Tender Photos is a digital platform for African photography and visual storytelling, co-founded by Emmanuel Iduma and Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀. Our aim is to contribute to nuanced and layered perceptions of the continent by publishing narratives about the people, places, and events pictured in photographs, while promoting the work of visual storytellers and photographers.
The flagship project of the platform, Tender Photo, was launched as a weekly Substack newsletter authored by Emmanuel in February 2022. Since then, we have featured the work of over 170 photographers, championing their ideas about photography and ensuring they are discoverable by a global photography community. The newsletter is circulated to over 4,000 subscribers weekly. We have also collaborated with writers to produce special issues of the newsletter publication, drawing from our dynamic digital archive.
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 eclectic repository of ideas on the continued relevance of photography in an image-saturated world. The newsletter has been profiled in The Conversation, Contemporary And, Africa e Mediterraneo, and Kultur Austauch.
Our annual Editorial Fellowship program, open to writers and curators, enables creatives to explore projects at the intersections of photography, literature, and art criticism.
From July 15–August 15, 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.
This year, in partnership with the Open Society Foundations, we launched Tender Visions, a new cross-disciplinary commissioning program for photographers and writers based on the African continent.
Tender Photos has developed an extensive network of photographers, writers, curators, and editors. We work with a growing list of partners to develop cross-disciplinary projects using photography and visual storytelling as a starting point. Contact us to discuss potential collaborations.
Thanks for reading.
