Photographer captures beauty, poverty

from the Pioneer Press

BY MYRNA PETLICKI Contributor

Telling stories that haven't been told is one of Jeff Ebert's goals. Considering the fact that he is the owner of Oak Park's Ebert Studio, founded in 1915 by his great-grandfather and passed down from father to son since, it's not surprising that a camera is Ebert's storytelling device. The photographer offers both panoramic and intimate portraits of Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia in "The Essence of Africa," at the Oak Park Public Library through March.

"Country Living Outside Addis Ababa" offers a view of the living conditions -- huts made of mud and branches and no landscaping. The pride of the people is apparent in "Shoeshine Addis Ababa," in which men are getting their shoes polished along a dusty dirt road. Goats wander in the background.

Wildebeest migrate in one photo from Masai Mara National Reserve, viewed under a brilliant blue sky dotted with puffy clouds.
Places and faces

The exhibit also features photos taken in South Africa three years ago, including one of a waterhole where animals gather. In this early morning shot, the moon is still visible in the bright sky.

A particularly affecting part of the exhibit is a wall of portraits. One shows an Ethiopian girl walking down the road. Her clothing is ragged but stylishly arranged down to the perfect knot of a cape draped around her shoulders. "They have this amazing sense of design," Ebert said.

Other photos show a mother tenderly holding a child, a wizened man lying on the ground and bright-eyed children, with runny noses, glad to pose for Ebert. "Part of what I was capturing was a lot of love and a lot of poverty," he said.

Ebert described the exhibit as "a mixture of villages, people, landscapes and safari animals, and in every case there is beauty involved -- whether you're looking poverty in the face or you're looking at landscapes which are clearly beautiful aesthetically."

During Ebert's travels he sets a photographic task for himself. "I pretend that nobody else had ever been to this location," he said. He asks himself, "How could I explain this through photographs?"

The main purpose of Ebert's most recent African trip was unrelated to photography. "My wife and I went to Ethiopia in August to adopt a baby boy," he said. Their son is now 2-1/2. They also have a 3-1/2-year-old son adopted from Russia.
Career path

Despite his skill with a camera and family tradition, Ebert didn't initially plan to be a photographer. "My dad always left it up to us as to what we wanted to do," he said. "Once I got out of college, he just asked me to join him as an assistant for weddings and shoots."

Since Ebert didn't have a job after completing his degree in graphic design and psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he decided to give the studio a try. Although he had helped there when he was young, "I never really looked at is as an art until I was part of it," he admitted.

Ebert credits his father with teaching him "everything there is to know about shooting." In 2005, 15 years after joining the business, Ebert took over ownership when his father retired.

Ebert's work through the family business is primarily portraiture and weddings. He enjoys this type of photography, too. "No bride is the same, both in looks and personality, and the dynamics of the family," he explained. "If there's a bride that's intense, it's your job to relax her. It's really the same whether it's a wedding, a child or a family."