In southern Ethiopia, there
are still tribes whose traditions have remained the same for centuries. One of them is the Dassanach tribe
of the Omo River. You can see the size
of the crowd now. They started with just one family
dancing at their house and they slowly grew—
family to family, piece by piece. And now they’re kind of
waking up each family. Joey Lawrence is on the hunt to
photograph Ethiopian traditions that might not be around much longer. Going after a difficult photo
is more meaningful because you involve yourself
at a deeper level. I think this is what separates
normal photography from great photography. This is all about the boat launch. They want to bless the boat
by having a huge party. Joey’s mission is to finish a project he’s been chipping away at
for the last 12 years. I’m doing a book on
Ethiopian cultural history and portraits of
all different kinds of people. But there’s one final image that has
eluded him for over a decade. I was a teenager. I was in a very small
Dassanach village, where a crocodile had
actually eaten a kid. Crocodiles are everywhere
in the Omo River. That’s when I learned about
the caste of Dassanach called Dies. They’re hunters
and they kill these things. I would hear rumors from
the people about these guys, that they would hunt maneaters. The crocodiles in the Omo River,
the Nile crocodile, are no joke. They're very aggressive. What they’ll do is they’ll bite you and they’ll pull you under
and spin you around. That’s how they kill. And these guys, they’re
not hunting with a gun. They're hunting with a harpoon. Who are these guys,
these crazy, crazy guys who do this? I need to get up there
and photograph them before everything changes. You can’t tell me something
like that and I’ll forget it. This is what I do. I don’t see myself
really doing anything else. When a single pursuit
becomes an obsession. The thing about passion is
you don’t summon it, it’s just there. When curiosity turns into
an adventure. We came a long way
for this opportunity. Needle in a haystack,
and it’s a big haystack. When an appetite for discovery
takes us into the unknown. -Oh my God.
-How’s it looking? I got a hit here. I would rather do this
than do anything else. Some of us were born to hunt... I’m going to keep doing it
until I’m dead. and there’s no telling
how far we’ll go. We’re on our way to
have an adventure. [Hunters] My first trip to Ethiopia
was in 2008. I was 18 years old, and I just
came here as a backpacker. It was the first trip that
I fell in love with the place. I was fascinated that it was
the only African country to never be colonized. So for a photographer,
it was a gold mine. I’ve been coming back to the same
places again and again and again instead of going to different places. If you go back to a place
again and again, you can get deeper and deeper. The best photographers that I know,
they fall in love with those places. Really, they're there for their love. Even if their cameras broke,
they would stay there, whether they’re shooting or not. Let me just set this up here. Joey’s a rare breed. As a teenager,
he was already in demand from the world’s biggest
brands and celebrities. This is a portrait I took
of Robert De Niro. Bryan Cranston,
in my old studio in Brooklyn. Tom Wolfe, the famous writer. Danny DeVito. Matthew McConaughey
drinking whiskey in a field. And he called me
before the shoot, “Ah, Joey, there’s a very
spiritual quality to your work.” Joey shoots with a fragile
fine art camera, which most photographers wouldn’t
dream of bringing into a war zone— which is exactly what he did. And the risk paid off. His recent book on
the Syrian civil war inspired admirers around the globe. Yeah. Oh my God. Like, it just keeps going and going. It’s like, you know, Ali Baba store. Ali Baba. Joey has based himself
in the capital, Addis Ababa, to complete what he considers
to be his life’s work. I hope I know you are
coming to the end of your book. Yeah, it has to be finished this year or I'll be in big trouble
with my publisher. OK. What do you want me to sit like? There’s lots of books on Ethiopia, there’s lots of books
on tribal cultures, but what I set out to do
was to show the whole thing. Even the urban centers, the cosmopolitan
parts of Addis Ababa, and the countryside people. I want to photograph everything, and I started 12 years ago
and it’s still not done. There's over 80 different tribes or ethnolinguistic groups
in Ethiopia. This, to me, is also
kind of what the book is about. Many of the things that I photograph
don't exist anymore. If I'm not out here doing this work, I don’t really see a world
where people would care. Like, these guys, this is a tribe called the Kereyu, and they have this
very distinct hairstyle where their afros are meant to look
like the shape of the Oromo tree. And they really, really
put a lot of care into the style. And when they go to the local market, this is how they get chicks—
if the hair is perfect. It was so tough to
find these guys, man. The reality is when you go to the
countryside, it’s hard to find now. They’re all changing. Even the largest
ethnic groups here... are not immune from it. Ethiopia has undergone
enormous transformation within a single generation. Climate change and modernization have put an end to
many of the old ways of living. And this means time is running out for Joey to hunt down
the most elusive group of all: the Dassanach crocodile hunters
of the Omo River. Right now, we’re in the thick of
the rainy season in Ethiopia. The Omo River is really flooded, and the water’s flowing
into Lake Turkana, which is bringing the fish
closer to the shore because the water level’s rising. And that means that the crocodiles
come because they eat the fish. So it’s the only time that
the crocodile hunters are at work. The rainy season lasts
only a few months every year, so there’s not much time for Joey
to pull off his impossible shot. And even now, after
years of planning for this hunt, there are no guarantees. There are only a few dozen
crocodile hunters left. And if he wants to photograph them,
first he has to find them. There’s a huge team
behind all these photos, and this trip will be no different. His long-term partner, Kiya,
will be at his side, along with his trusted field producer
and fixer, Nibby, and his lighting/grip friend, Nebiyu. The four of them have traversed
the country for Joey’s work, and are all determined
to finish this book. While all of them are from Ethiopia, none of them have ever
made this trip before either, and none of them are confident they
will even find these nomadic hunters. F***ing fantastic, bro. -Amazing.
-I know. Here we go! May the river be
our f***ing highway, bro. Ethiopia is the birthplace
of humanity, and you can see it here,
on the Omo River. If we were to dive down
deep into this river, we would find bones and skeletons
of cultures or civilizations that your history book
wouldn’t even know about. These people that live
on the Omo River Valley for hundreds, if not
maybe thousands of years, they have oral traditions. They’re passed down
from a father to a son, from a mother to their daughter. If one of those generations
stopped doing what they’re doing, they cannot pass it down anymore
because it's not written down. Therefore, in one single generation,
in one single lifetime, you can lose an entire culture. The other thing is, honestly, maybe tribal lives
that we romanticize, that we think look photogenic
and great on camera, aren’t really that
comfortable for the people. So how can you blame them? If they’re a crocodile hunter
or a fisherman, if they could get a stretch
of farmland and always have food, who wouldn’t choose that? Flowing for 500 miles
through southern Ethiopia, the Omo River has sustained
these cultures for generations. Many tribes that live along its banks
used to hunt for sustenance, but that has all changed. Joey stops to get advice
from the Kwegu tribe. Like the Dassanach,
they were once crocodile hunters. But with just over a thousand
members of their tribe remaining, they’ve turned to farming and abandoned the dangerous
art of crocodile hunting. It came and bit my leg. Then, I grabbed the
rope and wrapped it around my hand, and
started to fight with it. Finally, it fled away from me. I pulled it by its tail
when it fled. Then again, it returned and
started to bite me again. It grabbed me and
took me to the deep. I had no option except to
stab its eye to escape out. Why did you grab on
to the crocodile’s tail after it was swimming away? I grabbed him by the
tail because I was upset. This also... all these are the
marks of crocodile’s teeth. I’m really surprised when it bit him
he tried to grab the tail. I’d be like, “F**k this,”
and try to get away, man. Joey’s route to the crocodile hunters will follow the Omo River
into Lake Turkana, spilling into neighboring Kenya,
where a tribal conflict is raging. In order to navigate this
dangerous stretch of water, they sit down with Ermias
to go over the safest passage. We need your advice. Kwegu is located here on the map. So if Kwegu is located here, there
is one river that goes to Dassanach. There is a village called
Nkremen past Kangatin. Why do you think this
village is a good place for us? It’s on the border,
there are security forces and anyone can
spend the night there. Thank you very much,
you gave us great advice. I mean, this is
a really crazy journey. I’ve never done this before,
drifting down the river, so this is new for me. And honestly, the best people
to always ask are the locals, so I feel good about this. We will not wish him bad things. May God give him all good things. May all evil stay away from you! Away from you! Away from you!
Away from you! Away from you! May all that is good
come before you! Before you! Peace! Peace! Peace!
May you have peace! Never in my life have
I seen the Omo River this high. -It’s insane, yeah.
-It’s actually insane. -You too, also?
-I’ve never seen it like this. F**k me. This year, the Omo River
has risen to historic levels, which is going to make this already
dangerous journey even harder. Because the Omo River is flowing
so fast and it’s so overflowing, the current is just crazy. And what we thought would take
three and a half, four hours... is going to probably
take ten hours now. Already things are
not going as planned. What I really worry is, we get there
and they just don’t hunt anymore, everything’s lost forever. Like, that could happen. It is kind of our last chance. As forewarned, the team is approaching
the conflict zone at the border. Kenyan tribes have begun to encroach
on Ethiopian tribes’ territory, provoking armed clashes
over fishing and grazing spots. Both sides have been known to
shoot at anyone they don’t recognize. We are planning to go from here up
and then go to the east, right? But we are past this. Actually, we missed this. We’re going into somebody’s country. There’s Turkana fishermen here. Community conflict area,
so we should be... As they cross the border into Kenya, it’s worse than they feared. They are now in unsafe waters. There’s a lot of Turkana boats
around there, so we should be ready
and find our way and drive out of this area. There are three boats
here, and three boats there. One boat is standing in that end. One, two, three, four, five...
Turkana boats. We can’t do this. They might be armed.
We have to go back. Move it! Move it!
Let’s go! Let’s go! Still in Kenya and needing
to get back into Ethiopia, the team now has
two unappealing options. The fishermen stand between
the team and their destination, so they either have to face them
and risk getting shot or find another way around them. But that route is not open water. Push. If we can break through here,
we’re going to reach the lake. Yeah, we can do it. Joey, you can lift this part
and I’ll lift this part. Oh, great. I can see the lake! If we don’t reach there, it’s
going to be a very, very big problem. F**k! Right now, we’re just fighting to
get there before the sun goes down. I can see it! I see it! Almost like ground. We have to go back. We missed it,
but it’s somewhere here. After a full day
squandered on a long shot, they’re left with no choice
but to go back the way they came. We’re not going to meet up with
the crocodile hunters tonight, there’s no way. It’s over. We were 19 hours
out on the boat yesterday. It was such a s**tshow. We really believed that we
could get through, but we didn’t. Now we’re trying again, and we have a
boatful of local policemen. They’re all armed, and no one’s
going to mess with us now. What you decided
yesterday was right. Recently, there was a conflict. Even some people were killed. This is the end of the Omo River. This is where the Omo River
floods into. This is Lake Turkana. And we f***ing made it, bro. After six days on the river, they
reach the shores of Lake Turkana, where they’re hoping at least
one of the crocodile hunters is home. -In the name of Jesus Christ!
-How are you? With nobody knowing
the hunters’ whereabouts, they would need to cover more ground. Mories! How are you? We are fine. How are you? Joe! Three hunters are here:
Nyiria, Mories and Kute. Joey has just caught them as they’re preparing to
head out for the night hunting. He’s happy for you
to come back with them. OK, so he’s happy
that we come with them. OK, that’s good. Tell him anything he says,
I’m going to follow his instructions, I’m going to listen to him,
I’m going to be quiet. And I don’t care
how many hours it takes, we just want to see
the actual real hunt that they do. Let’s hope God lets us
catch one early and we don’t have to wait. We’ll only come back home
after we’ve succeeded. Joey will be one of
the only outsiders to ever experience
one of these hunts, but there is still no guarantee
that he will get his photo. The hunters start at night and split up into several boats
with different roles. The attack boat with Nyiria
as the harpoon thrower and Mories driving. Kute as backup harpoon thrower... and depending on how big
the croc is, the support. So that is a huge crocodile tooth. It’s from a crocodile that he hunted. It’s really big. Part of the reason why there are
so few crocodile hunters left is that few people
would choose this life. They do this the hard way, the way their ancestors did it—
with harpoons, not guns. This one’s nice and sturdy, man. This is really deep.
This is like a tank. This is all incredibly dangerous. The crocodiles filling these waters can grow up to four times
the size of a human and a hundred times as strong. The wooden boats are actually
hollowed out tree trunks that leak and capsize easily. If you go in,
you might not come out. These guys have a really dim light
and they’re shining it around, just looking for
the glint of the eyes. So at night, we have
the element of surprise. Right now, it’s like one o’clock,
it’s the middle of the night. It’s a really full moon,
and we’re looking for crocodiles that are hiding in these
reeds on the lake. We have to be incredibly quiet. Oh f**k! Our boat keeps getting stuck,
but we are also just way too loud. I mean, we’re sinking. Nothing so far. Its eyes shine if we
light the torch on it. -That’s the croc itself.
-Yes, that’s it! Get closer to it! Wait, where is it? The big one was here, right? It disappeared. After a long first night, the hunters and Joey
come back with nothing. -Love it.
-Yeah. I mean, it’s the same
as anything expensive. It just looks like s**t,
but whatever. I’ve been building this kind
of s**t rig since I was a kid. When I used to go
on tour with bands, I couldn’t afford
expensive equipment. I used to make it out of tin foil
and boxes and wax paper. Honestly, I’m inspired
by the hunters. When I saw them move
with that harpoon, I wanted to make
my own harpoon like this. That's how it's going to go. This is a tool for
stabbing the croc. The harpoon remains in its mouth. The harpoon prevents the crocodile from biting us. We can’t hunt without these tools. We eat everything... when we eat a crocodile. We leave only the skull of it. Can you stand like this? It looks f***ing fantastic.
Really, really great. The light itself does not look good, but the way it lights things
looks good. [Night Two] So now we’re day two. I hope we have better luck tonight,
but I don’t know. We have to see. I can see its tail. -Get the spear ready.
-It’s in my hand. Stab it! Wait a minute! So we just heard a huge splash
and they just hit something. Grab it slowly. -Give the knife to the boy.
-Here you go! Why is it screaming? Hold it tightly. Well, they just caught a crocodile,
but it’s really small. But I mean, this is still a huge
meal for these guys out here, so they’re taking it, of course. We’ll catch the big one which
was following us yesterday. The croc is so strong. It was chasing us and
then it went to the jungle. I saw it perfectly. If we can catch the big
one, it’ll satisfy our children. We’ll go into it. We’ll get one that
satisfies everyone. While they did catch a crocodile,
it was only a baby, so for the hunters,
the night is still young and they continue on. As if this wasn’t hard enough,
even the moon becomes a problem. He’s saying that it’s too bright and the torch cannot go further, cannot go deep into
the eyes of the crocodile. Everything can be
seen clearly at that time. With the moon directly
over them and no clouds, it’s tipping off all the crocs
to their presence, so they take a breather
until things change. I can’t really control
how many clouds there are in the sky, but there’s a lot of things
working against us right now. Now that the clouds have come,
it’s back to work. Did you see that? What? I swear to God, I just saw
something on the surface just go down as
we passed, passed by. Just, just back there. We’ve been awake for so long. I’m starting to see hallucinations. Like I’m seeing things in the
water that aren’t there. At all. I think we’ve reached
the point of exhaustion. So it’s 05:00 a.m. The sun’s going to start
to rise soon. Man... All of us are kind of falling apart,
back to back with no sleep. I think we’ll head back to the camp,
and we’ll have to try again. I mean, there’s no way around it. We’re all f***ing exhausted, man. We have to keep trying. But time’s running out, so... The rainy season is almost over. And if Joey waits to
come back next year, there’s a good chance
they won’t be doing this anymore. The men who do these hunts
are getting older, and every year there
are fewer young people participating in
this dangerous ritual. Basically, we need help. The hunters are thinking
that we’ve not had success because we don’t have
the elders’ blessing. They’ve been going out and they really need everyone
to be notified about the hunt. And this is a ceremony where the
elders are going to be informed and they’re going to give
the blessing to the hunters. OK, give it to me,
but I am not the eldest of the house. Just drink the coffee. Bless them all and
let them be happy! May God bless you! Have children and find wealth! You rose to bless them? May God bless you! God bless you, fly
like the airplane! You will find something today. There is a big crocodile,
big crocodile. You will either be spared or die. Let's go. Let's get it. [Night Three] They are definitely seeing things. He’s got his harpoon up in the air. They’re seeing things out there. We just had a throw and a miss. But the crocodiles are
definitely out tonight. This is the second time that we’ve
stopped that we saw something. This time he actually
threw the harpoon, but... I think he missed. Mories! Mories! It’s under the boat. They have it, they have it! We were so close. Hey, look! There’s nothing here! We had many close calls tonight. My hopes are really, really
going down, to be honest. I don’t know. The major problem is,
all of us are exhausted. All of us are running on maybe one, two, three hours
of sleep maximum each day. The team is at an all-time low. And after four sleepless nights,
physically, they’re wrecked. If they don’t catch a croc tonight,
it’s game over for Joey. All of the things that have to
align to get this picture are actually there,
but it’s still not happening. Every force that I can control,
I’m controlling. But the ones that I can’t
are out of my hands completely. Every night we get pumped up,
we’re confident. “Yeah, this will be
the time we get it. This will be the time to get it.” It’s gotten to the point where we
don’t even believe ourselves when we say that. As a team, we are all sad. Like, the whole crew.
Everybody is suffering. So I feel sorry. I really feel sorry. Since I was young,
I know these people, they always deal with the crocodile. They hunt crocodile. I’ve been knowing
this since I was a baby. Because we were with this, of course. I know this as a fishermen
and he’s a hunter too. He has given his life for this work, so I just pray for him, “God, give him more strength
to go more and more.” Because this is just maybe
the small parts remain. Sometimes when you come to
the end of some situation, it becomes harder,
like really, really hard. So it might be happening,
we don’t know. Even we are thinking of tonight. Sometimes the last days, the
last seconds, something’s happened. Some amazing things happen.
I don’t know. [Night Four] Look! I can see its head. What a demon! I’m going to stab it. Hold it. Take the boat back. Hold it. Take it further back. -OK, what do they want me to do, bro?
-Hold it tight. Hold it for him. Right now, I'm literally holding
the line of the crocodile. They tracked it into this bush. Oh my God. OK, I’ve got it in my hands here. Where is he going? So, the crocodile’s
somewhere under this bush. He's on the other end of this line. And Nyiria here
is trying to finish it. Get closer, you’re almost there. Get it lower. Go slowly. So they're going for the kill here. And I’m going to f***ing hold it
so it doesn’t get away. OK, loose it a bit. Is that good? Oh, yeah, there we go. There we go. We did it, bro. Look, at the last minute, I was not expecting
the guy who threw the harpoon to hand me the rope
like I knew what I was doing. Here you go, the croc’s tongue. This is where the crocodile rests. This is the tongue of
the crocodile we just killed. I feel great, bro. We did it! At the last moment. At the last chance. The croc was killed easily.
It’s dead! It’s dead. We got it, yay! We got it! We got it! Oh my God! Oh my God! Yay! Please show it to him. It’s killed narrowly. Yes, yes! It’s surprising! Yes, man, I can’t believe it!
I knew, I knew you would do it. Kute’s the one who got it
and then Nyiria finished it. We got to go. I’ll talk to you later. Be happy, you have
gotten what you came for. You also have gotten what
you wanted, good night. Hear my words! We hear your words! We are blessed! We are blessed! I said blessed! We are blessed! Praise! Praise! Let’s get out of here. We did it! Yay! I’m happy! I told you about the golden chant
at the last time. It’s really incredible to
see this from start to finish. The first time I saw this thing,
it was thrashing his head around. Now it’s a meal for 15 people. It was way more difficult
than any of us expected. When we were in the boat,
we see a crocodile. Kute makes a perfect throw. I get my camera; I’m ready to shoot this thing. Instead Kute, he turns to me,
he goes “Joe,” and he literally throws the rope
to me, the other end of the harpoon. And I didn't know that this was
actually connected to the crocodile. Yeah, it ruined my photo
chance of getting action, but that doesn't matter. And when it came down to it,
man, I was so terrified, I just held the rope
as hard as I could. I know that when this book comes out
and we turn the page and we see the crocodile hunters
with their final catch, to some people,
it might just be a photo. And that’s OK. But to me, it’s this. Wow, guys, that crocodile’s
position is perfect. Who is the hunter? Is it the Dassanach
or me trying to get a photo? Right? On that night, I had no choice. I just became some kind
of hunter with them.
