Born in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria, to a Nigerian father and German mother, Fashion photographer, Yetunde Ayeni-Babeko, moved to Germany as a schoolgirl and embarked on a photography apprenticeship majoring in advertising photography at “Studio Be” in Greven, Germany. In 2004 she returned to Nigeria and joined Essay Studio program in her paternal homeland. Subsequently she enrolled at Macromedia School for Art and Design in Osnabrueck, Germany and later opened her own studio in Nigeria.
She has worked closely with the Goethe Institute in Lagos and facilitated numerous photography workshops looking at women’s empowerment and healthcare, with a focus on cancer survivors. Yetunde Babeko Her exhibitions convey stories, symbols and sometimes, movement. Her work is in many important collections and she has exhibited her photographs in Europe and Nigeria.
From 2013-2015 she focused on a critically acclaimed project on dance in Lagos, called Eko Moves. Ayeni-Babaeko’s works have been shown in an exhibition at the Wheatbaker Hotel Lagos titled, WANDERLUST. “As an artist, I’ve worked so much with many notable curators in the likes of Sandra Obiago who has been curating my exhibitions. I have 7 works (contemporary photographs) in the ongoing exhibition, WANDERLUST. The works discuss my personal journey in life. I work with Photoshop a lot. There’s a technique in Photoshop where images are distorted or arranged or rearranged to suit a particular message.” The stunning artist’s work titled Reconstruction caught the fancy of many at the opening of that exhibition.
On what informed the photograph, she was quick to explain that “There is a piece I read somewhere, I think on the net, which says don’t be afraid to fall apart because after you’ve fallen apart you have a chance to put yourself together again the way you want to be. That meant so much to me because I’ve gone through so much in life, and I know everyone has gone through phases such that you think you’ve fallen apart, shattered, but you can put yourself together again. If you break, you won’t die. That piece was psychological and spiritual.”
Commenting on how much art has evolved in Nigeria, Babaeko said that “Couple of years back when you talk of Nigerian art and what people sought, it was just about painting calabash, women feeding their babies: that kind of art. It was very one sided, I don’t want to say shallow. Now I’m a friend of collaboration and we are now collaborating a lot. It’s interesting. There are different expressions and views now, and you can see that most works done now are no more one sided. That’s the power of collaboration. Also Nigerians love to travel a lot. We travel the most, and so most often, the interactions influence our expressions.” Having been an artist for more than 15 years, with breaks due to child bearing, she disclosed how set she is now to take on the world after launching back into the art industry.
Photography as a genre, according to Yetunde, has and is still having its own ups and downs. Although for her, it’s been worth it, she hinted that “When I started it was analogue no digital. I experienced the analogue years before it transformed to digital. In Analogue photography we were restricted in terms of expressing ourselves and also slowed down. But then, what you think is a plus can also be a minus. With digital photography it’s easy to get a good picture. Everybody can be a photographer once you have a camera. So as a professional photographer, you have to take it further, explain to people why they should patronize you, why you are different from the others. This has not made the life of photographers easier because we need to be better, more creative than the others.”
On why she left Germany to base in Nigeria, she said, “I’m definitely not the first Nigerian who left abroad for home, we are many. It’s because we’ve been seeing opportunities here in Nigeria. So as a photographer you can’t imagine abroad, the market is congested. When I moved back here in 2004 as an advertising photographer, I was like one of the few advertising photographers in town. So there was opportunity. I met my husband and we started having children. So there was no need to think of going back. The good thing is that I still have my commercial studio called Camera Studios here in Ikeja where I focus on commercial advertising photography. It’s where my bread and butter come from. I’ve been working with other photographers abroad and when they see what we are doing here, they marvel. I know the infrastructure here in Nigeria is not favorable but the photographers here are very creative and are producing quality works, high standard works. We are creating amazing works in an environment that’s not favorable; that shows how far we can go. It will definitely become better in the near future.”
