PHOTOSTORIES YOUR PHOTO STORIES
Timur documents his fantastic travels around West Africa by capturing the wonderful people he met along the way
I tookthese photos during my trip to West Africa, in Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso in 2019. It’s not easy to photograph the people in these places.
Some still believe that cameras can steal a part of their souls, or that the images made in the camera can manipulate them. So, it wasn’t uncommon to see people hide their faces, or start shouting at me when I had my camera out. When children see a tourist with the camera, it must look like some scary fairground attraction. They usually want to show that they are brave enough to be photographed, but they still find it a bit scary. This can make the shoots a lot of fun for them and for me as the photographer. They ask you to take a photo of them, then try to hide themselves laughing.
So, the usual problem a photographer meets in such travels is that you can rarely make a staged photo session. You have to shoot where and when you have a chance. And the light can be harsh during daytime in Africa, so you often need to fix that in post. All of the editing for these photos was done in Lightroom – some toning, shadows and highlights correction.
Nevertheless, Africa provides photographers with many opportunities to create plenty of interesting shots.
Children from Ganvie lake village, Cotonou, Benin
