Index (I)
A sequence of same-styled photographs from the archive.
This is the #1 edition of INDEX, a sequence of same-styled photographs previously featured in the newsletter, and published without words. The series will run until December 29. For details on the individual photographs, click on the link in the caption.
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. The most recent series is KINDRED. 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.
Applications for the Tender Photo Editorial Fellowship are open, until Dec. 10, to writers based anywhere on the African continent.
"You Are Beautiful"
Like an evening sky, the blue background strings itself loosely. It makes the shape of an upturned triangle around the neck of a woman. Shying away from the light, only a side of her face is outlined. Nonetheless, the smooth undulation of her brow, nose, lips, and chin resonate the mysterious charm of distant sand dunes and unreachable hills forever locked in the horizon. Struck full by an unseen glow, her earring casts a golden hue on the side of her ear. Her hair is tightly concealed, wrapped in speckles of red, yellow, and what seems like dark, green colours of a scarf that ends up in a neat bunch on the back of her neck. Little can be known of her body, and the soft yellow dancing on her shirt begs the question, "Is she made of gold?"
Deeply compelling.
Willy-nilly, these intense shades invite the watcher to become a part of every hue, to tell, and retell the human story in a multiverse of ways.