Lennox: A photographer on mission to change your idea of life through pictures

We have been talking about the need for community chats over in the African Visual Storytellers group and we decided to kick off the chats by opening up a session in our flagship program. Our cohort two mentor, Tatenda Lennox Makurumidze, is a self taught photographer based in Harare, Zimbabwe who tells African stories through conceptual photography.

Through the program Creative Business Studio he will be coming through to share his journey, and engage with photographers that may be facing some of the challenges he did in the early stages of his journey.

Unpublished is inviting you to join the session, but we thought you might want to get to know the photographer leading the conversation:

Meet Lennox who is a storyteller on a mission to change your idea of life through pictures while rewriting the narrative of African photography.

Read the rest of this newsletter to learn more about his views on photography through a series of questions we asked him:

What is photography to you?

Lennox: Photography is an art through which we can relay stories, culture and the African experience. I see it as a further developed form of art that was passed on to us from the days of rock painting where stories were captured in caves, to now preserving culture using the tech we have now. Photography captures, but we should take it a step further and shed light on the art aspect..

As a self taught photographer how did you venture into conceptual photography?

Lennox: I tell the stories about the things that are around me. That has been the easiest way for me to express my thoughts and feelings; becoming a commentator on all of my experiences. I live in a city filled with potential and stories so instead of following any rules, I create my own to give me free rein on how I share my views. This allows me to follow my instincts with hopes of creating something that the next person can relate to.

I think very few people understand the necessity of photography as an art for a nation. It can be used to capture the emotions and experiences of a nation for documentation purposes, but the art goes beyond that, supporting the preservation of cultural identity and views.

Photographs help us understand who we are as a people while encouraging us to imagine who we could become.

How do you balance your interests in documentary photography and conceptual photography?

Lennox:I am both a documentary photographer and conceptual photographer and have found that we tend to forget that documentary photography is broad. As an African photographer you need to understand that expression is about re-imagining or redefining terms. You need to challenge ideas, and find ways to challenge states of mind. Art is meant to unravel the mind in a way that forces you to see beyond its capability and feed the parts in you that you want to see – Like a better tomorrow or parts of you that you want to heal from the past experiences. There is more to photography as an art than just documentary photography.

In what ways do you think African photographers need to be supported?

Lennox: We need to help digital content creators and we need to especially help photographers see that the world is bigger than their own experience. I wish someone has told me to that my imagination is the limit.

I have received support along the way: people offering me even the smallest of things like old lenses or old memory cards. Photography is a medium to tell stories of art experience and human emotion and supporting a photographer in anyway you can will help someone share their narrative.

Would you like to engage with Lenox the Photographer?

Register to attend the (free) session

Date: 13 July 2023

Time: 7PM CAT / 6PM WAT / 8 PM EAT

Registration Link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEufuirrTIqHtSPQytRc3QiMGB22XrAnqE-

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We hope to see you in the session!