Homesong

Affinities between photographers in the Tender Photo archive

The indoors as a locale for expressing clear notes of sentiment and feeling.

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“Isolating with You”

I used a small point and shoot camera to make this photograph. Just staring at the mirror in our small studio apartment, I could see almost everything we had and the most important person to me—my wife—in that small reflective frame.

— KC Nwakalor

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“Calm Amidst the Hurricane”

I remember waking up, walking towards the sitting room and seeing the sunlight come in through the windows. I'd seen this happen almost everyday and don't know why exactly I found it fascinating that morning, maybe because I'd been struggling to "actively" see light and realized that I could now see it. But whatever it was, I'd never felt that way before.

— Victor Akhere 

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“Tuesday Afternoon”

This photograph is a self-portrait from my body of work “Tuesday Afternoon,” where I explore emotions I endured after the passing of my mother when I was 9 years old. This image was taken in the bedroom where she lost her life. I was reminded of the sight of my grandmother and revisited these emotions by wearing my grandmother's gown and my mother’s headwrap. A self-timer and  tripod made it possible. My emotions were sincere as I was in a bad place and missing my mother. 

— Xoliswa Ngwenya

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“Ali”

Ali built the house with his wife as most of the fishermen did. The image reminds me of that feeling of waiting in your house for someone you don't know to take you out of the house and change your life forever.

— Mohamed Mahdy 

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“Abdusatar”

This photograph was taken in Tunis, Tunisia, as part of a story about unseen or invisible people who don't get enough or good credit and recognition of their existence from the community—as doctors, engineers or movie stars or other celebrities—even though their jobs are important to the community. Abdusatar is a construction worker I spent a day with trying to document his life at work, home and with his friends, in order to focus on the human side of his daily life.

— Abdurrauf Ben Madi

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This is the fifth edition of AFFINITIES. Every Friday in March and April, I’m rereading the statements by the 100 photographers featured between February 9, 2022 and January 10, 2024, and finding affinities between how they describe their themes or process. Read the previous editions here, here, and here.

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TENDER PHOTO is a bi-weekly newsletter on African photography. Every Wednesday we feature a photograph and a short caption about it, and include a statement from the photographer. Every Friday, we publish commentaries or photo-essays in response to photographs previously featured on the newsletter. Our goal is to engage with early to mid-career African photographers by creating a platform in which they lead the cataloguing and engagement with their work.