“They helped me develop a sense of kinship,” Oluwamuyiwa said by phone, “and I became confident that photographing was a valid way to understand a city.” His interpretations of Lagos are gritty and fast paced, matching the environment in which he works, yet he manages to elucidate things that can only be apparent to someone looking closely.
In such moments, as in “Boss and Assistant” where two men in a Danfo (the rundown yellow minibuses used for public transport) seem to be whispering to each other, or in “Hazy II,” where light pours from under the Third Mainland Bridge onto two figures standing in a canoe, the images transcend their sharp surfaces and acquire a misty luster; grittiness gives way to haziness, and the private anxieties of Lagos life become heightened.
A quick history of Lagos: Indigenously peopled by the Awori, it was once a military outpost for the ancient Benin Kingdom, a slave trading port for the Portuguese, who named it after their own city, and eventually an entry point for British colonialism into Nigeria.
Persons:
” Oluwamuyiwa, Boss
Locations:
Lagos, haziness, Benin Kingdom, Nigeria