So Angela and I realized that if we put on our camera jackets and trousers, we would suddenly become genderless again. People would say, "Oh, yes, now they're outsiders, with their camera jackets and trousers; they're half-men and half-women." Then it was fine with everyone if we jumped up and ran off and photographed the men.

As long as you changed your clothes.

Beckwith: Yes, as long as we changed our clothes. Because in Africa, what people wear, whether it's clothing or adornment or jewelry, tells the story of where they are in life, their status, whether they're married or unmarried, whether they have to behave in a certain modest way or whether they can be a bit more aggressive. So the story and statement of our clothing and jewelry, whether we were them or foreigners, allowed us a certain curious freedom as photographers. We were very lucky because we were given incredible access to both male and female worlds, which we could never have had if we had come in as men, who would not have been allowed to penetrate a female world. We couldn't believe how we had luck and access and invitation to photograph some of the most intimate ceremonies of the males.

Can you think of one in particular?

Fisher: We did one circumcision with the Teneka in Benin that I don't think any outsider has photographed before. This circumcision, which happens at about 27 years of age, is very grueling for a young man. They go through many days and weeks of ritual building up the courage to do this. We were not only allowed into that area, we were sort of taken in as part of the community. We went through every single ritual with them; we even witnessed the elders, who have a special dance where they hug the man who's about to be circumcised. They would hug him around the chest as they danced, and they were actually listening to the pulse of his heart. If they felt his heart was racing too hard, they would give him very quietly -- and not seen by the rest of the community -- a special herb that would calm him down so he would be able to face the next few days and the challenge of initiation and circumcision. These are the kind of secrets that you learn.

Is there a woman's ceremony that stands out in your mind?

Beckwith: Among the Krobo people, who live in eastern Ghana, there is a very beautiful and poignant initiation ceremony that takes place each year. During a three-week period, an entire generation of young girls makes the transition to womanhood, which is something very different from what we know in the West. During this period, they learn the domestic arts, they learn the cultural arts of music and dance, they learn the arts of female beautification and they even learn the arts of seduction. One of the striking rituals of this is that the young girls are led by their ritual mothers at the climax of the ceremony into a sacred forest, where they undergo a test of their virginity. Each girl is lowered onto a sacred stone from Krobo Mountain, which is the place of their origin. As her buttocks touch the stone the priestesses study her belly. If her belly remains calm, they say she's a virgin; but if her belly trembles, it means that she is not a virgin. In the olden days, she would have been thrown off Krobo Mountain, but today her family is heavily fined. At the end of this ceremony, where the girls have been taught by ritual mothers -- not their real mothers but mentors whom they have for life -- all that is necessary to enter womanhood, the girls are presented at a ceremony to the community, to family and above all to potential suitors. It's a beautiful ceremony. It takes place with grace, delicacy and refinement, and the girls are considered to be among the most desirable wives in all of West Africa.

Were there any circumstances where you felt emotionally conflicted or ethically conflicted? Where a ceremony you were photographing was in some way troublesome to you?

Beckwith: I think that in Muslim societies we sometimes met resistance to ceremonies being photographed. The fathers or the brothers of the women felt that they didn't want their women photographed, that they didn't want any of these pictures published. We were very sympathetic and we understood this and we always asked for permission to photograph, and if they said no, we respected it. But sometimes with time and with an understanding of the project, the noes would turn into yeses. I remember on Lamu Island, off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean, we spent many years with one family, who finally said, "Yes, you may photograph my daughter, but she must be covered with the bui-bui, a black veil -- only her eyes will show -- and you have to take her in this little corner of the rooftop in order to have natural light with three corners shielding her from the eyes of the town."

And we did. We took the picture. And it was a beautiful picture because the expression of who she was and everything she stood for came through her eyes. She was trying to say to us, I think, "I know I can't show any more, but I'm going to tell you everything." And of course her hands were also beautifully painted for the photograph, so this is really a portrait of a woman expressing her inner being through her eyes and her hands, and it came out of a great patience and respect for the resistance and, in time, the no turning into the yes.

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