When death looked Ryan Mitchell in the eye during his three-year jaunt across four of the world’s continents, he turned around and ran away.
Mitchell was in Argentina participating in a field study through USF St. Petersburg’s department of archeology. He took a break from helping a researcher record prehistoric carvings and hiked up a rock face to a secluded crevasse. There he noticed bones scattered between the hollow spaces underneath the boulders that littered the floor of the chasm.
As he moved across the giant rocks, something popped up 10 feet in front of him. It was the massive head of a puma.
“In theory, you’re supposed to stand tall, look at it straight in the eyes, open up your jacket and look as big as you can while walking backwards slowly,” Mitchell said. “For some people, that may be a reality—I scooted out of there and I was gone.”
Mitchell scaled a steep wall before he regained his composure. It was another one of many stories he earned during his travels to Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the Indian Himalayas; Southern Ethiopia and Argentinian Patagonia—stories that involved warding off poisonous spiders and aggressive baboons, watching the Dalai Lama bless a 110-foot statue of Buddha, helping injured Haitians recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake, and most of all finding a new perspective in life.
He brought those stories back to St. Petersburg and is sharing them through his “Experiential Photography from Abroad” exhibit, which opened at Kahwa South on April 7.
Mitchell, who graduated last December, hopes to do more than just share his stories with his photographs. During his travels he found that experience, hard-earned work and the common links between humanity were more fulfilling than the consumer lifestyle prevalent in much of the world.
When he was leaving Ethiopia, the local people pooled their money together to buy a sheep. They prepared it with vegetables, baked bread and served a local type of honey wine. And when he arrived in Argentina, the man who picked him up from the airport opened his home and to Mitchell and his group, even giving them a key.
“There’s a real common humanity that I hope in my photography that I can convey,” Mitchell said. “We’re all trying to do some of the same things, like get a roof over our heads, eat some food, provide for our children and find some happiness.”
“Even in these places that many Americans would refer to as exotic places, there’s always a common humanity,” he said.
Mitchell describes himself as a “blue-collar firefighter paramedic.” He refinanced his car to travel to India. He hopes that his exhibit will encourage other people to invest in “the wealth of human experience” rather than material possessions—though he was quick to say there is nothing wrong with that.
Through all his journeys, Mitchell says one of the best sights in the world is Pinellas County strewn out before him on the Howard Frankland Bridge on his way home from the airport. He likes to open his window, breathe in the air and let the sun touch his skin.
“When I come home, if I could share some of the stuff that I have seen with this community, paying it forward—that’s kind of my objective,” he said.
“Experiential Photography from Abroad” will be featured at Kahwa South for the entirety of April. Kahwa South is located at 204 2nd Avenue South.
Top photo courtesy of Ryan Mitchell. Others by Daniel Mutter.
