Social Photographer Eduardo Lopez Moreno is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Concealment – Beyond Togetherness ’. To see Eduardo’s body of work, click on any image.

Black in a old landscape – An urban landscape in a thousand-year-old street, and a resolute hovering hand of a pensive statue in black.

A Group of neighbors who are worshipers of a Saint who was not really a Saint, and in fact he did not exist walk in a procession in Luanda, Angola, with their faces covered by sort of masks. This Saint was created by a TV series from Brazil.

Three young women planning to cross the Red Sea at night from Djibouti to Yemen in a clandestine small boat cover their face. They were not aware that there was war in Yemen and a sea in between. Their aim is Saudi Arabia, the risks are multiple and start by crossing the sea in a small and crowded boat.

Introversion, reserve, shame or pride. Images of an inner world or a reflection of a wider cultural landscape? Visual symbols of a cryptic society. Initiation processes? Many reasons to conceal the face, many forms to present a portrait. Some suppress their personality for secrecy or avoidance, others to change our perception about them, others to seduce us. Yet, these unusual portraits convey another form of self-expression.

Ukume is a young girl 25 year old. She walked more than 55 km with his boyfriend to move together to Saudi Arabia via Yemen. They did not know it was a sea in between, and now they are preparing to cross it clandestinely. They did not believe either it was war in the other side of the Red Sea, thinking it was a lie to discourage them. They will spend the night on a small hill in Obok, Djibouti, sheltered by rocks, expecting to get a cheaper ride, which will most likely be overcrowded.

Face concealment represents a different meaning and a way of being. It invites us to revise existing canons and conventions and rethink the forms of aesthetics. A self-inflicted isolation creates a high degree of social distance, building a boundary of privacy. It occludes thoughts, feelings and actions. In a Madrassa the youngest girl conceals her face as an act or restraint or instructed by the others? The deliberated attempt for not being there, or being differently, is a rupture of reciprocity that causes some distress and changes our societal relations.

It is modesty, the search of identity or a way to customize a fundamental cultural and religious principle? The Swahili Island of Lamu in Kenya. A young girl walks home with her face concealed carrying her shoes and umbrella

An act of affirmation and also an act of identification. An act to put forward specific values and attributes. It is modesty, the search of identity and in some places to customize a fundamental principle. It is a way of putting forward priorities. The question is, it is a barrier or a form of bridge? It is mechanism of exclusion or a selected inclusion?

A loader of abandoned objects walks by a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, covering his face with his fleshy hands.

Without human faces, the images presented invite us to mediate values and attributes that are presented in a different form. By hiding their faces in different fabrics, the characters portrayed in this series explain something about them, and at the same time raise interrogations and doubts.

Silent girl – In a Madrassa in Lamu Island the youngest girl conceals her face as an act or restraint or instructed by the others at the door entrance .

These images interrogate history and culture and make us rethink the notions of time and place, and predictability. They are darkness and revelation, questioning our capacity to read other societies.

The portraits are asymmetrical presences that more than defining something they represent it, bringing us to the ultimate level of otherness.

Faceless antique door — A young girl leaves her house with her face hidden for an unknown reason out of a millenarian wooden door in Zanzibar.

All images and text © Eduardo Lopez Moreno

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2 thoughts on “Concealed Stories”

Beth says:

April 15, 2021 at 6:30 AM

As a middle school ESL teacher of many young ladies I never get to fully meet from beneath their hijabs, this is enlightening. Beautiful work.
michelegoesglossy says:

April 14, 2021 at 8:09 PM

These concealed faces make me wonder if all of us in part are responsible to pressure the vision of freedom. Maybe they are right and we are wrong. Maybe there’s no right and wrong. There’s only different realities… Congratulations for the post. It makes you think…