I sit up a little straighter. Is he going to tell everyone about his captivity?
The other students also stir with interest.
Darius walks to the front of the room, drawing all attention like a magnet. A screen and computer are set up, and after Ms. Meadows dims the lights, he clicks on a diagram of a camera before turning to the class.
“I’m Darius Hawke,” he says, generating a few no duh laughs. “I’m looking forward to teaching you about photography, though I don’t pretend to know everything. But I have a lot of experience with it”—again, a few laughs—“and I’ll share what I do know about history, techniques, composition, and light while also hoping that you learn how powerful a photograph can be.”
He indicates the slide on the screen. “I know you’ve all had experience with photography, but I’d like to review a few basics. At its most fundamental level, photography is the process of using light to record an image.”
He clicks forward to another image—a faded, grainy image of a man standing on what appears to be a terrace—and introduces it as the earliest known camera photograph. After discussing the process of its development, he takes us through a brief history—daguerreotypes, the first color photo of a tartan ribbon, and the contributions and work of photography pioneers like Stieglitz, Nadar, Adams, and Cartier-Bresson. He talks about the mass consumption of photography and the increasing impact of photographs on public consciousness with regard to world events, politics, and celebrity.
He’s a wonderful speaker. His voice is deep and captivating, the tone shifting into subtle nuances that hint at his emotions. He doesn’t bother concealing his warm admiration for Cartier-Bresson’s work or his conflicting feelings about celebrity photography.
He advances the slide to an image of a soldier lying on an empty desert road. Then another of a bedraggled little girl sitting in a pile of rubble, her face streaked with tears. A third of a man holding a gun to another man’s head.
“These are…” Though his voice doesn’t change, the lines of his body tighten. “Photographs I’ve taken over the past twenty years. Later, we’ll talk in more detail about my work specifically—not because I want to be self-indulgent, but because I can tell you exactly what was happening in these moments and how I got the shots I did.”
He clicks to a photo of a massive mob demonstration—flags waving, people shouting, a frenzy of movement. “I took this photo about two years ago in the former Russian republic of Krasnovar. It was the last…”
He clears his throat. “The last photo I took before I was captured and taken hostage.”
Silence falls. My chest constricts. I see him standing in my father’s office, holding his camera with both unbearable care and a hint of fear. How many photos has he taken since he took this one?
“My first photography class in high school changed my life.” Darius turns from the screen and faces the class, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I left home to pursue a journalism career right after I graduated, and I ended up working for a wire service in Los Angeles for several years.
“A series I did on graffiti artists was picked up by the LA Times, and that caught the attention of several photo agencies. Eventually newspapers and agencies were hiring me to cover breaking news, which meant that I had to hop on a plane at a moment’s notice to cover an uprising in Liberia or a hurricane in Malaysia.
“I went anywhere they wanted to send me, partly because I was young, hotheaded, and wanted to prove myself. But as I found myself in war zones more and more often, I realized I had a responsibility to document what I was seeing, especially for ordinary civilians who were caught in the violence simply because they happened to be living there.
“I’ve been photographing wars and conflicts for almost twenty years. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been close to death. Several times I’ve thought I was about to be captured by insurgents or soldiers, but each time it was a narrow escape. I’ve had friends and colleagues who have either died or been kidnapped, but maybe I’d developed some misguided sense of invincibility. The belief that it wouldn’t happen to me. Then it did.”
He pauses, his eyes unfocused. A sudden tension radiates from him.
Can the other students sense it, or is it just me?
The silence grows thicker. He lifts his head. His gaze searches the students and comes to rest on me.
My heartbeat quickens. Much as I hate the thought of Julie being right about Darius’s PTSD and nightmares, there’s no question the trauma affected him that way. Less than two years later, he can’t be “over it.” He probably never will be.
“I know you all have questions, which is why I want to tell you some of what happened,” he continues. “Almost three years ago, I was covering a brutal civil war in Krasnovar. The country had been ruled by a dictatorship, and after another series of repressive measures, an anti-government uprising led to outright war. The primary combatants were a branch of the dictatorship’s military, which was called the People’s Liberation Front, and the soldiers and people fighting for democracy.
“I’d been to Krasnovar several times before, and an old friend had arranged what we call a fixer—a man who’d help me get into the front lines and arrange interviews with soldiers in the Resistance Army. Savko and I spent several weeks embedded with the pro-democracy soldiers and troops.
“On our way to a military enclave in the northern province, we were stopped at an arbitrary checkpoint. The guards asked us to get out of the car. It happened all the time—usually they just wanted a bribe—but that day, I knew something was wrong.
“The minute I got out of the car, a group of armed men attacked the checkpoint. They were wearing red bandannas, indicating their association with the People’s Liberation Front and the dictatorship. Bullets flew. I hit the ground. Savko managed to get back into the driver’s seat. Then one of the soldiers put his AK-47 to my head. In my career, I’d seen plenty of men detained and handcuffed. I knew in that instant it was my turn.”
He stops again. The silence is deafening. My heart races.
“Right before they blindfolded me, I slammed the passenger door shut. Savko knew it was a signal, and he hit the accelerator. They shot at the car, but thankfully he was able to escape. If they’d taken him, I knew they’d kill him as an example, whereas my best hope was that they’d want to keep me alive.
“They put me in the back of their truck. Hours later, we arrived in the northern province near the mountains. There was a compound of three buildings they’d converted into a prison. Stone walls, dirt floors, a room that was maybe ten feet by ten feet. I’d live there for the next year and a half.
“It was bad, obviously.” He pauses again and pulls in a breath. “The PLF had targeted me because my work had appeared in prominent newspapers and magazines, and they knew my capture would draw public attention. They also wanted to know what I knew about the Resistance Army. They demanded a ransom for my release, but the negotiations failed.”
He rubs the back of his neck. The light from the projection screen underscores the lines bracketing his mouth and eyes. “I escaped when they were transferring me to a location in a nearby city. They were forced to stop at a blockade put up by Resistance soldiers. As many times as I’d made plans for chances at escape, I didn’t have one for that situation. It was pure instinct. Adrenaline. I had this epiphany that if I didn’t get out then, I never would.