Beyond the Frame: Discovering the Real Story of a Place Behind the Lens
Instagram. TikTok. YouTube. Google. Travel media is everywhere these days, and we consume destinations, cultures, and information the way we do products.
There are obvious benefits to having so much information before we travel, especially for photographers. We can prepare ahead of time, connect with local guides, and arrange difficult transport so there are no midnight waits in dimly lit transit hubs.
But this glut of information also causes problems. Social media’s obsessions with popular destinations have contributed to over-tourism, where populations swell to often unmanageable numbers as tidal waves of visitors ebb and flow and distort local housing markets. And consuming so much before we travel also shapes our expectations and stories long before we even arrive.
All photos courtesy of Sarah Hewitt
Backstory
This brings me to my story of the tiny Estonian island of Kihnu. A six-square-mile island in the Baltic Sea, Kihnu is frequently described as Europe’s last matriarchy. In almost every article I’d read about it, I saw images of women dancing in red patterned skirts and headscarves, of gritty elder women sitting in near-abandoned houses surrounded by memories and dust, and of women tearing through sandy lanes criss-crossing this small Baltic landscape astride Soviet motorbikes and sidecars. As a photographer drawn to documenting women, I was transfixed by these stories, so off I went.
I arrived on a balmy Friday evening in August. The ferry was surprisingly full of holidaymakers, and as they arrived in port, Kihnu’s population suddenly swelled once more. I left the bustle of the port behind and cycled my rental bike past quiet hamlets of wooden houses to my accommodation at the southern end of the island. My host, Kihnu Mare - often quoted as the island’s cultural ambassador and spokeswoman - told me of a local’s concert that night, and so after a quick turnaround, I grabbed my camera and hopped back on my bike.
What followed was a raucous evening of dancing, music, and people watching, as truck after truck, bike after bike of locals turned up to party. I watched as the elderly women from the solemn photographs I had seen sat giggling in the corner over several bottles of Prosecco. Teenage girls danced with each other, Apple Watches on their wrists, in a swathe of red skirts, red faces, blurring the old and the new as the music got faster, faster, faster until everyone collapsed in a heap of laughter. I left at 11 pm, they danced til dawn.
The Tension of Tourism
The next day, I explored the island. The museum gave context on Kihnu’s past, including its soviet occupation. I saw more concerts - these aimed squarely at tourists. Although there were the same clothes and music, they lacked the vitality of the night before. Tourist trucks pulled up at the museum and lighthouse one after another, all following the same itinerary.
Over lunch in a cafe, Mare and I talked about tourism on the island. The summary: Tourism is vital for the island’s economy, but the season is short and the younger population has left in search of better opportunities on the mainland. And while the tourists come to Kihnu in search of the folk culture that gained them the UNESCO recognition, it’s only one dimension of life on the island.
That night, at another local’s party, I thought about our conversation. Going to the museum and lighthouse, and watching the tourist concerts, I had started to feel like I was in a theme park that felt different from the locals' parties. I also realised, depressingly, that there was nothing unique about my photographs - they looked like every other image of Kihnu I’d seen. I knew it wasn’t the story I wanted to tell of the island, I just didn’t know what that story was or how to find it.
Real Estonian Culture
What happened next began with a knitting workshop. After my lesson was over, my tutor, Elly, and her friend Piret invited me to join them in the sauna. I’ve learned to say yes to unexpected things when in search of a story, and that’s how I found myself dancing to an accordion in a blur of vodka and home-smoked fish. At some point, I mumbled something about wanting to see the real Kihnu. Piret and Alex, Elly’s son, hatched a plan.
The next morning, I found myself in a car with a bucket of fresh fish that did little for my hangover.
A Different Picture
The fish was for Kaido, a 53-year-old Kihnu-born fisherman. In the spring, when the fish are biting, he is out at sea every day, and in the summer, he works on building projects on the island. Kaido showed me his garden of fruit trees and his garage full of motorbikes and posed for photographs with slightly melancholy blue eyes.
Next, we visited Maria, Alex’s 94-year-old grandmother. She lives alone in an old farmhouse, drawing water from a well, and is in many ways the epitome of “indomitable elder women” of the island I’d read about, but the fact that she’d returned to the island to care for an elderly relative added a subtlety to her story.
We continued to Toivo and his wife, who was wary of photographers and politely refused to be part of my project. Toivo, on the other hand, just shy of 80, had eyes that twinkled with mischief and a motorbike and sidecar that was polished with pride. As a former racing driver and the island’s most respected mechanic, this was not a tourist prop parked outside a guesthouse but Toivo’s pride and joy. He posed for me on it with a big grin, before showing me around his shed, also stuffed with spare parts and tools as well as a calendar of semi-naked women. We ended the visit with a quick ride in the sidecar through the dusty pine lanes as the wind whipped the hat from Toivo’s head.
Our last stop was Marge and Mummi, another fisherman. Mummi was mending his nets in his underwear when we arrived, and I watched him as I waited to see if Marge, known as a firecracker who disliked journalists, would let me in.
Eventually, I was allowed into the garage, which was a masterpiece of organised chaos. The walls were peppered with nails and hooks holding every useful bit of machinery, tools, wires, bits of chain, cogs, and tape you could possibly imagine. Saws and caulking guns hung from the ceiling, and on the other wall hung great swathes of onions, bunches of drying herbs, and piles of linen.
Marge sat on a chair in patterned leggings and a blouse, and there was something regal about the way she looked, in command of everything and everyone around her. I was transfixed and asked Piret if I could photograph her. The answer was an emphatic no.
So I waited. For two hours, I sat patiently, observing and listening to the conversation flow around me in Estonia and the Kihnu dialect. Marge often grew louder and more animated, gesticulating with her cigarette, and I frequently worried an argument would start, until she slapped her knee and erupted into laughter. At one point, having been watched by Marge for some time, I clearly passed some sort of test and was offered some herbal liquor to settle my stomach. I didn’t dare refuse.
When we stood to leave, I asked Piret again about a photo of Marge, who surprised me by replying in perfect English, “Oh, go on then. But only with my onions!” Stunned, I followed her outside and took a few shots. I gently asked for one more inside the shed, and this time she agreed. No direction was needed as she stared down the barrel of my lens, blue eyes uncompromising and defiant. I only took two shots; I’d been composing the image in my head all afternoon.
The Final Edit
I came to Kihnu chasing a, quite frankly, romantic story of a living matriarchy bound by community and folk culture. I somehow thought I’d create something unique simply by going there. And while every photographer and writer does have their unique eye, I’d fallen into the trap of trying to retell an existing narrative.
But that’s the power of imagery. Photographs sell a place, a people, a culture. But photographers are editing long before they import the files into Lightroom. What and who we choose to frame shapes the story. It is surprisingly easy to reduce a complex narrative into a simple and reduced one.
What I found on Kihnu was instead a rich and complicated reality. The folk culture is real, but so too are the skills that supply food long after the tourists have left, and all sorts of engines, not just motorbikes, can be maintained. Tourism is vital and welcomed, but it also risks turning traditions into performance. The island is aging, yet the older population of Kihnu has itself become part of the myth of the island. And the men aren’t absent, they’re just not photographed. When they stepped into the frame, they lit up, grateful to be seen, while the women seemed tired of the constant attention they got.
I left Kihnu with photographs I hadn’t planned to shoot. They don’t tell the existing story of the island; in fact, they turn that narrative on its head and question it. I left a different photographer, one who learned the benefit of patience and respect, and one who wants to use my camera to question, not capture.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep visiting places or cultures that are already known for being special. But we owe it to ourselves and to the people who live there to tell the whole story. That we ask what’s missing, who’s missing, what’s not being said. Because it’s not really up to us as photographers, writers, tourism professionals, and tourists to edit the story. When we step slightly off the tourist trail, say yes to a sidecar ride, a sauna, and a shot of herbal liquor, we might just find a different story.