Photo Gallery
Outbreak—Ebola
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"Through a contact that Tom Clynes, the writer, and I made
in Gulu, we got to meet this witch doctor, Abodtu. We
asked him if he had the Ebola cure. He said not yet, but he
was working on it.
"Abodtu said he got visitations from spirits, and the spirits
told him that he or his assistant should go to Kampala, by a
lake, and it would become obvious what the cure was.
"Throughout the area witch doctors were offering Ebola
cures. Sufferers would go and see them, and then the witch
doctor and the patient would die, because the witch doctor
was touching the body—proving that the witch doctor
didn't have the cure. The World Health Organization
outlawed these guys from operating on Ebola victims.
"When we saw Abodtu again, apparently he had found a cure. But after
that, he got shut down again."
—Photographer Seamus Murphy
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Photo Facts
Camera: Canon EOS-1N
Film: Fujifilm 1600 ASA Neopan, pushed to 3200 ASA
Lens: 50mm
F-stop: F 1.4.
Shutter speed: 1/15 second
Shoptalk
"It was very dark, and Abodtu had a candle, and that was the
only light. I took some pictures with a flash, but it just came
to me that he had very strong eyes and a very strong face,
and if he held that candle beneath his chin, the light would be
a little ghoulish.
"It was a very sinister atmosphere in his place. I have
pictures of him by his altar with little snakes' heads and
stuff. But I just thought, Keep it simple."
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