Tag: art director

  • Art director and photographer Lubabetu Abubakar creates honest, bold images

    Art director and photographer Lubabetu Abubakar creates honest, bold images

    Lubabetu Abubakar aka Lubee Abubakar studied law, but has been making the transition to a full-time photographer and art director. With a focus on fashion, she illuminates the people she photographs with her delicate approach to capturing each image. She has been presented as one of the photographers bringing attention to her home country, Nigeria, with her participation in the 2017 LagosPhoto Festival.

    With her transition to a full-time creative practice Abubakar allows herself to experiment while finding a way to create a signature in her imagery. She plays with colour in bold, and sometimes subtle ways, forming a visual language that draws the viewer in and engenders a curiosity around the people in her photographs. The models in her images often have an intense engagement with the camera, looking directly and confidently at the viewer. However, Abubakar softens this intensity, making their stares come across more inviting than intimidating.

    One of Abubakar’s more personal projects, a series titled ‘Ojoro‘, explores themes related to womanhood and welcoming a woman into adulthood. This series is accompanied by a text that intimately expresses what a woman feels when on her period. The connection between the images and text shares with audiences an honesty and rawness that provokes emotive responses.

    The presentation of her work online appears as a puzzle, with each photograph and gif on her home page pointing to different aspects of her work. Viewers can see commercial work alongside images that take on a more documentary style, showing a diversity of work.

    Check out Abubakar website to keep up with her work.

  • Maxim Vakhovskiy – Celebrating the raw beauty women of colour possess through photography

    Maxim Vakhovskiy – Celebrating the raw beauty women of colour possess through photography

    Maxim Vakhovskiy is a self-taught photographer based in Charlotte, North Carolina (USA). Growing up in Kiev, Ukraine, her family immigrated to the United States when she was 13 years old. Her father’s hobbyist photography instilled a passion for the art form within her.

    “He would create a makeshift darkroom in the small bathroom of our house. I sat with him watching the images emerge on paper under red light. It was one of my favourite things to do and I think that’s when the passion for photography, or at least a small dormant seed, was planted.” – on her father’s photographic practice and influence.

    Maxim tells me in our email interview that the process of finding herself in the photographic landscape was extensive. Initially studying Psychology and Philosophy she switched over to graphic design and concluded with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It was during her formal training that she rekindled her friendship with the medium of the lens.

    After graduation, Maxim began working at MODE (a branding agency in Charlotte, North Carolina) as a graphic designer. Later she inhabited the part of an art director and transitioned into photography.

    Central to Maxim’s personal practice is portraiture through which she aims to emphasize the raw beauty of the people she photographs. Her work acts as a celebration of womanhood, the human body and women of colour.

    Her work generally plays out within a studio set up and she explains that the reason for this is because of the control that the studio space lends to her. She elaborates on this point by stating that her obsession with precise lighting can be satisfied within the studio space. Another aspect that draws her to the studio is its privacy as she is drawn to nude portraiture. Within the studio the people she photographs can feel more at ease.

    “I think of it as a love affair. I’m in love with my craft and fall a little bit in love with everyone I photograph. To me, it’s one of the few ways to capture a bit of someone’s essence. I focus on visual simplicity that evokes complexity. My work is an exercise of trust and untraditional ideals beauty basked in classic light.”

    Muted tonal backdrops, soft becoming lighting, simplified backgrounds and beautiful women of colour act together to unify Maxim’s vision. With her work, she elevates the beauty of women of colour, womanhood and the human body. Her simplified backgrounds make her work more arresting as attention is brought to the people that she photographs.

  • Guinean-Swiss art director and photographer Namsa Leuba – the visible and invisible universe

    Guinean-Swiss art director and photographer Namsa Leuba – the visible and invisible universe

    Guinean-Swiss art director and photographer Namsa Leuba has a practice that combs through the representation of African identities as they are interpreted within the western imagination, highlighting the mechanisms of this imaginary’s construction and its problematic enforcement as a sign of universality. This reflection as the foundation of her practice comes from her double heritage, noting that she has spent most of her life in Switzerland which had a large influence on how she sees the world.

    Leuba’s imagery taps into the symbols that make up her cultural heritage, from rituals and ceremonies to monuments and outfits. Her work takes on an anthropological nature, but flips the discipline and its connection to imagery on its head by removing objectification, racial probing and the framing of subject matter as occupying anachronistic space from her photographic approach. Her questioning of dualisms (such as the relationship between the sacred and profane, fact and fiction), and her mixing of cultural practices and symbolisms assist in her ability to elegantly, intimately and carefully present people from the continent. However, she is always aware that her work is from her own point of view.

    Her latest series, Weke, disputes the western view on African traditional religions. This series captures the voodoo and animist practices in Benin. Living in Benin for two and a half months, she took on the method of participant observation, taking part in different rituals to get first-hand experience of the people and the world she planned to photograph. This research method created depth in her final images, allowing her to highlight the invisible which makes up so much of this religion and framework for viewing the world. There is a kind of trippy, surrealist element to the way in which these images are presented, drawing the viewer closer, cultivating a sense of curiosity and appreciation.

  • Prophere II, ‘OUR TURF’ lookbook

    Prophere II, ‘OUR TURF’ lookbook

    adidas Originals have released a brand-new silhouette for 2018, the second drop of Prophere. To support its launch adidas Originals commissioned art director, photographer and stylist, Gabrielle Kannemeyer to create a lookbook.

    Gabrielle captured some of her friends and collaborators who are multidisciplinary practitioners. The lookbook features Da Da Shiva, Luh’ra, Siya Andi Biyela, Chester Martinez and Tatenda Wekwatenzi; individuals that resonate with the fierceness of the Prophere silhouette and message.

    Gabrielle wanted to take photographs in a town where she grew up feeling quite isolated. Set in areas from Killarney Gardens to Somerset West, the aim for the shoot was the disruption of suburbia. Flames and colourful smoke took over as they navigated these spaces and made them, “our turf”.

    “Our Turf is a mindset we take with us wherever we go – a space that enables us to be 100% unapologetic about being who we are. A new generation is at the helm of a march into the future, our turf is boundless and infinite – anything we imagine to be, is.”

    Shoot Credits

    Da Da Shiva
    Siya Andi Biyela
    Luh’ra
    Tatenda Wekwatenza
    Chester Matinez
    Zakkiyya Abdurahman

    Produced by Melite Vivier
    Photography, casting and styling by Gabrielle Kannemeyer
    Photographic and fashion assistant – Yonela Makoba
    Make up by Neveen Scello

    Special thank you to Eddie Shamba for security, Doug from Stunt SA and Kofi Lartey for fire breathing.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • An Afro Futurist fashion film for Vlisco x AWCA

    An Afro Futurist fashion film for Vlisco x AWCA

    Photographer, Art Director and stylist Daniel Obasi‘s latest offering is the creation of an Afro Futurist fashion film for the eminent textile designers Vlisco and A Whitespace Creative Agency (AWCA) titled ‘An Alien in Town’.

    A sequence of lush palm trees and fauna are contrasted by the earthy brown landscape that acts as a bordered scenery. From a distance, a motorcycle slowly appears, distinguished by its cattle horn adornment. Its riders in strikingly styled fashion combinations. They are met with the alien (Benita Ango). A blue life form has her back turned towards her onlookers. With a gentle movement, she turns to meet the gaze of her audience.

    The earth below her feet mimics the surface of a crater. The viewer is met with transitioning images of space, the alien in profile caught in a medium frame as well as a wide shot that exemplifies her otherworldliness. She faints.

    Her onlookers take on a more active role and with the curiosity and near naivety of children, they approach her. They take her in and attempt to teach her the ways of humankind, of human culture. With the metropolis of Lagos as the setting of this tale, the viewer is taken through a variety of scenarios in which the alien life form finds itself. This emphasizes how out of place she is in this human world. She examines this new found space for the first time and is clearly amazed by all that she witnesses. She studied her hands, a book, the television. Her alien-ness is highlighted by her incorrect use of a fork and non-intrinsic manner of attempting to consume food. What is deeply apparent is an emotional detachment that flows through the entire piece. It is implied that the alien identifies more with a mannequin than with the humans who have given her refuge.

    Obasi’s work takes the form of a gestural film as there is no audible dialogue and yet, the gestures and narrative are well woven together so that the simple storyline cannot be construed as one of haphazard play (every scene has been well thought out). A theme that is carried throughout the film is that of fashion. We see the male character played by Oke Tobi Subomi in the film take the human femme (Rebecca Fabunmi) and alien into a photo shoot setting made up of Vlisco fashion and a backdrop pattern of black and white squares against which the fashion ensembles stand out triumphant. Headpieces, beaded on the humans and more futuristic on the alien take centre stage.A scene lingers in a dark room with red light and as we see the last of the alien’s stay the lighting takes on a blue, extra-terrestrial statement. The darkroom where the male character develops his images of the fashion shoot act as a possible signifier towards an act of creating a physical object –  a proof of what had transpired – an alien visiting Lagos. Obasi ends off his piece with the alien in the same setting she was originally found and the viewer assumes that it is the last that will be seen or heard from the alien. The upbeat soundtrack that flows through the piece assists in making this film light-hearted and the viewer does not perceive her voyage home as one that should be taken in with sadness.Obasi’s contemporary Afro Futurist film is vibrant and celebrates Nigerian culture as well as focuses on African fashion and the energy that it carries. His considerations of the colour of lighting and the possible symbolism connected, adds another layer to this work. His ability to keep a concise narrative throughout the film despite having no audible dialogue verges on brilliance. I look forward to his next offering.

    Credits:

    Art Direction & Styling: Daniel Obasi

    Models: Rebecca Fabunmi, Oke Tobi Subomi & Benita Ango

    Videography: Ugo Oparadike & assistant Deji Adekoya

    Production Assistant: Ifeoma Kalu

    Composer: Emmanuel Ejidike

    Editor: Matuluko Robert

    Hair: Happiness Okon

    Makeup: Lauretta Orji

  • ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ – Reproducing Older Forms of Image Creation in a Digital World

    ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ – Reproducing Older Forms of Image Creation in a Digital World

    From the city of Gaborone comes a new photographic body of work by Botswanan artist Giancarlo LaGuerta. With no formal arts education, he developed and nurtured his own technical and art propensity and today works as both photographer and art director.

    Speaking to me about the creative dynamics of his city, he informed me that the art community and culture still needs an element that can animate and excite creatives. “The scene here doesn’t inspire one to be better or push the envelope; the need to do that comes from within”.

    Despite a knack to internalize stimuli, Giancarlo feels that living in a developing country is its own source of influence. “Things are not very refined around here and there’s something beautiful about that.”

    Giancarlo’s series ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ is held captive by its creator by his persistence of not wanting to prescribe a defined meaning to the work he has brought to the public eye. He finds his motive for creating this set of images that depict two brothers, twins, in the close-natured-ness of brotherhood.

    “I’ve always loved making something from nothing; for as long as I can remember. I learnt how to draw before I learnt how to read and write.” Images with deep contrast and hard lighting meet a focus that sometimes make background elements seem distorted. Among the choice of such defining lighting a lot of post work comes to play and the viewer is confronted with images that carry a DIY sensibility (created by a collage element) meets VHS tape visual appearance. “I treat my work like a puzzle. I combine different elements and styles to achieve a good product and complete the picture, so to speak.”

    The choice of reproducing older stylizations digitally is justified by Giancarlo as a way of making his work seem less pop and more distant and substantial. With a hope of bringing across a documentary take on his models.

    Relying mostly on natural lighting, the subjects of his images being brothers and twins and the natural settings that the series depicts are the only real life/documentary elements that are present. The combination of mimicking various forms of older image creation leans itself towards excessiveness and does not label a body of work as more, or less substantial.

    Although the work is visually striking, the artist’s unwillingness to come forth with a statement can be seen as an open invite for the viewers’ interpretation or simply the idea that these are just a set of artistically crafted images. Not achieving a documentary feel makes these images to appear more fashion oriented as documentary images allows no retouching or altering of photographic material.

    Credits:

    Stylist – Eva Maria Fernanda LaGuerta