However you look, you can only catch a hint of their eyes. The faces they tender are alert, austere, alive. The camera’s probe is intimate, managing to catch hints of sweat, some rash, inch-wide folds of skin, a bulge at the back of the head. That their faces are seen from the side—indicating a partial knowledge of what they might seem like in full—sharpens the austere tone of the picture. From whom is a direct gaze being withdrawn?

— Emmanuel Iduma

This image was taken in my village in Nigeria. For 6 years now I have been documenting young boys and men who are doing all kinds of manual work to survive. They work from morning to night to take care of their loved ones and many of these workers did not finish their primary education because their parents did not have the money to pay for their school fees. My desire is to honor them and photograph them with both a humanistic and compassionate eye as well as a desire to dignify and embolden them through imagery. 

Using the wall as a backdrop only enhances this theatricality, and so this image is portraying a very subtle drama that exists more inside the minds of my subjects, rather than outside them and around them. I have chosen to represent these individuals with portraits because the portraits show me the vulnerability of their souls. My heart goes out to all workers who die defending their pride and humanity, earning their daily bread. If the government could take better care of all the country’s workers, our harvest would be great.

I choose this image because I am from a working class family. I know and feel the problems. The boys in this image could have been me! Work is very essential in Nigeria and a man without work cannot be trusted. My father worked hard as a salesman until he died of a stroke at the age of 53 and my grandfather died in the army at the age of 50.

I am a documentary photographer and I chronicle the truth the way I see it.

— Cletus Nwadike

Cletus Nelson Nwadike is a Sweden-based Nigerian photographer and a poet. He studied photography as a visual communication at ​Jönköping University in Sweden. His work has been recognized by the Sony World Photography Awards, and the Global Peace Photo Award, for which he won the Peace Image of the Year 2017. He has exhibited his work at Photo Israel and Helsinki Fotofestival. More of his work can be found on his website, and on Instagram.