NEW VIEWS OF BEAUTIFUL AFRICA
We are used to seeing photos of Africa that either focus on beautiful wildlife or on the struggles of many of its people. But there is a new generation of photographers who are showing Africa in a whole new light. We’ve got 10 of the best to share with you here.
1. OMAR VICTOR DIOP
If Omar Victor Diop’s work seems a little familiar, you might be remembering the scene in American Beauty involving Mena Suvari and a number of rose petals. But instead of petals, Diop shot (African) American Beauty, shown above, using a plant wall of the hotel where he was shooting.
This piece is part of the series Onomolliwood, in which Diop and Antione Tempe, another photographer, recreated famous cinematic moments using African models.
Through this series, Diop and Tempe show the modernity of Africa, as well as a merging of the fashion and cinematic worlds.
Completely self-taught, the 33-year-old is a newcomer to Senegal's creative scene. He started experimenting with cameras on the streets of Dakar in 2010, at a time when he was still working in corporate communications for a multinational.
2. TOM SULLAM
At dawn, the women of Dar Es Salaam head to the market, to sell or buy. While this is an ordinary, everyday scene that most people in this Tanzanian city take for granted, Photographer Tom Sullam captures the color and texture of this moment and shows it off as a visual and spiritual treasure.
Born in Paris, educated in London, Sullam began in the corporate world, until one day, he met up with Charlie Waite, one of the world’s most respected landscape photographers. Sullam was transfixed and transformed.
Sullam honed his photographic skills and began to work photographing interiors for architecture and design firms, while he continued to develop his interest landscape and portrait photography. Finally, he summoned his creative courage and moved, with his young family, to Tanzania, to immerse in the beauty of Africa.
Sullam’s approach to creating his powerful images of East Africa highlights the little parts of life most people might miss. “In all my work I try to look for the smaller details, and make them the important statement in an image,” says Sullam.
Tanzania has given Sullam a plethora of gorgeous visual fodder. “Every day throws up a new image, whether it be a lady having a lunch break, a freak storm that rolls in off the sea and thunders through the city of Dar es Salaam, within minutes turning a dusty city into a drowned, puddle and mud filled swimming pool.”
3. ANTHONY BILA
Much of the photography coming out of Africa takes the form of negative press showing violence or famine. Photographer Anthony Bila’s mission is to show the beauty and humanity that is ever-present there as well.
Bila, a self taught photographer, uses his blog The Expressionist to promote the positive and the possibilities happening right now in his country of South Africa.
Bila finds beauty in the townships of Johannesburg, where he goes regularly to photograph the fashion and street cultures.
4. OLUYINKA ADEPARUSI
Nigerian photographer Oluyinka Adeparusi considers his photography a powerful weapon against poverty. He seeks to reveal human rights issues though his work, bringing a greater power to his already striking images.
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He now works for the National Mirror Newspaper in Lagos, using his work to further his quest to better the lives of those around him.
Most recently, Adeparusi released his work focused on a 2014 student protest in Lagos.
5. FELIPE BRANQUINHO
Felipe Branquinho’s Occupations series, an ongoing documentary project, brings to life the people of his home in Maputo, Mozambique.
Throughout the series, Branquinho meets and follows his fellow city dwellers as they go about their working day, documenting their lives and stories.
As the project has developed from its start in 2011, Branquinho says that the title Occupations has come to have a double meaning. He seeks now to show how the people of his city occupy their time, not just how they perform their occupation, thus bringing a strong human element, which he says is ever present, to his work.
6. BARBARA MINISHI
Photographer Barbara Minishi shows off African fashion beautifully. And powerfully.
In 2013 Barbara Minishi revealed a stunningly powerful photography project titled The Red Dress. In this work, Minishi had a wide range of women from Kenya wear the same red dress, showing how each looked while garbed.
This act served as a memorial to the post election violence in Kenya in 2007, in which more than 1000 Kenyans were killed. It showed unity and solidarity in the face of adversity. Minishi also won the Best Art Director, Nairobi Half Life award at the 2014 AMVCA awards.
7. LAKIN OGUNBANWO
Nigerian photographer Lakin Ogunbanwo focuses on the fashion of his region of Africa.
Through visually stunning images, Ogunbanwo’s work shows the rise of African fashion and fashion culture, as well as demonstrating the effect this rise has had on other aspects of culture, including photography.
8. ZANELE MUHOLI
While some other photographers seek just to document and reveal human rights abuses, South African visual activist Zanele Muholi takes a more active approach.
She broke into the art world with a piece called “Visual Sexuality: Only Half the Picture,” which increased the visibility of gays living in Africa.
In 2009, Muholi founded Inkanyiso, a non profit that advances visual activism. The site hosts a huge number of photos dedicated to various issues, ranging from education to gay rights activism.
In 2014 Muholi exhibited a series titled “Of Love and Loss,” at the Stevenson gallery in Johannesburg, which focused on intolerance towards homosexuals.
9. NANA KOFI ACQUAH
Ghaniaian photographer Nana Kofi Acquah honed his storytelling skills while working in the world of advertising. After five years, earning awards every year, he resigned as an Executive Creative Director and dedicated himself to photography.
Acquah details powerful moments, capturing everyday scenes, like locals playing soccer on a beach, or walking past a simple pile of stones on the side of a road, and turns them into poignant capsules.
Aquah’s work has been exhibited across three continents, and has included photography for clients such as UNESCO and a huge number of African magazines.
10. LAURA EL-TANTAWY
Egyptian photographer Laura El-Tantawy discovered the beauty in photography through her journey to immerse herself in her family’s history and to record the current history of her country.
El-Tantawy’s ongoing project, In the Shadow of the Pyramids, began as an attempt to look deeper into her home country and portray the alluring relationship between Egyptian farmers, their land and the many struggles they face in their lives.
With a growing increase of Egyptians moving into the city to become lawyers and doctors, there has been a heavy demand for farmers in the country. Laura El-Tantaway’s projects reintroduce the power and beauty of farming.
Read more about Beautiful Africa, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including African Beauty in Books Now, Hey Hey for the Monkeys, Apes, Bushbabies… Now and New Ideas About Gorgeous Ancient Grains.
Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Africa in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 08.24.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!
PHOTO CREDITS:
- Photo: by Omar Victor Diop / Antoine Tempe. (African) American Beauty.
- Photo: by Omar Victor Diop. The Studio of Vanities.
- Photo: by Omar Victor Diop. Bleue.
- Photo: by Tom Sullam. To market in Dar Es Salaam.
- Photo: by Tom Sullam. Lady with son walking at dawn in Stone Town, Zanzibar.
- Photo: by Tom Sullam. Refuge from the intense heat of Dar Es Salaam.
- Photo: by Tom Sullam. Stone Town Colour.
- Photo: by Tom Sullam. Mount Kilimanjaro at dawn, from the west side.
- Photo: by Anthony Bila. No Church in the Wild.
- Photo: by Anthony Bila. From the Township Diaries series.
- Photo: by Oluyinka Adeparusi. “Where There is Will, There is Education.”
- Photo: by Oluyinka Adeparusi. “Polytechnic students protest months-long strike of lecturers in Lagos.”
- Photo: by Felipe Branquinho. Boxer.
- Photo: by Felipe Branquinho. Student Residence Employee.
- Photo: by Barbara Minishi. Kenyan Fashion Photography.
- Photo: Courtesy of Perfect Shot Films. Minishi Shooting Her Red Dress Series.
- Photo: by Lakin Ogunbanwo. Sunflower Eyes.
- Photo: by Lakin Ogunbanwo. Woman.
- Photo: by Zanele Muholi, “Miss D’vine I.” Lambda Print.
- Photo: by Zanele Muholi. “Of Love & Loss (installation view).”
- Photo: by Nana Kofi Acquah. Bound face.
- Photo: by Laura El-Tantawy. “Hassan Mohamed al-Sae’edy on His Donkey.”
- Photo: Laura El-Tantawy. “A Farmer Spraying Water in a Field at Sunrise.”
