The Journey Is the Destination, Revised Edition: The Journals of Dan Eldon
256
The Journey Is the Destination, Revised Edition: The Journals of Dan Eldon
256Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781452101637 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Chronicle Books |
| Publication date: | 05/02/2017 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.10(w) x 10.60(h) x 0.90(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Dan Eldon was born in London in 1970 and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. He traveled as a photojournalist for Reuters, and his photographs of Somalia's brutal famine helped trigger an outpouring of international aid.
Alicia Dougherty is the curator of the Dan Eldon Collection.
Kweku Mandela is the founder of the Africa Rising Foundation and the production company Out of Africa Entertainment. He lives in South Africa.
Interviews
On Wednesday, October 15th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Kathy Eldon to discuss THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION.
Moderator: Welcome, Kathy Eldon. We are glad you could join us this evening to talk about THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION.
Dan Eldon: Absolutely delighted to be here.
Cairo from Birmingham, AL: Where did the title THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION come from? Why did you choose it for the title?
Dan Eldon: The title came from a page in the book, in the middle, and I think it sums up everything that Dan's life is about, in the sense that we shouldn't be questing for an external faraway destination but should fill each moment in our lives with a sense of purpose, adventure, and learning.
POWA from Austin, TX: As the son of an American and a Brit, how did Dan end up in Nairobi, Kenya? Why did you and Dan's father move there?
Dan Eldon: My husband, Mike, was posted to Nairobi to run a British computer company, and I came along with Dan, age seven, and Amy, age three. Once there, I became a journalist and started to write books and explored the excitement of living in Africa.
Arthur from Newtown, PA: Was Dan trained in photography? How did he discover his talent?
Dan Eldon: We gave Dan his first camera when he was five, and he took photographs of people's middles and of sheep. Throughout childhood, he was interested in photography like any other child but began to show signs of having a "photographer's eye" by the age of around 13 or 14. We bought a secondhand developing kit for Dan from a garage sale and encouraged him to go out and really take photographs. Dan took a photography course at university in England, and he got a C+ in it because he never followed instructions -- he never did what the teacher wanted him to. He protested loudly, but the teacher was adamant and the grade stayed. The teacher is still teaching photography at that college, and Dan went on to most of the major newspapers and magazines in the world.
Barter from Chowchilla, CA: Hello, Kathy! What is Dan's sister Amy up to these days?
Dan Eldon: Amy and I have just come back from a five-week trip all the way to South Africa to shoot a two-hour documentary for Turner Original Productions. The idea was Amy's at age 21, who was a student at Boston University College of Communications. She proposed a documentary which would examine the lives of photographers, broadcasters, and camera people who risked their lives to do their job. She called the project "Dying to Tell the Story." Turner accepted the proposal, and the film will be aired in September 1998. Amy interviewed such people as Christianne Amanpour, Don McCullen, Martin Bell (BBC broadcaster), and many other incredible shooters and broadcasters to question why they do what they do, what seeing the horrors that they see does to them and what it means to each one of us. Amy is now 23 and is also working on some children's books focusing on communication.
Alonso from Brooklyn, NY: How did Dan Eldon manage to get hired by Reuters at such a young age? Did they send him to Somalia, or was he already there? I'm also curious where his photographs appeared. Thanks.
Dan Eldon: In the summer of 1992, Dan heard rumors of a possible famine in Somalia. He and a friend from The Philadelphia Inquirer traveled north to see if there was any truth to the rumors. There was a horrific famine. Dan and his friend took pictures, which Reuters spotted in the Kenyan newspaper The Nation. They called him in and eventually put him on contract as a stringer. He was at the time one of the youngest stringers working for Reuters. Having been brought up in Africa, Dan knew his way around, and once he had really learned from the professional photographers who were already there, he was able to get photographs which would have been difficult for people who were not as familiar with the local situation. Although Dan was half American and half British, he considered himself an African. Dan's photographs appeared in nearly all the major newspapers and magazines around the world. He had a center spread in Newsweek. His images were distributed on the Reuters wire.
Annette Borgford from Golden, CO: Hello, Kathy Eldon! What a unique way to chronicle your life. What did Dan use, aside from photographs, to put his collages together?
Dan Eldon: A lot of Elmer's glue! We lived in Africa, where Dan did not have access to computer graphics or color photocopiers or anything artificial. So the early journals were completely done with cutting and pasting. Dan used everything at hand, including dried insects, snakeskin, hair, ceiling wax, trash, cut-up photographs, old advertisements -- literally anything that was part of his life or connected his life to the world around him. It is possible to do what Dan did with almost nothing at hand except what you encounter on a daily basis. In a way, Dan created his life as art, and by publishing Dan's work, I was hoping that other people would be inspired to view their lives differently.
Chrome from Culver City: I just got the JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION -- what a beautiful book. I'm curious to know about the book that Dan published before his death. Is it still in print? What was it about?
Dan Eldon: The book is called SOMALIA, and he published it in April 1993 from photographs he took in Somalia accompanied by a commentary he wrote himself. We have copies that we sell to benefit the foundation we created in Dan's memory, and thus far it's sold about 10,000 copies. It's a very powerful and moving testimony to the horror Dan saw around him and also to Dan's hope that the spirit of the Somali people would energize the country and bring it back to peace.
Irena from Wilmington, DE: As a mother, I wonder how you remain so hopeful and positive about Dan's death. To me it seems so tragic and the circumstances so ugly that I would have a hard time not being bitter.
Dan Eldon: I think we all have a choice to make in our lives and I have chosen to try to move beyond the rage that I felt at Dan's death. There will always be an aching sense of loss within me, but I have chosen to try to transform the pain of Dan's death into something that has a life force of its own. I now encourage all those who I know who lost loved ones to move beyond the sense of anger towards something that brings light. Recently Amy and I returned to Somalia to visit the place where Dan was killed -- our escort was a Somali woman who was in the house that was bombed by UN forces. She lost two brothers and an uncle in the bombing. We lost Dan. We were united by our grief. She had every reason to hate me as an American. And perhaps some people would say I should have hated her because she was Somali, but there was no question of that. We instantly bonded as friends, and all of us felt a sense of acceptance, forgiveness, and peace.
Christopher from Cambridge, MA: Kathy, I think we often take for granted the role journalists play in our lives. I just wonder what you read -- where do you get your news?
Dan Eldon: Now that I am in L.A., I tend to read the L.A. Times, which isn't the best vehicle of achieving understanding of what's happening in the world necessarily. I've become a fan of the Internet, and there's a new Africa online news service which I am now accessing. And I try to pick up The New York Times whenever I can. You are so right about the role of journalists in the world. My particular personal crusade has been awareness of journalists as our eyes and our ears. Without them we don't know what is happening in our world and cannot make reasoned decisions both for ourselves and with our leaders. We must not confuse news photographers with paparazzi. We must also be aware of the sacrifices made by those committed to bringing us the news. Over the past 200 years, over 1000 journalists have died while doing their job. As part of the documentary, my daughter, Amy, visited the Memorial to Dead Journalists at the Freedom Forum's headquarters, in Arlington, Virginia. Every year, over 50 names are added of journalists, photographers, broadcasters, and cameramen and women who have literally died to tell the story.
Kirsten from Toronto: Could you tell me a little about the movie that is being made about Dan Eldon's life? When is it coming out? Who is in it? Will it be a documentary?
Dan Eldon: First we are making a documentary -- I mentioned it earlier -- that includes Dan as one strand. However next September we are hoping to shoot a major feature film about Dan's life in Africa, which has been written by Jan Sardi, the brilliant scriptwriter of "Shine." Jan flew in from Australia yesterday to meet with executives at Columbia to talk about he screenplay, which will be produced by Lisa Henson (Jim Henson's daughter) and the former president of Columbia Studios, Janet Yang ("The Joy Luck Club" and "The People vs. Larry Flint"), and me. I did not wish to make this film unless it was made correctly, and therefore guarded it with my life until the right people came along. We are working with an outstanding executive at Columbia Studios, Michael Kostigan, who upon hearing about Dan, promptly climbed on a plane and flew off to Kenya, so I knew he was okay. I'm very pleased with the first draft of the screenplay, and already there is strong interest from directors and "talent." For me the most exciting challenge would be to find the young man who will be playing Dan. The cast will include young people of all varieties -- already the spirit of the film is unique in Hollywood.
Jain from NYC: I'm curious, who were some of Dan's favorite photographers? Did he have one in particular who served as an inspiration?
Dan Eldon: I think Eddie Adam's work certainly inspired Dan. There is an image in Dan's journal of the general shooting the man in Vietnam, which Dan has contrasted with one of his own images of a Marine holding a gun to a Somali man's head. Eddie -- multiprize winner and survivor of over 13 wars -- has since become a friend of ours. Any young photographer who is interested in the best seminars in photography should check out the Eddie Adams Photojournalism Workshop. Amy and I were there two weeks ago and got to meet the Turnley twins, David Kennerly, Gordon Parks, Younghi Kim, Bill Eppridge, Jill McNally, John White, and amazing photo editors like Michele Stephenson (Time), Kathy Ryan (The New York Sunday Times Magazine), and M. C. Mardin (formerly of People magazine). Another inspiration to Dan was Corinne Dufka, the Reuters photographer -- very brave and talented -- who later took over from Dan and is now the Reuters photographer in East Africa. Corinne taught Dan many of the tricks on how to stay alive in situations of conflict.
Balsam from Toronto: I am interested in hearing how people can enhance the quality of their day-to-day lives. P.S. You sound like an amazing mom.
Dan Eldon: A big thank you! I think if we live as though we had six months left in our lives, each one of us would live very differently. Anyone who has lost a loved one or has flirted with death himself or herself must shift priorities. Things that used to matter don't matter so much. I think the essence of life is really about being connected to other people and experiencing life firsthand. I love the Internet, but at times we have to push back the keyboard and get out in the dirt and remember to play and live fully and love well. One of Dan's favorite quotes -- it's the definition of success and it's by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was a great hero of Dan's -- was, "To laugh often and love much, to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to give oneself, to leave the world a lot better, to have played and sung with exultation, to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -- that is to have succeeded."
Amy from Salt Lake City: Hello, Ms. Eldon. I am so impressed with Dan's life and THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION. How did Dan accomplish so much in such a short time? What was it about him that caused him to be so driven?
Dan Eldon: Good question! I grapple with this question myself over and over. He once had a girlfriend who got very angry with him, saying that he was documenting their relationship practically before they had their relationship. My daughter, Amy, says that Dan wasn't particularly interested in that girl, but she was a great model. Having said that, Dan seemed in an immense hurry to experience all that he could out of life. Looking back on it, one could question whether at some subliminal level he might have felt he didn't have that much time. I believe that, growing up in Africa, there is a sense of living on the edge that is fairly unusual in the West, and you do tend to live more fully than people in America. I think there are more frontiers. There's a bigger sky. More things haven't been done already. There's a sense that anything is possible. Perhaps that was part of his drive.
Jonathan from NYC: The title of your book immediately reminded me of one of my most cherished poems, called "Ithaka." It's by C. P. Cavafy and is precisely about focusing on the journey in lieu of destinations. Why do people insist on avoiding being in the present? How was Dan able to grasp this concept at such a young age?
Dan Eldon: "You'll never arrive at Ithaka." I know the poem. I actually visited Delphi when Dan was about 16, and it changed my life forever. It was there that I learned the ancient message of Delphi -- to know thyself. Shakespeare added the words "and to thine own self be true." I left Africa on a quest for myself, which was very hard for Dan, but he supported my desire to do that. He then went on his own quest. When I wanted him to leave Somalia and go back to university, he said, "Don't ask me to do that. My job isn't done." It was then that I had to honor his journey, no matter what. Ultimately I think that is all we as parents can do for our children -- to be the wind beneath their wings and to support them in knowing who they really are and to understand their life's purpose.
Moderator: Thank you for joining us this evening, Ms. Eldon. It was an absolute pleasure to spend some time with you online and discuss such a fascinating life. Any final comments?
Dan Eldon: I wish I could go on for hours. It was the best fun I've had in years!