Bello Braiin Benjamin, popularly known as Colored Boi, is the founder of Artdequate, an art-based community of visual artists, performing artists and literary artists. Ahead of a two-day photography storytelling class being organised by Artdequate for photography enthusiasts, themed FOTO KABA, Benjamin called at The Nigerian Observer offices in Benin City where he spoke to Godsblessing Okhueleigbe and Emmanuella Oko about the workshop and what to expect. Here are excerpts:
Could you tell us about Foto Kaba? What’s the event all about?
Okay, we are having an issue with the narrative of how stories are being told. There is a saying that if you don’t tell your story, the wrong person will tell it the wrong way. So, we try to create an environment where persons will be able to tell their stories the way it is; you know, if you wear a shoe, you know where it pinches you, you know where the suffering comes from, you know where the joy comes from. The probability that you are able to narrate it is the fact that this is happening directly to you. We are about telling our stories to the outside world, about what is happening within us and how it affects us. It’s just about narrative, we are here to bring the narrative, and that’s the purpose of this event.
Foto Kaba is a two-day programme that will focus on enhancing storytelling skills through interactive sessions and a practical workshop. This event is here to also refine storytelling through images in areas of photojournalism, documentary photography and street photography. It will also be held on 18th and 19th of April, 2024.
What is the motivation behind this event?
The motivation is the fact that persons want to learn but they don’t have the access to do so; no community for them, and even when they go online, they don’t understand what is being taught. Why? Because some persons like to receive a direct communication on learning as it helps them to learn faster. And what we are doing, we are building a community. This whole event is organised by Artdequate, an art-based community of visual artists, performing artists and literary artists, and when you work as a community, you tend to work faster and further in your career path. So, what we are basically doing is to create an avenue to meet industry professionals, sit down and get to learn for free, which is the motivation, and be able to tell the African story which is not the way they print it outside.
Who are the audience you aim to reach with this event?
We are working with photography enthusiasts, we are working with professionals, those that want to take it as a hobby or a career path, just come down and we’ll be learning from the basics to the professional side of photojournalism, street photography and documentary photography.
You mentioned photojournalism and photo documentary. Why do you feel this would be a good career choice?
It is a great career choice, not just a good career choice, because you get to tell stories from the personal point of view and you get to tell in your own style. It’s more of a commitment. Being a photojournalist, you tend to tell stories with pictures. So, I think one of the advantages is the ability to meet new persons, travel new locations to tell stories be it the good, the bad or ugly, irrespective of where you find yourself. So, it’s a craft for those persons that want to spend a career travelling around, reporting happenings around them, which is on the aspect of photojournalism. Then for the documentary, you get to put down historic events, take pictures and for years to come, some persons go back and be like, this work was taken by this particular person. So, we are about documenting the past, the present and the future. For photojournalism we are reporting everything that happened within the society, we get to tell the stories to those persons that have not heard it before, so when they see these images and they see these reports, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, so this thing just happened’, but they wouldn’t have got that idea if a photojournalist hadn’t reported that to them or told them that these are the sufferings. For instance, we talk about the sufferings in Israel currently and we’ve not been to Israel, and I think we get to know about the things happening because of some images we see online. This is as a result of photojournalism. Also, we’ve not been to some parts of Africa, but we’ve seen some pictures of some places and said, ‘Oh, I’d like to visit this place’. This is because persons have documented these places, these happenings for future references. So, as a career path, it’s a great choice to consider.
Will there be practical sessions with photography models around Benin City and who are the experts you are bringing onboard?
You are talking studio photography when you talk about models. The event is centred around street photography, photo journalism, and documentary photography. The professionals we are bringing are persons that are going to give firsthand knowledge to the participants, and there will be Q&A sessions. It’s a workshop, so it’s interactive and there will be questions and answers on issues being discussed. We have various courses that would be taking place throughout the two-day event. From the photojournalism class, there is an engagement class with the students. We’ll be having portfolio reviews during the two days for those into these three sections. You send in your portfolio for review and we train you on how to develop a better portfolio for vacant jobs outside. If you are a street photographer and you want to send out your works for reviews around the world, they will ask for your portfolio. So, for the purpose of this event, you send your portfolio down to us and we review it and make adjustments. We have professionals around, they’ll give you the guidelines on how to build a better portfolio to attract better jobs outside.
You asked about the experts we are bringing in. We’ll be working with at least seven facilitators. I’m the lead facilitator and there are six other persons like Edgarima, Ncourage, etc, coming in as guest facilitators that we will be working with for this whole event. It’s going to be one of a kind because there is a lot of knowledge to be shared.
What kind of distinct story telling do you expect to see from this event?
We have a theme we are building around for the aspect of photo storytelling and it’s called “The Sufferings will not be Televised”. What this means is that there are some sufferings that are actually going on within the country that we still don’t know about because these things are being kept a secret. We talk about all cases of abuses and others, shortage of food. We tell our audience to give us stories that deal with these subjects. What we do in Foto Kaba is if you bring your project on photojournalism and it’s addressing all these issues, when we go through the project, I’m talking about the professionals on ground during the photojournalism class, the work that is more detailed with much research carried out, we will have the story put out there for the world to see. These are part of the benefits being in the class. So everything is working towards that theme – the street photographers, the documentary photographers, the photojournalists are all working with the theme of “The Sufferings will not be Televised”.
