Depth of Field in London

Rhythms of Obalende From Okereke’s Lens
As photographic studies go, the city of Lagos is a sprawling subject.  But with six committed and talented members, the creative artists and photographers’ collective, Depth of Field (DOF), seems well up to the task.  

Emeka Okereke, awarded the Young Photographer prize at the Bamako African Photography Biennale in 2003, joined the collective that same year.  His pictures of Obalende were part of DOF’s exhibition at the South London Gallery.  He flew into the UK with other members of the collective for the opening of the exhibition.

Okereke’s contribution comprises 12 black and white images, giving meaning to the transient space of Obalende, Lagos.  He also renders people who would otherwise be lost in the hustle and bustle of the area into poignant still lives, captured powerfully and beautifully on camera.  The choice of whether to take photographs in black-and-white or colour - is never a deliberate one, as he explained: “It depends on how it turns out, I try not to restrict myself.”

A great believer in the power of the collective, Okereke let it be known that the group is strong, not because of one member but because of the whole.  Friendship is key: “DOF is all about using the advantages of friendship to bring about positive values.”  The artist has a real understanding of his subject, and knows that the only constant thing in Lagos, is change.  “We realise that we are at a point where things are changing so rapidly in Lagos,” he said, pointing out that “vibrant places” like Oshodi, CMS and Obalende are being cleared out by the authorities, who want these areas to look like Europe. 



He accepts the vision behind the clean-up, but is unconvinced as to the implementation.  “You feel they are not tackling the problems from the roots,” he explained.  Okereke’s sympathies lie with the ordinary people uprooted in the clearing up campaigns.  “The people came to settle in these places as a result of a gradual process.  When you chase everybody out and demolish everything, where do you want the people to go; what do you want them to do?”  Adding that some of those concerned have been in situ for three or four years, he asserted that initiatives can only be acceptable when those affected are properly factored in, by the authorities.  As it is, “They don’t really put into consideration that they are taking away lives… people’s livelihood, whereas, that should be the starting point.”

This got Okereke talking about the role of a collective like DOF.  The artist-photographer conceded that “photography cannot change anything, really.”  In a place like Lagos, “things are already changing by themselves,” he stressed.  “We are actually at a point where there is a huge contrast between what is now, and what will be, in the next five minutes.”  He recalled being away from Lagos for six months last year, only to return to find that much had changed.  

Okereke puts much of the transformation down to democracy, thanks to which everything is changing, including the music and movie industries.  The impact is being felt too, in the field of photography.  “Everybody has been given the freedom to express himself or herself,” he observed, reporting that: “We are finding that we can now go further in, to make pictures in some ‘deadly’ places - without getting robbed.”  It all sounds exciting, and he sees DOF at the centre of the flux, saying: “Ours is to document this change.”

The sensitivity to change is evident in much of the photographer’s work, on view in the exhibition.  A picture in which a young girl strikes a happy pose in Obalende is so delightful that the poverty around her is hardly noticeable.  Okereke had photographed the girl in 2004, and saw her again just two days before coming to London for Africa 05.  The girl had grown and did not recognise the photographer, but was overjoyed when he gave her N200; the little sum seemed too much, because she needs so little.  According to the artist, “This is a challenge to people who live here (Britain) and think that they cannot do without all these gadgets and technology.”  

Okereke is unfazed by criticisms that DOF is showing the bad sides of Lagos.  He spoke of a French friend of his who, having visited Nigeria for the first time, went back to Europe with the realisation that many mod cons are unnecessary.  “That is what we are trying to stir up in people,” he said.  “If people can live like this (pointing at his photographs) and still smile…” Okereke’s voice trailed off, to be replaced by a smile hinting at the satisfaction he gets from capturing theses lives on camera.

Studying the photograph of a young man-about-town in Obalende, I commented about the dignity of the subject, who makes no apologies for himself and feels confident about his place in the world, almost making the viewer feel inferior in front of the photograph.  Okereke agreed, saying of the man: “You can’t pity him, because there is nothing you can pity him for, even with all your gadgets.”  Another image records the scene of an argument, conveying what it is like to be in Obalende.  In Okereke’s experience, “If you stand at one spot for five minutes, something will happen.  it’s a vibrant place.”  The argument in question was just one of 20 or so witnessed by the photographer on the day.

The picture of an old woman dozing off behind the wares she is offering for sale, got the photographer thinking that, if he had a mother that age, he would want her to have an easier life.  He conceded, however, that the woman in the picture had no choice, and probably had many mouths to feed.  “This is the situation of life in Lagos.”

There are images documenting the commerce of Obalende.  One, of a girl selling ‘Pure Water’ has in the background a bridge on which an advertisement for ‘Famous Blood Tonic’ is clearly visible.  Nothing in the picture is accidental.  As a concept, it conveys a powerful message.  “It boils down to the fact that we can’t do without this ‘Pure Water’, it’s like blood tonic to us.  But it’s the unhealthiest water to drink, really; blood tonic that will kill you, actually.”

An interesting close-up picture of a young lady, turned out to be of Okereke’s girlfriend.  It was never meant for public viewing, until the exhibition curators saw it and expressed a strong wish to display it.  The image raises questions as to whether the photographer would have taken such a picture of a stranger.  Not likely.  “Intimacy comes into play,” he said knowingly.  “The best shots are always when you take pictures of people you know, who you are very close to.”

A ‘Trip’ To Kuramo with Zaynab
Toyosi Odunsi is one of two females in the artist-photographers’ collective, Depth of Field (DoF), whose pictures of Lagos were exhibited at the South London Gallery, as part of Africa 05.

I was looking forward to putting a face to Toyosi’s name and work, but arrived at the gallery to find everyone calling her Zaynab. “That’s my Islamic name,” she explained. “I am trying to be a better Moslem.” People are always surprised to learn she is a Moslem, and so she hopes the change to Zaynab will make her religious persuasion clear to people at the outset, clearing up any confusion.

She noticed I’d written the name with an ‘e’ - and so took the pen to spell it correctly, as “transliterated from Arabic.” Zaynab was one of the wives of the Prophet Mohammed, she informed me.  She has embraced the name, not to make a political statement, but to better express her faith.  This, she suggested, is also good for Depth of Field as a group, since all six members come from different religious backgrounds. “Hopefully, it will reflect better in our image as a group as we go along,”



The DoF exhibition includes 19 images by Odunsi, showing characters on Kuramo Beach, Lagos.  She started her study of Kuramo by photographing a woman known as Mama Africa, who then introduced her to many of the commune’s inhabitants.  The artist invests a lot of time in getting to know individuals before working with them, describing her approach as that of “a very nosy person” who wants to know everything about would-be subjects.  Looking at the images, Odunsi said: “These people, I knew them for months and months,” before they posed for her.  She shows the youths on the beach her photographs taken of them, and gives regular slide shows of the same, to reassure them of her good intentions.

Many of Kuramo’s young ladies ply their trade as pole-dancers in the highly competitive atmosphere of the beach’s nightlife. They have to be resourceful and look very good to draw the attention of customers, including expatriates with hard currency.  Odunsi captures one such female - a girl of only fifteen years - on camera. Like most girls on Kuramo, she is not from Lagos, but came in from another part of the country to earn a living on the beach. “It’s so unfortunate… I guess Lagos is supposed to be so much better for them,” the photographer said.  Odunsi’s work can be revelatory to the girls, many of whom have self-doubt issues.  And seeing themselves in the artist’s pictures, they often wonder aloud: “Is that what I look like?” Whatever the facts might suggest, the artist stressed that the people she photographs, “are not sad” human beings.

She is fiercely protective of her subjects, insisting that a female in one picture is not a prostitute. “She is a hairdresser,” said Odunsi, explaining that the young lady works on the other side of the beach but crosses over regularly, “to come and shine her eye.” I put it in plain terms: “She comes to get high.” The photographer became anxious, displaying an admirable understanding, and responsibility, for her subjects.  “I see these people, I go there and do a lot of work with them. I feel funny if they are labelled as ‘prostitutes’ or ‘they smoke igbo’ (marijuana). There’s far more to them than that.”

Odunsi is very fond of the beach community and its inhabitants. “It’s such a nice place to hang out,” she said, talking of the “really chilled side” of Kuramo, where Mama Africa lives, and the other side with over 30 bars. But it is a community under threat, and the authorities regularly appear to break down structures.  As a result, the landscape is never the same from one month to the next, and Odunsi’s pictures are important records of the place and its people, at particular points in time. It fits perfectly into how she sees herself. “I am a documentary social image maker,” she declared. “Very rarely do I call myself a photographer.”

Thanks to the generosity of Kuramo’s residents, Odunsi gets free refreshments, never pays for parking, and is protected from the more aggressive bar customers.  The artist would like to give something back to the community, citing the example of a dancer whose ambition is to have her own hairdressing salon. “I dream of an occasion where we could show these pictures - with the consent of the girls - in a public arena and some images could be sold and the money ploughed back into the community.”

Her vision for DoF, is for more people to see the work that the collective is doing on Lagos.  In her view, most Lagosians do not care that much for the city, “But as soon as you say you are doing something about Lagos elsewhere in the world, people are so genuinely interested.” She would like a greater awareness in the city’s residents , about some of the issues raised in the collective’s work.

Odunsi argued for better societal understanding, for those who live in places like Kuramo.  “I just want people to be more compassionate… about the way other people live,” she urged.  She believes the emphasis should not be on “how they are all drug-takers and asewos (prostitutes).”  The artist’s advice to visitors to Kuramo is simple: “If you are going to be surrounded by poverty, why go there with your expensive designer clothes?” In short: “If you have things to show off, please leave them at home.”

The artist believes that photography can have a positive effect on people’s attitudes.  I told her about a picture I took, of a row of Okada (moped) riders in Abeokuta last year, titled ‘Baba Ezekiel’s Lot’. As I photographed the men, I could hear two women behind me, commenting on the scene. “Won ma n ya awon Baba Ezekiel ke?” one of the women mocked, surprised that Okada riders were worth photographing. “Ehn, enia saa ni won,” replied the other, underscoring the fact that Baba Ezekiel and his fellow Okada riders “are people too.”

Zaynab Odunsi loved the story. “You see?” she enthused, “you tell someone a story about ‘Baba Ezekiel’s Lot’ - that image ceases to be just a picture, it becomes an entire story. That is the power.”  She hopes that, “with the images that we (DoF) make, telling the stories behind these people’s lives,” Lagosians will learn to show more compassion for those around them - including the dwellers of so-called ‘seedy’ beach communes like Kuramo.

Meeting sculptor Tapfuma Gutsa elsewhere later, he told me he’d bumped into ‘Toyosi’ on a London street earlier that day. He recognised her from the Photography Biennale in Dakar, Senegal. Gutsa was attending the DoF exhibition opening party later in the evening, and rushed off in order to make the event.  I forgot to tell him that ‘Toyosi’ now prefers to be called Zaynab. He would find out soon enough.

Amaize Ojeikere - Camera on Clustered Lagos
One might not expect comparisons between the works of El Anatsui and Amaize Ojeikere - one of the creative-photographers' collective, Depth of Field (DoF).  This however, was the case with some of his contributions to DoF's exhibition, held at the South London Gallery as part of Africa 05.

Studying Ojeikere’s images of varied items on sale in Lagos markets, art historian Elsbeth Court, spoke of the resonance with 'Sasa' - from Anatsui’s metal-cloth series.  Like the rest of DoF and unlike Anatsui, Ojeikere’s work focuses on the city of Lagos.  To Court however, Anatsui “may not be a Lagosian, but I think he has a lot of Lagos in him.”

The connection related to the two artists’ representation of clusters.  Whilst Anatsui’s metal-cloths incorporate thousands of discarded bottletops, Ojeikere uses his camera to capture similarly clustered creations of a different kind.  

A picture of name-tags alerted one to the fact that, although there were six DoF artists in the exhibition, there were no labels to help distinguish the works of one from another.  Ojeikere pointed out that this was in keeping with the style of the gallery: “It allows you to have a feel of the work; you just experience it, and leave with that experience.”  And as there was a change of mood as the viewer moved around the gallery from one artist’s work to the next, labels were not needed.

For now, my attention was on Amaize, son of a famous photographer father (J.K Okhai Ojeikere), and member of DoF since its inception in 2001. His work in the exhibition comprised 12 images on the ambitious subject of Lagos, and comment on: “What I call population explosion and congestion within our cities.”



With population explosion and congestion comes chaos and disorder; factors always identified in discussions about Lagos.  But in the apparent chaos, there is a certain order that makes the city work.  Ojeikere is attentive to this sense of ordering and patterning of the objects of everyday life.   His Cluster Series of images are used to explain not only the congestion of the African city and the associated problems, but also what he describes as “the beauty of what you see in terms of space management.”  The pictures, he explained, are a way of “talking about the lives of these people (in the images), who are sometimes regarded as nothing in our society.  

To Elsbeth Court, Ojeikere’s images provide an interesting commentary on the use of material culture.  Looking at a picture of shoe cobblers, she observed that: “You would have to go to the cobblers to see them here (London).” But on a Lagos sidewalk, they show “a different way of organising the world.”  Court also noted the “juxtaposition of old and new” in the work - and in Lagos itself - as represented in a picture of ragged pepper-grinders next to another image of watches for sale.

The ‘Pepper-Grinder’ image is from Ojeikere’s Market Series - studying “our lives and what happens in the marketplace,” according to the photographer.  “In a way, our lives are just like a marketplace where we come to buy and sell, make friends and have all kinds of relationships.”  He observed that despite the importance of the market in the people’s lives, nobody takes it all that seriously - perhaps because of its informal nature in most African countries.  “This is the situation in which we find ourselves,” the artist noted, “and the work in a way explains it.”

Court also found another Anatsui echo in Ojeikere’s images of 1004, Lagos.  “We’ve seen it in Anatsui’s panelwork and to see here - what it actually looks like - is fascinating.”  Looking at one image of kegs stacked together outside a 1004 building, I thought it illustrated how those on the margins of Lagos society gradually encroach upon the lives of privileged residents.  The reality was more direct, as Ojeikere volunteered the truth about the kegs in 1004. “That is their water supply.”  Also, the image “explains the problems that we have in our society.  We go ahead and build these lovely places and sometimes, we don’t maintain them.”

‘1004 Water Supply’ also illustrates that people need each other.  “This is 1004!” stressed Ojeikere, pointing at the high rise buildings in his picture first, and then at the lowly kegs.  “That water supply must get to the 16th floor,” he continued, “but it will not get to the 16th floor through the children of those who live up there.  Someone has to be paid to take that water upstairs.  But they don’t live there, they live somewhere else.”  

The people of 1004 may seem removed from the rough and tumble of Lagos life, but their's is also a clustered place.  To Ojeikere, the lesson of the water kegs, is a simple one.  “We need each other.  We must understand that - whether you are rich or poor.”  And just as a rich man needs the poor man and vice versa, so also: “Rich nations need poor nations; and poor nations need rich nations.”

Whether it is the image of bottles of potions stacked on the shelves of a ramshackle stall in ‘Dr Know All’, or hundreds of name tags or watches, the work - in showing so many things crammed into so little space - is representative of cluttered spaces and lives, in many different ways.  One could almost put in place of the items, thousands of people stuck together.  Ojeikere expanded on the idea of connectedness: “We are interwoven in our lifestyles.  So, whether we like it or not, we have to acknowledge that and appreciate it too.”

Another in the Market Series, ‘Across The Railway’, was taken at Oshodi on a dull, rainy day, and shows the blurred image of a hawker, with a clearer, sharply focused background of dirt and poverty.  Does the hawker symbolise many people, since he is almost like a ghost?  No, said the gently insistent Ojeikere.  The image, in fact, merely captures the essence of DoF as a collective; since Depth of Field describes a point of sharpness, at the background or the foreground of a picture.

Further still on the image, the photographer said: “This is the beauty in ugliness that we are showing here.  We are trying to talk about the problems we have in a very jocular manner.”  The idea is that issues should be addressed in a way that conveys the seriousness of the situation, but one which also allows the viewer to find something to laugh about.

Ojeikere features in one photograph in the exhibition, snapped by fellow DoF member, Emeka Okereke.  Like others in the collective, Ojeikere is tuned to the fluidity of Lagos, and the ever shifting ‘permanence’ of the metropolis.  In time, he hopes his Cluster Series will record the little changes in the marketplace.  Small details matter, including how stall-owners stack their oranges one way.  Should someone introduce a small change, it could be a one-off, or it may very well catch on, leading to significant shifts in the ordering and patterning of the marketplace.  Whatever happens, Amaize Ojeikere will be on hand to capture it - hopefully.

Molara Wood

•    Depth of Field was at the South London Gallery, London, from 10 March to 8 May; and at the Open Eye Gallery, Wood Street, Liverpool, from 10 June to 30 July 2005.

•    Emeka Okereke- Published in The Guardian, Lagos, on May 29, 2005.