In quel preciso istante. Retroscena di un reportage in Kenya. by Guillermo Luna, Edizioni Il Galeone (‘At that Specific Instant. Background to a Reportage in Kenya’, by Guillermo Luna, published by Il Galeone)

The famous Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, when relating the moment when he took the picture of ‘Che’, one of the most emblematic photographs of the twentieth century, said: ‘when I was engaged in panning with my camera, which is something we photographers do, Che appeared in my field of vision. I clicked, without thinking about cleaning the shutter, with my finger, and there it was: vision, mind, heart…click! I was able to take two photographs. And in two hundred and fiftieths of a second it remained the most famous picture in the history of photography.

This book is not only a reportage carried out in Africa: it also tells the story of what happened at the precise instant that a photograph was taken. What happened while, as Korda says, vision-mind-heart led the forefinger of his right hand to press the button of the shutter.

Guillermo Luna

The reportage takes place in Wajir, a little known region in north-east Kenya, 750 kilometres from Nairobi, and narrates the work done by the Camillian Task Force, an aid group of the religious Order of Camillians, which has focused its efforts on carrying out a large number of projects, from hospital medical support to food programmes and on to the building of greenhouses and wells.

Luna unfolds his reportage on the mission of the CTF in the first person and enriches it with numerous extra film clips which, through a QR code linked to some pictures, sends the reader to that moment, ‘that precious instant’, when the photographer clicked the button of his camera. At the same time, the use of augmented reality technology allows the photographs to come alive and catapult those looking at them into the life of Wajir. This is a reportage that thus becomes a multi-medial journey offering an innovative and democratic choice that allows the reader to amplify and go beyond the choice, the point of view, the interpretation of the photographer, thereby actively stimulating participation and immersion.