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Turkana District, Kenya | April 11, 2013. A young boy hides beneath his grandmother’s cloak as the afternoon rains begin. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki #kenya #turkana #family #nofilter
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The Muthaiga #Golf Club is an exclusive, members only club in a suburb of #Nairobi, #Kenya. Photo by @nicholesobecki #sport #wealth #nofilter
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Beams of light flood into the Cana Children’s Center through holes in the corrugated metal roof. Three classes crowd together in a single room, their lessons coming from community members who are little more than volunteers. Three years ago, before the Cana Center was built, none of these children attended school, and many spent days without a hot meal. Photo by @nicholesobecki #kenya #kibera #school #education #nofilter
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A #dhow leaves #Shela Port to fish at dawn, #Lamu Island, #Kenya. Photo by @nicholesobecki. #nofilter #ocean #fish #boat
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#Kibera is tense as people wait for #Raila to speak. Talk of “going to war” mixed with promises to bring this to the courts. #Kenyadecides by narrowest of margins. Photo by @nicholesobecki. #kenya #elections #vote
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The rooftop lounge at the Sankara Hotel in Nairobi’s upscale Westlands neighborhood is a popular nighttime spot for the city’s privileged. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki for @GlobalPost Special Report, The Great Divide. From Sarah Leen of National Geographic, guest editor for this week: “This could almost be anywhere but when placed in the context of Nairobi and the other images in this set it enhances the contrast between the haves and have nots. The mixed light, deep blue walls and happy expressions capture the moment perfectly.” @roseleen @natgeo #kenya #nairobi #kibera #landscape #nofilter #thegreatdivide
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In the shade of a makeshift awning, Kyalo Mungudi operates this water point for its owner, who moved out of Kibera long ago. The government delivers water to only a tiny portion of Kibera, leaving most reliant on hawked water from private taps, where they pay two to ten times what is paid by a Nairobi resident outside the slums. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki for @GlobalPost Special Report, The Great Divide. From Sarah Leen of National Geographic, guest editor for this week: “The lack of clean water for so many and the over abundance of it for so few is a huge global issue. The light here points to the important elements in this image.” @roseleen @natgeo #kenya #nairobi #kibera #landscape #nofilter #thegreatdivide
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A TV crew at Bomas of #Kenya as election results begin to trickle in on #Kenya election day. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. #KenyaDecides #tv #media #election #nofilter
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The last voters cast their ballots as night sets in at a Kibera polling station on #Kenya election day. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. #KenyaDecides #election #vote #peace
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Counting begins by lamplight at a Kibera polling station on #Kenya election day. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. #KenyaDecides #election #vote #peace
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Thousands wait to vote at the Olympic Secondary School polling station in Kibera on #Kenya election day. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. #KenyaDecides #election #vote #nofilter #africa
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A soldier stands guard at Olympic polling station in Kibera on #Kenya election day. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. #KenyaDecides #election #vote #nairobi
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People line up at dawn at Kibera polling station on #Kenya election day. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. #KenyaDecides #election #kibera #vote #peace
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At the Pipeline IDP camp outside Nakuru, Kenya, thousands struggle for their everyday needs after being displaced from their homes in the 2007-2008 post-election violence. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. From Sarah Leen of National Geographic, guest editor for this week: “The contrast between the poster of the grand home, (the quote at the top says “The Man Who Removed the Mountain”) and this young boy’s surroundings and expression makes quite a strong statement.” @roseleen @natgeo #kenya #nakuru #idp #displaced #election #nofilter
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Outside the town of Molo, Kenya, sits a small village that was burned in the 2007-2008 post-election violence that tore through the country. Having lost almost everything, the towns residents have rebuilt their homes using the metal sheets they were able to salvage from the flames. Photo by Nichole Sobecki @nicholesobecki. From Sarah Leen of National Geographic, guest editor for this week: “The holes in the walls of this home are like a sky full of stars. Somehow this and his expression gives me a feeling of hopefulness.” @roseleen @natgeo #kenya #rift #molo #portrait #nofilter #thegreatdivide
The common media image of the African continent is one of extremes - but how can we identify the extremes without first establishing the norms? Everyday Africa is a collection of daily life images from across the continent, focusing on the mundane and the familiar. As journalists who have lived or spent significant amounts of time on the continent, we find the extreme not nearly as prevalent as the everyday.
www.everydayafricaproject.com
Find us on Instagram, @everydayafrica
Contact us: everydayafrica@gmail.com
Conceived by Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill, the project has grown to include work from the following contributors:
Glenna Gordon
Jane Hahn
Idil Ibrahim
Shannon Jensen
Krisanne Johnson and My Future, My Voice, a class that teaches photography to Swaziland teenagers
Lindsay Mackenzie
Holly Pickett
Charlie Shoemaker
Nichole Sobecki
Laura El-Tantawy
With editorial assistance by Stephen Mayes / VII Photo Agency and Sara Terry / The Aftermath Project.
This project was initially conceived during a trip to Ivory Coast that was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Featured in:
Around the World With Christiane Amanpour (ABC News / Yahoo! News)
The New Yorker Photo Booth
The New York Times Lens Blog
Bloomberg Businessweek
Salon
Guernica
From a blog post by Peter on our Pulitzer Center project page:
It begins on an elevator, as we ascend through a government building to pick up our press passes. I suppose part of the beauty of photographing with a phone is that you can start working before you’re issued a press pass.
For each project I photograph, there is always one image that makes everything click in my brain; one image that makes me realize what the story or theme is. In this case, the epiphany was that there need not always be a theme. Often my work as a photojournalist seems surprisingly, even dangerously, predetermined. We know the story we have been sent to cover, and we edit ourselves to tell that story even as we shoot. In this case, for example, I was in Ivory Coast to investigate a conflict I had witnessed the tail end of one year before – and the cocoa trade that feeds it, and uncertain steps being taken to resolve it. Subconsciously or not, I looked for photos that told that story.
And so it seemed that the other photos I was making simultaneously – on a silly phone with a silly “app” – began to feel more honest in their experiential nature. Sometimes we shoot without a theme. I notice the man on the elevator, the symmetry of the men around him and their reflections, the row of lights above his head. The picture is interesting in its mundane-ness, and therein lies the truth. Africa can be the place of extremes that we in the West see so often. Inundated with images of incredible poverty; occasionally we also see vast wealth. But Africa can be familiar. It can also, thankfully, be boring.
In this context, everything becomes important. The blur of a man in a bookstore, the row of young men lined up to read the daily paper. One morning, with an egg sandwich in one hand and a phone in the other, I snap a photo of a young Guinean girl walking through curtains. Her parents own the breakfast joint we frequent. Two hours and ten minutes later, a man wipes the snot from a young boy’s face. I can’t understand his language but I know what is being said. “This visitor is photographing you. Look your best.”
As we line up waiting for the UN to return the refugees to their homes, I’m torn. Which to photograph, the sad faces peering through the windows – so reminiscent of the forlorn images I’ve come to expect from this corner from the world – or the men standing, laughing, poring over DVDs for sale, deciding which Hollywood film to spend their money on. Which shoot-em-up blockbuster should be the first that they watch after they get back to their village and rebuild their homes, that they will purchase with the UN’s readjustment allowance?
It’s jarring. Sometimes I don’t think we let it jar us enough. We find the palatable in these situations. Refugees, we think, should be heavy with the terrible burden of all they’ve seen, weary with the miles they’ve walked to flee this place – not smiling and posing with the silly foreigner who appears with a camera.
I’m wandering in a village that was, unlike the others, only recently destroyed. Burning through rolls of film to make evidence that the conflict may not yet be over – and then four young men come by laughing, and they stand with their arms crossed in the shade of a tree, and they make a camera motion with their hands. Snap snap snap, and later I scrawl into a notebook, ‘we may never understand this place.’
I’m wandering in a shopping mall, a plantation, a border crossing, a harbor, an airport terminal. As a photographer, it seems to exist all for me to point at and snap. But it’s not for me. It’s Africa, everyday.
