I’ve been exploring how to use the photos I make in new ways. I really have no interest in spending weeks or months on a project only to post on social media for likes. Unfortunately that’s where a lot of photographers’ work goes to die these days. In the future I could try to do a Nairobi book or exhibit but that’s down the road.
One thing I came up with for my Nairobi series is an e-book, to put the pictures in immediate, direct service of the young photographers and students I was helping in the Kibera slum (the largest not just in Nairobi but in all of Africa). I worked with a great weekly photo class for teens, Kibra Film and Creative Hub, run by a dedicated guy named Hassan Ahmed.
As you may have seen me post about before, I brought Hassan photo books from home as the start of a modest photo library, so students would have at least some reference resources for inspiration and ideas.
Yet while showing the students images of Chicago or Paris or Istanbul is exotic and instructive, for these young people it’s perhaps not as useful as images closer to home. What I knew from giving a couple of presentations to the class is that they really responded to seeing what they can do with the visual and storytelling possibilities in their everyday landscape. Like most of us, they are fairly numb visually to that landscape, but to me Kibera and Nairobi - while quite challenging - are among the most visually rich communities I’ve ever encountered. I could see they were most electrified to realize the potential that surrounds them.
As a resource, I decided to make them an e-book using a selection of my Kibera/Nairobi images and a kind of general summary/outline of my guidance. It’s both about and formatted for the phone, which is what most of them are using to shoot for the class. In fact some of them have to share phones, there are often not enough to go around (there are a few DSLR cameras too).
This way the file is endlessly shareable and each can have their own copy that they can access anytime.
I think this ebook is helpful for anyone looking to improve their creative expression using their phone camera, and includes thoughts on things like composition, editing, and many of my general principles and quick strategies from fifteen years of teaching.
Here are a few screenshots:
I’m making this resource, born in Kenya, free for my subscribers.
Here’s the Dropbox link, I invite you to download it to your phone and/or computer.
Alternately, here it is on Proton Drive.
If you like, you can donate to the Kibera photo program through me. Anything you can afford will go a long way to help Hassan buy more cameras and subsidize the fees (about 15 bucks) for those who are interested but can’t afford it. Intake for the next session is going on now! Send me a message and we’ll coordinate, I still have the Kenyan mobile payment app so I can forward money to the right account directly.
If you want to support my efforts, buy a print, make a donation on my site anytime, and/or please consider giving me a shout-out to anyone you know who might want to subscribe to my newsletter.