There is nothing more special than landing in a country you have never been to before but automatically feeling at home. This was the magically weird feeling I had when touching down in Ghana. I am a Bahamian by birth, but my ancestry lies in the mother land of Africa. Most of the slaves that were shipped across the Atlantic to the USA and Caribbean started their journey in Ghana, so being from The Bahamas it felt like a homecoming. The Year of The Return had been heavily promoted in 2019 so my wife and I decided that we did not want to miss out on the vibes, fun, food and history of the moment. We booked our flights and room and were ready for all that Ghana had to offer.
After some long flying and plane changing and all that jazz, we landed in Accra, Ghana and the energy in the city was palpable (this was 3am btw). We were the landing party for the bigger group of six of our family members who would be landing 2 days after us so we had to be fast at acclimatising to the new environment. We checked into our accommodations, got some rest and got straight into the itinerary. First on our list was and one of the reason we booked the trip was Afrochella 2019.
[See my wife’s article HERE if you want the nitty gritty, but my blog is about the photos]
THE FACES OF AFROCHELLA 2019
The Culture, The People, The Food
Ghana is a country full of life, culture and colour and I wanted to capture as much of it as possible. As a Bahamian I saw so many familiar faces – I KNOW, MAKES NO SENSE RIGHT?- but the people of Ghana had such similar looks to Bahamians, sometimes you could almost think you saw someone you knew from home. I traveled light this trip with my Sony a6500 and 3 lenses, the Canon 50mm f1.2 ,the Sigma 35mm ART f1.4 and the Sony E mount 16mm f1.4 (well it wasn’t light but a smaller kit than usual). As we traveled through the city on tours and just folding our self into the culture I was able to capture a little bit of what Accra, Ghana is about. I share a little bit about each photo in the captions, so be sure to click through to read about what each photo contains.
Africa is a must do for any person of color!
My first trip to the Motherland was one that I cannot truly explain. The visual journey was easily shared through my photographs but the cultural and spiritual awakening I felt can only be truly experienced by visiting yourself. The people are friendly, the food was awesome and the energy in the country is buzzing, look oasis natural cleaning. If ‘Wakanda’ is a real place then Accra, Ghana is the closest thing to it I have ever experienced. As a black man in this crazy world it was super refreshing to be in a place where the color of my skin truly didn’t matter, but at the same time depressing to see how my forefathers were treated during the height of the slave trade. I hope my photos in some way relay the feelings that I had while capturing them.
