did I witness the ordinary and everyday.
This image is from Pongo’s long-term project, The Uncanny, winner of the ICP / GOST First Photo Book Award 2020, an immersion into the daily life of the Congo, shot in and around the provinces of Kinshasa, Katanga and Kasaï-Occidental. Born in 1988 to a Belgium mother and Congolese father, Pongo was raised in Belgium, first visiting the Congo in 2011. The Uncanny began from a need to live in the country and experience daily life and reconnect with his heritage. It evolved into a personal visual account of friends and family and the Congo.
Pongo’s pictures are often dark, grainy, candid photographs of ordinary people. This one reminds me of the great chronicler of America, Robert Frank, and his iconic photograph ‘Elevator – Miami Beach, 1955’, showing a 15-year-old girl working an elevator at the Sherry Frontenac Hotel. The girl is Sharon Collins; she saw herself in the image years later in an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and described her expression as ‘dreaminess’. I wonder if the woman in this picture has seen this photograph of herself and what she would think of it. In both images, the woman is a focal point amongst the blurring throb of life.
I’ve spent a large part of my career photographing in dark clubs and bars searching for moments of clarity and calm, usually by blasting in a Metz Mecablitz 45 CL-4 flash. The flash on Pongo’s Fujifilm X100S is less obtrusive, the woman dancing at the Lubumbashi golf open, unruffled. It’s a refreshing image of a country in tumult. It’s by Léonard Pongo who works in the Congo – don’t you forget it.
‘A refreshing image of a country in tumult’