BOP PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE WEEK: KEMKA AJOKU

Kemka Ajoku is a British-Nigerian photographer, born and raised in London in 1998. He received his bachelor’s degree in Nigeria, where he also picked up a camera and developed his craft. Born and raised in London he decided to take up the challenge and moved to Nigeria to study for his undergraduate degree there. Although he was posting his photos on the VSCO page, he hadn’t thought about photography as a career path for the first three years he lived there. One day, however, he showed some of the pictures he took to his friends and they encouraged him to take it more seriously. And so he started learning all the basics of photography as a craft through YouTube videos.

He focuses on documenting Black life in both Nigeria and London. He photographed mostly his friends at first because with his introverted personality, as he describes himself, it was the easiest way to go about it. This stood in a way of realizing a project he long had in mind; a series we now know as We’re All Workers.

When the pandemic started, Ajoku saw it as an opportunity to finally start working on something he had planned for so long. He was staying with family and friends in Lagos, a city known for how hectic and competitive it can be.

His goal was to capture the real life of the locals. What they were doing in their everyday lives, and how they were coping with the lockdown? He knew this could only be achieved if he focused on the individuals rather than the city as a whole. And so, in 2021, he presented a series showing the side of Nigeria we have not seen before.