In America, you only see a machete...

In America, you only see a machete used in Hollywood horror movies as

the horrific hack-up tool. A menacing weapon. But in many parts of

the world it is a normal field tool used in everyday life.

Farmers and workers travel with their machetes at their side,

dangling from their hip, or carried precariously on their shoulders

like a baseball bat. I always try to get a classic “machete shot”

because it makes the person holding it look scary. As if they are

capable of being the suspect in a slasher movie.

It’s kind of cool to see the classic machete. To me it represents

tough hard labor. Whenever I travel, I almost always see a man

walking alone in the fields or on a road with a big machete after a

day of work.

I saw a guy in Fiji who had two. One from the hand, the other

swinging from the side of his donkey, sugarcane fields behind him. I

missed the shot. So since then I’ve always looked for the “machete

shot,” when I travel.

In Ecuador, I saw the best “machete shot” ever. This time it was

being held by little local girl rushing to catch a river boat. She

was holding it for her grandmother. I managed to get in front of her

for a few seconds with a longer lens and get the picture. It is one

of my favorite shots from the Ecuador series.

-- Don Leach, staff photographer