Posts tagged with ‘photography’
Men attending the Durbar festival in Northern Nigeria.
Samari
Photo taken in Kebbi State, Nigeria by Irene Becker
Although I can’t claim to have carried out any scientific data collection on the subject, it seems that 30 days of 24/7 media exposure may not have been enough for fresh African motifs to permeate the Great Wall of Western Media Clichés.
With only 2 matches to go, apart from a few condescending pieces on Gauteng’s “Black Diamonds”, I don’t recall the World Cup being used as a backdrop for any major features on the various hubs of tech innovation in Africa, or the spread of mobile money solutions, or the fact that mobile phone penetration in Africa has finally passed the 50% mark.
But photo essays of dirty, forlorn looking children in rags playing with home-made footballs (fashioned from condoms, straw and plastic bags). Now that’s more like it! Especially if your photo essay can be be published in the New York Times under a headline as crass and trite as, “To Those With Nothing, Soccer is Everything”.
Photo credit: Jessica Hilltout
This photo is just one of many images available on Africa Knows, a new site launched by Sheila Ochugboju and Joshua Wanyama.
“An elephant monument at the Nairobi National Park celebrates the burning of 12 tons of ivory in July 18th, 1989 by the then President Daniel Arap Moi. The event was a gesture against poaching worldwide.”
In the words of the curators, the purpose of Africa Knows is to:
“…tell a different story about Africa. The Re-branding of Africa. The story everyone knows and yet no one knows. Africa Knows is about the challenges, triumphs, dreams and nightmares of being an African in a 21st century city that is straddling several revolutions at the same time – the technological revolution, the agricultural revolution, a democratic resurgence and a post-colonial identity crisis complicated by old ethnic tensions.”
Portraits of the Kings of Africa
Daniel Lainé is a French photographer and 1991 World Press Photo winner. His photo collection of over 70 African monarchs was first published by Ten Speed Press in 2000.
Eighteen of the images and their accompanying descriptions can be viewed on Tamarin Photo.
In Cameroun, the Baba of Rey-Bouba made me wait eight days in a cabana. In Nigeria, for fifteen days I followed the traces of the Oni of Ife, who was constantly traveling across the country. In South Africa, the king of the Ndebele made me spend half a day with his royal concil, and then sent me to get an authorization from the government of Kwa-Ndebele. From secretaries to various offices, I found myself before a white civil servant, who threatened to have me expulsed for having violated the state of emergency. Ten days of discussions and no photos.
On the other hand, there was also all the rest: the African voyage. The local transports and the unexpected meetings, the “good guys”, ambassadors or peasants, the “bad guys”, that I met more often in the ministeries than in the streets, impressive moments with their Majesties and their subjects, in the silence and self-communion of a ritual, the rythms, and this mad laugh of Africa that destiny interrupts so often.
King Erediauwa, pictured above, graduated from Cambridge University as a young prince. 2009 will be his 40th year as monarch of the Edo Empire.
