The little girl in the picture belongs to the nomadic Turkana tribe of northern Kenya. I had been photographing her for at least 10 minutes before this image was taken. Because I work on a tripod with 120 roll film for my Mamiya RB67, I have to change film every five minutes or so. She was used to watching work from previous days and began patiently humming a tune while she waited for me to change film...again. Once my film was loaded and I looked into the viewfinder, I was amazed to see this picture. I took this photograph secretly, fearing that if I alerted her or my assistant to the fact that I was ready to begin again, she would change her posture.


--from the journals of Elisabeth Sunday, Kenya, 1988