If fashion photographers are few in Kenya, then there’s at
least one who’s moving up and out so fast that she needs to be noted and
acknowledged now among her fellow Kenyans before she takes off to do photo-shoots
of ‘haute couture’ in Milan, London, Paris or New York.
Thandiwe Muriu may not yet be a ‘household name’ the same
way as local artists like Eric Wainaina and Sauti Sol are. But it won’t be long
before she’s more widely known, especially among her own generation of
globalized Kenyan youth in their twenties and early thirties.
For Thandiwe is only 26 and yet she’s already in high demand
among the country’s up and coming fashion designers and ‘fashionista’
trend-setters.
It’s hard to believe Thandiwe’s been a professional
photographer for the last ten years. But it’s no wonder once you know she
started to play with her father’s Nikon camera when she was barely out of a baby
cradle. Her father did photography as a hobby, and didn’t mind showing his
little girl how to hold his camera and even how to snap shots of any and
everything.
She says she’s been doing that ever since.
All through primary and secondary school, she was snapping
photographs whenever she had a moment. And once she opened a Facebook account,
she started posting her best images there.
It was through her Facebook page that she gained the public’s
attention, and by 16, she got a call to do a commission from someone who’d been
following her posted photos and liked them so much that he gave her a job.
“I didn’t have a clue how to value my work or how much to
charge, but I ended up getting Sh3000, which I was really happy about,”
Thandiwe told Business Daily when we met in Yaya Centre, just around the corner
from her studio.
From that point on, her destiny was sealed and she was told
she now qualified to be considered a ‘professional.’
But my first encounter with Thandiwe was at an art
exhibition curated by The Art Space’s Wambui Kamiru-Collymore. The show just
closed at the Lord Erroll Restaurant, but in a sense, this was rather like a ‘coming
out’ show for her, but not so much as a professional fashion photographer but
as a funky and fascinating contemporary Kenyan artist.
Sharing the ground floor walls of the Runda-based restaurant
(which is quickly becoming a showcase for ‘pop-up’ art exhibitions), Thandiwe’s
brightly colored images were hung side by side of one other funky photographer,
Osborne Macharia and two young award-winning artists, Elias Mungor’a and Aron
Buroya, both of whose art has won recognition and a bit of cash at annual
Manjano County Art competitions.
What makes her photos feel more like slightly surreal art
rather than photography is the way she blends color and design with a beautiful
face which, despite being subtly concealed behind sun-protecting shades, seems
to be looking at you so directly, so boldly that her look seems to demand that
you look right back.
At Lord Erroll, Thandiwe’s photos were too few, only about
four. Even so, they were captivating and confirmed that this young woman has an
eye not only for fashion but for creative expression which is bound to take her
places she is soon to discover.
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