Tender Photo is a collaborative digital archive and publishing platform of contemporary African photography.
Our aim is to use photography to engage with life on the African continent in all its diversity. We publish narratives about the people, places, and events pictured in photographs, contributing to nuanced and layered perceptions of the continent.
Founded by the writer and critic Emmanuel Iduma in February 2022 as a newsletter publication, we have featured the work of nearly 150 photographers from more than 25 countries. For each edition of the publication, we feature a photograph taken on the continent, with a short descriptive caption, and a statement on the particulars of the photograph by the photographer. This participatory format has produced an archive of images that is rich in detail, and a dynamic repository of ideas on the continued relevance of photography in an image-saturated world. The newsletter has been profiled in The Conversation, Contemporary And, and Africa e Mediterraneo.
We have collaborated with writers to produce special issues of the newsletter publication, including ‘Correspondences,’ in which contributors selected images from the archive and wrote about their connections, and ‘Kindred,’ which tasked contributors with pairing a photograph from their archive with one previously featured in the newsletter. Our recently concluded Editorial Fellowship offered mentorship to writers in photography criticism, as well as curatorial work for the platform. From July 15–September 2, 2024, 5 photographers featured in the newsletter were included in the Process Projected exhibition series, with their works displayed on high-resolution QLED monitors at the What Is Happening Here gallery in Amsterdam, broadening the audience base of the publication.
To support Tender Photo, share the newsletter within your network, collaborate with the featured photographers, or, if you are an African photographer, submit your work.
Thanks for reading.
