SAŠA PETRICIC WORLDVIEW

INNOCENT BYSTANDERS

In Nepal’s Himalayas, three women stand at the top of the world — their crop baskets emptied, their day fulfilled — ignoring the quaking aftershocks underfoot.

In Lebanon, not far from Beirut’s chronic shooting and shouting, he lounges on the seashore, soaking up gentle rays. An Adonis, in a Mideast run by the gods of war.

And in North Korea, the haggard face of an old man stares through the scratched window of a subway car, his eyes trying to forget the torment of a wretched regime to focus on his own troubles, on finding food.

These are the innocent bystanders in a shattered world, trying not to fall through its cracks.

They are people I have come across during decades spent taking in and reporting on the mess around them, their spirit burning itself into my mind’s eye… and into the frames of my photographs.

As a foreign correspondent for CBC, I have covered wars, uprisings and natural disasters around the globe, come face to face with dictators and seen the hardships they inflict on their citizens, and gone to places hidden to most outsiders.

I have also turned my wandering camera the other way: toward the people who not only witness calamity as I do, but live it.

And their reactions — the glint or gloom in their eyes — speaks volumes.

Sometimes the brighter shades of life shine through, more enchanting than intimidating. The palette of pinks in Japan’s spring. A red kite, tethered to a boy on a Bali beach. The silver gleam of Canada’s frozen wilderness.

The magic is in seeing the human soul, endlessly exploring. Grasping for assurance and inspiration.