Face of Africa Today
Dangerously safe: a portrait of modern Africa
Created between 2016 - 2018
Positive storytelling has the power to challenge negative stereotyping – this was the mantra that fueled my photographic journey through Africa.
Face of Africa Today is a travel and portrait photography compendium featuring my eye-opening cross-cultural journey through a continent I was taught to misunderstand and fear.
We’re fed a dismal view of Africa by the media. Growing up in North America, the lens I was told to see Africa through was obscured by a filter of negativity. With no platform for the continent to tell their stories, we went ahead and wove a belief system of our own, backed by perpetual misinformation and myths.
Is Africa’s story limited to the negative stereotypes I grew up seeing portrayed on TV, or is it merely misunderstood? What beauty lay hidden behind the single-story narratives of war and poverty that we perpetuate in the west?
With these questions in mind, equipped with my camera and an open-ended ticket I set off on a journey to discover modern Africa through the eyes of those who call it home. I opened my heart to the stories shared generously with me by strangers, and explored the use of photography and storytelling as tools for cross-cultural understanding.
Face of Africa Today is the result of my exercise in leaving preconceptions at the door in search of discovery and learning. The book is my attempt to introduce some of the beautiful, kind, talented and culturally rich individuals that I met, who make up the true continent of Africa.
This portrait series was photographed during 18 months of travel between 2016 - 2019.
The full series shares the portraits and stories of almost 150 individuals from throughout 16 countries. Only a portion of the stories are shared here, with the hope of printing a Face of Africa Today book to share the rest.
I am forever grateful for the kindness and openness of everyone featured in this series. Thank you for being a part of the initiative.
