Mike Wells is an accomplished documentary photographer, winner of the World Press Photo of the Year in 1981. Here, he looks back on his legendary career and the one, irreplaceable moment that made it so special. The grand-prize winning photo depicts an inspiring moment in Uganda. It depicts the famished arm of a young child cradled in the palm of a missionary priest illustrating both hopelessness and mercy. Wells’s talent for evoking this kind of vivid, unapologetic imagery is in large part due to his grasp of timing and the constant give and take of photography.
In the 1970s and 80s, Wells was frequently in the defensive position. After only one shot at getting a very important pre-vote image. “When I was working in the 1970s and 80s, unless you could afford a motor drive for your camera, you often got just one chance at the critical shot,” he noted. That lack of opportunity forced him to hone his craft. In the process he computed variables, balanced landscapes, and learned to predict the movements of his subjects.
Wells calls taking that now-famous photo of the malnourished boy the “3D chess” part of his job. This metaphor fully represents the mental calculus that he was forced to make in real-time, quickly trying to match pieces of a Rubik’s Cube puzzle before them. The sense of urgency in the room was unmistakable. This meant he needed to photograph the fleeting quality of the evening Sun, before it’s gone, or his subject moves, which would make a reshoot impossible.
“You still don’t get a second try at a shot like this: the sun will have set, or the horses wandered off, or both,” he explains, emphasizing the high stakes involved in photojournalism. Wells’s reflections speak not only to his personal trauma and victories but speak to the ever-changing nature of photography. He is grateful for the advancements of today that allow instant feedback to determine if a moment is magical or meaningful.
Wells was able to capture this haunting image with less than perfect lighting and composition. Rather, it called to life in terrible detail a grim reality that some might say was hellish. The real story was the Italian missionary priest who was working like hell to save that boy. He moved quickly to clear the mission’s grain stores, imparting even more urgency to this photograph.
Yet no matter how many times they call her “older, slower,” Wells refuses to give up. He admits that though advances in technology have made it easier to get instantaneous results, the heart of seizing on pivotal moments is not new. He uses mathematical formulas to identify variables in the camera shot. He’s shown actively calculating equations as he snaps photos. He remains attuned to the flow of his subjects, be they ponies straying or human showns.