Georgina Goodwin is an award winning Photojournalist born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2015 alone she was nominated in four international competitions for her exceptional work capturing the diversity of Kenyan imagery - from Wildlife to the wilds of the city. Georgina’s passion takes her to places most photographers won’t venture, so she can capture stories as well as images. Currently Georgina combines her passion with assignments, personal projects include documenting the rise of cancer in Africa, climate change, anti-poaching, and looking at rape and religion in the Nairobi slums. UP asks Georgina what it is to capture a city like Nairobi, the challenges and opportunities, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Photography is the art of creating an image or a story from a collection of images where patterns, colour and light come together in the frame in a way that speaks to the viewer, waking them up to something bigger than themselves to experience something deep and beautiful in a unique way. An image that does that for me is an image that works and hopefully will be around forever. I strive for this with every frame I make. So is it skill, is it the eye or connection to humanity? It has to be all of these plus that little extra something, what’s known as the ‘X-factor’, that extra bit of magic that finds its way into ones work.
Photography is a perfect blend of art and science. Skill is the science – there is no excuse for not knowing all that is possible to know about ones camera, technology, methods of shooting, the theory of photography; and art – one’s eye, the ability to see moments as they unfold in front of our eyes and be able to frame and capture them as we intended.
When I’m behind the lens I look for the way colour and pattern come together to tell a story. Sometimes it can be a simple as telling a landscape story, of the city at dawn, as it wakes with the sun rising behind it. Always I try to tell a larger narrative, the narrative of inspiration, hope and beauty. It sounds like a cliché but really my on-going drive is to find a way through photography to connect to my fellow human beings by reminding us what
a beautiful place we live in, how important nature, clean air, space for our children to play, is in our lives.
I want my images to help us connect with our fellow humankind, to understand how their lives are and how important it is that we be our best so that we can make this world a better place for us all, especially our children.
I was born and raised in Nairobi city. The city I remember of the 1980s wasn’t particularly clean, there were still a lot of street boys in downtown Nairobi, a lot of street theft, but it was known as the “Green City in the Sun”, and indeed it was, filled with trees and it had an air of gold and green. Nairobi has always been beautiful because of its trees and open spaces. Unfortunately with the huge pace of development that is going on these days so many trees have been cut down and the spaces are now filled with shopping malls and apartment blocks.
Being a photographer in Nairobi city these days is not an easy task. Terrorist attacks have made it all but impossible to walk freely with a camera in downtown Nairobi without being arrested or questioned by the police or security personnel, so getting imagery of our beloved city can be a difficult task!What I love most about Nairobi is its green spaces and the colours – colourful clothing as people walk the streets, colourful kiosks, shop fronts, the spaces all around the city filled with trees, shrubs and flowers, and, once you gain their trust, the colourful stories of Nairobi’s people.
The city itself can be both beautiful and ugly in all it’s colours. Nairobi is beautiful in the morning when the sun is just coming up behind the skyline, the sky changes from deep purple to pink to orange to yellow to blue, birds roosting in buildings take to the skies, the hum of the traffic gets louder, the city wakes. Nairobi is beautiful in our springtime when all the Jacaranda trees blossom giving the city a blanket of purple, with the hustle and bustle of markets, kiosks, matumba clothes, fruit sellers.
For me Nairobi can be ugly when people are rude – in traffic and in passing. It’s ugly with belching smoke from the lorries and buses that pollute the air we need to breathe. Nairobi is ugly when we cut down the trees. Nairobi is ugly when we forget that we need the trees, the space and the clean air. I strive always to bring out the best of Nairobi, to remind people of its beauty so that we may remember its importance and protect it.
Shooting in Nairobi often means sitting on the back of aboda boda with my camera around my neck, bumpy roads, busy traffic, navigating how tophotograph past the driver. There’s always something going on in the city, or some new angle to capture. Photographing products and people on top of the KICC, with a 360 degree view of my home city all around me and the Ngong hills in the distance, is always a favourite.
I remember racing from one end of the 22nd floor of Nyayo House in downtown Nairobi to the other photographing President Obama’s motorcade for Agence FrancePresse was exciting and nerve-racking, the pressure of missing him, not getting good enough images from such a fleeting moment, and having to file the images to Paris straight away, alone on that whole floor just with my camera and laptop. Again for Agence France-Presse trying every conceivable route to find a way into Nairobi University grounds alongside literally thousands coming to see Pope Francis amidst canopies of umbrellas and heavy rain… that was a favourite experience but not an easy day!Definitely one of the things I do like is photographing a march or demonstration in downtown Nairobi.
It takes over the whole road, double lane highways thick with people with a mission, there is something exhilarating about having the City give way, cars and bystanders stop, the freedom to be there and document it is quite something.
Some of my favourite subjects to capture are women. I love shooting stories on women. There is something very special about being a woman photographing a woman’s story, an unspoken understanding and trust. The strength women show me, how they have overcome the odds, how they move through their life towards their goals.
As well as women’s stories I particularly enjoy shooting human stories – people lives how they live them where they live them, who they share their life with, what they feel they want to share from their experiences. I learn so much about myself through my photography I want to share the experience with other by connecting them to the lives of others through images.
There are so so many people out there who have incredibly difficult lives and yet they keep their smile and their dignity. It inspires me everyday.
Moving around the city as a white Kenyan girl with a camera isn’t always the easiest thing!It’s not so easy to blend in having white skin so not only does that attract attention but so does my big black camera. Mostly people just think I’m another mzungu from another country, I’m treated with caution, perhaps a little suspicion but always with respect. Once people know who I am, that I’m a Kenyan, yes a white one but a Kenyan nonetheless I have friends for life. I’m treated with real depth, love and warmth people open up their homes and their lives. I am humbled often.
It all began for me in 2005 when I was a host for Serian camp in the Masai Mara and I began to take an interest in photography. I began feeling the need to take photos, of course back then I had no idea what I was doing, I didn’t even know what an aperture was. I bought second hand photography books and photography magazines, I would pour through them trying to absorb as much as I could, even the adverts. I took hundreds of images over months submitting an image of a cheetah at sunset and a closeup image of a lioness staring into the camera at close range into two Kenya Wildlife
Photographer of the Year contests, one by TravelNews Mag and one by Kodak. I won both competitions. It was then that I thought perhaps I have something here, let me see how I can pursue it. I began by photographing the portfolios of young Kenyan models, and the KSPCA 2005 calendar. After that jobs came in, clients and jobs grew bigger and I just kept going. It’s now 11 years later and there is still so much still to learn, to accomplish, to experience and to share. It’s a mirror of my life, my photography keeps me travelling, connecting to people, learning new things about our world all the while giving me a platform to share what I experience. I use Canon 5D Mark III which is the most wonderful camera. Full frame sensor and very good quality images. My workhorse lens is 24-105mm which allows me to cover a range of focal depths, something very necessary given the wide range of assignments that I do and variety of types of images
my clients need. Also on assignments I use my 70-200mm lens which gives a very creative shallow depth of field, adding more variety for my clients.
I tend to use my fixed lenses, 24mm, 40mm and 50mm, when I’m working on my own personal photography projects because I have more time to create, think, look for and find the images I can work slower and with more assertion than when I’m in an assignment for a client who has a short and a deadline. Working with fixed lens makes me think more, to slow down and look for what images I can make from what im seeing using the focal length of that fixed frame.
There is so much still to capture in Kenya, so many stories to tell.
To see more of Georgina’s work go to www.georginagoodwin.com or follow her on instagram @ggkenya
