If I could say everything with words, I wouldn’t have picked up a camera —David Du Chemin
This shaped the vision of a young Nigerian, Eti-inyene Akpan, whose major mission is to document things as it happens naturally in their environment especially routine events and places that most people won’t bother to look into to create stories with images and leave a legacy.
“I will like to capture every moment of the everyday lives of people, a lot of us do wait until it’s too late or almost too late to capture the lives or those moments that are important to us. I’m not just talking about birthday parties and weddings which are both important; but everyday life, especially the everyday lives of people, places and activities we may not bother about.”
The vision to him is not newly found though photography was not a talent in the family but as a child that grew up with two beautiful elder sisters, he fell in love with photography while acting as their in-house photographer and while they deleted many of his shots for not being perfect, he learnt to get the hang of taking excellent pictures using a mobile phone.
“I never knew that it was a learning process for me. I thank God I was open to their corrections and feedbacks and in the process, my love for photography was birthed. I remember I was still taking photography as a hobby (it’s still my hobby) when one of my mentors counseled me to go into it professionally because my pictures were unique. And now, I’m so proud that I did follow my passion in photography as a professional.
Why documentary photography? “I went into documentary photography even when I don’t have a digital camera by documenting people, places, and events with a smart phone. But now, I’m proud of how far God has brought me. I do documentations with a digital camera now and I hope to get more gadgets soon.”
He believes that documentary photography is an important tool of reserving history, sharing emotional truths and often inspiring positive change in the society while raising awareness on societal issues like cultures, poverty, rape, slave trade and tourism among such issues to reshape the public opinion.
“Documentary photography proves to me that quality pictures can change the world we live in. It helps us to capture and tell the stories of almost everything around us and keeping them for future references. Documentary photography has a huge role in society; which is the power to preserve and compile some form of visual evidences,’ he said.
His vision is however not cheap to pursue as he admits that it has been tough because photography gadgets runs into millions of naira and travel involved in projects is expensive
“Documentary photography is one of the most demanding aspects of photography. It demands our finance, time, attention, and almost everything. One of the challenges I face most times is that the public aren’t enlightened about the kind of job that we do. The moment they see you with a camera on the streets, they immediately see you as someone that is jobless or is taking photographs to perpetrate some form of evil.
“We get embarrassed by people that should protect us like the police and selling our projects to clients that will need it the most is not easy. For now, I haven’t gotten any sponsors yet and we are looking forward to having sponsors that will appreciate the work we do and the efforts we put in place in documentary photography,” Inyene explained.
But he has learnt a lot from observing people. “I have learnt to respect and appreciate people the more; I have met people from different walks of life, gone to a lot of places and events and this has opened my mind to new and better things. My journey as a documentary photographer has taught me to be more thankful for what I have and to love the more by seeing everyone as my brother and sister.
And in his journey as a photographer, he has worked with both private and corporate organizations; he documented the 2017 Akwaaba Travel Market, The Social Prefect Tours, The DARE Experience, 2017 Breast Awareness Project organized by The Woman of Worth Foundation and recently, the 2017 Lagos Street Carnival.
and then