Cultural Camo
It makes no difference how deep and meaningful your intentions are in your photography if no one looks at your pictures. So many art photographers forget this, and make images so visually dull that no one gives them a second glance to notice the hidden metaphor, higher-plane reflection and intellectual genius buried in the pixels. To get your message across through photography, the first job of your pictures is to draw attention so that the viewer has a fighting chance of benefiting from your globally transformative brainwaves.
Someone who has the right idea is Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu, who lives and works in Nairobi. Her pictures are so bright, dramatic, eye-bursting and attention-seeking I suspect we would know one was hanging in the building even if we were in another room with our eyes closed. It is hard not to notice them, not to look at them, and once we’re captured, we have to spend time paying attention to what it is she wants us to see. Her series, Camo, uses themes so unmistakably African we can almost hear the
