Tender Visions
By one estimate, South Africa leads in femicide rates, five times higher than the global average. These sombre images are focused on sites where women were either killed or dumped after being killed. Accompanied by ruminative captions by the photographer, Sites of Mourning serves as a monument to the women's lives.
Ada had been travelling on this road for far too long. Six hours must have passed already, and she was still in the tightly packed, overly warm bus. Even then, her excitement was high. Being in the bus that was taking her towards her hometown from the city made her giddy. The plan was to get home and drop her bags, then Cousin Justice would take her to the market to familiarise herself with the women there. After that they would walk around the village a little to see where she could set up a makeshift photo studio.
A small town in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria, Neni is a neighbouring community to Adazi-Ani, where Amarachi Nnoli’s photography project Anwuli: An Invitation to Joy is staged. For the project, Nnoli moves from home to home, her mobile studio in tow, making portraits of those who have consented to pose.
Amarachi Nnoli blends elements of studio photography to examine Igbo identity in Nigeria. Visiting Adazi-Ani, her paternal hometown in southeastern Nigeria, she uses portraiture to explore not only the image of a person, but as a vessel of culture, memory, and representation.
Latest Features
At the LagosPhoto Festival, Tender Photos has curated Kindred, a constellation of 24 photographs and texts featured in the newsletter archive of Tender Photos. Showing an asynchronous cascade of images and blocks of text on both walls, viewers are invited to match an image with its corresponding caption.
This photo was taken in Abidjan, two days before the end of a skate tour organized by SurfGhana in October 2022. The goal of the tour, lasting a little over a week, was to bring together Ghanaian and Ivorian skate communities. I was tasked with documenting the journey. Initially, I was just going to take a group photo with all the skaters, but I am fascinated by movements. By instinct, I started moving my camera, getting closer to try to capture less frozen, less sought-after moments.
I captured this portrait of my parents in 2015. My aim was to explore the complexity of relationships and the challenges of communication, while highlighting the attachment and family values of my parent’s generation. During that time, I enjoyed performing in front of the camera, using simple props around the house to stage scenes. I liked to focus on personal narratives, relying on natural light and my DSLR camera.
The image is instantly recognizable to anyone who has done any roadside shopping in the CBD, where vendors and the city inspectorate are regularly engaged in a battle for control of sidewalks and paved pathways.
NOIR 40 is restrained and intimate, quite minimalistic and close to the skin. I set aside all accessories used in earlier works. Contrasts remain, but white exists only within black—to express Black identity in its purest, most intimate form and reveal the individuality of the sitter. My aim is to deconstruct and break stereotypes about the identity of the black woman by showing her dignity and inner strength.
Tender Photos contributes to nuanced and layered perceptions of the African continent by publishing narratives about the people, places, and events pictured in photographs, while promoting the work of visual storytellers and photographers. Read more about us.
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Tender Photos supports photographers and visual storytellers on the African continent.
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