We have to learn to put ourselves first – Yetunde Babaeko, advertising photographer, artist

Yetunde Babaeko was born in 1978 in Enugu, Nigeria. After completing her German Abitur,(A-Levels), she studied photography with a major in advertising at the prestigious  Studio BE in Greven, Germany. Yetunde completed her studies and joined  Ess-Ay Studio in Lagos  and later seconded for a year from Invent in Germany, an organisation that supports students on internship. She enrolled at the Macro Media, a school for Art and Design in Onsnabruek, Germany in 2004, and returned finally to Nigeria in 2005 to pursue a career in photography. By 2007, Babaeko had set up Camara Studios in Ikeja, Lagos, focusing on commercial advertising photography.

She has taken part in numerous exhibitions, including Body Landscape in 2008, and two photography exhibitions at the Omenka Gallery in 2009/2010.

People in the art and advertising industry deeply respect her professionalism and her body of work is impressive. But what makes the beautiful face behind the lens tick? She had a chat with Chibuzo Ihegboro of The Nigerian Xpress at her Camara Studios.

 

An overview of your person?

I am a photographer, a Nigerian-German. I did all my schooling in Germany, and I studied advertising photography in Germany. I was supposed to be in Nigeria for six months for my internship. That was my plan initially, but things turned out differently and I saw a niche in Nigeria. You can imagine abroad, there is a lot of photographers, a lot of advertising photographers, but coming here, I saw that there was a gap; there was a demand. Back in 2004, there was a lot of advertising agencies already doing some great stuff but they didn’t have a lot of advertising photographers here. So, I just jumped in and started working from home.

First I interned with SA Studios; it was an organisation owned by the Adegunwas. They took me in that six months period. That was where I now went from ad agency to ad agency. I met a lot of potential clients in those six months. Then I decided that I would stay in Nigeria. I just quickly went to Germany, packed my things, tidied up and came back to Nigeria where I now started working from home, as a freelance photographer. Not having a studio meant I needed to go to people’s places, so I could work from houses.

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I did more of family shoots, video shoots and I covered events. That was easy. Once in a while, I’d transform a living room into a studio and then I realised that I couldn’t continue like that. It was two or three years later that I had to manage to rent a studio. Then the idea was also to start the studio not with my name.

There is a particular reason I didn’t call my studio Yetunde Ayeni Babaeko Studio. I wanted it to be a neutral place. I wanted it to be an entity where a lot of photographers can come together and work. I didn’t want people to expect me to always be there because also I am a mum and I can’t do everything by myself. I am a really good team player. That is why I said okay, let’s have Camara Studios. Hopefully, a few years down the line there will now be some branches and franchise.

Later on, I also wanted to establish myself as an artist and then I decided that there should be a face to it and what I now did was I started doing some more artistic works that fulfill me as an artist. I realised that that this is not something I can infuse with Camara Studios, because in Camara Studios, you have the family shoots, commercial works and advertising agencies and now, all of a sudden, some fine arts works. Where does it fit in? It is not good to mix. And I said let me start Yetunde Ayeni Babaeko Photography, that is my name.

This is what I stand for. With that, I have been able to do some exhibitions. I worked together with organisations, charities and NGOs as an artist. I have my photographers doing photography shoots, which I still supervise. I am not out of it entirely. I still need to be there, but then I create time for my artistic work.

For a person wanting to go in this line of business, what do you need to set up apart from education?

What I always tell people who want to go into photography is first of all analyse; you really have to do some self-reflection on who you are, what you love to do and that will now determine what you need. Bear in mind, there are different aspects to photography – Documentary photography, Advertising photography, Event photography, Family photography, etc. These aspects all have clear distinctions in their operations. So, if you truly want to go into photography, first of all, determine and finalise on what kind of photographer you want to be.

I also know that you also train female photographers and have a lot of them working for you, tell us about this.

Women in photography have their struggles and peculiar challenges. I am well aware of these and that is why I have always liked to work with my fellow women. In the past, we have had workshops for women only and we got some backlash from men that felt discriminated but we didn’t care because I felt that as women sometimes when women are together with men, they speak a different language. In photography, men are more technical while we women focus on emotions.

So, a lot of time, women are overruled by men in the industry. So, it was beautiful organising these workshops and working with them. And also, I have a lot of women interning here as well, just wanting to learn.

I also know you work with children, catching them young; what are some of the things you have done with children?

Yes, funnily, I don’t know what it is. People keep asking and I would say send them over, but I think it is also a bit of time. It is difficult with children; I know it from myself.  After school they are supposed to do homework, then, children you need to drive them around, they cannot come here alone. Well, I think it’s just the infrastructure that makes it a bit difficult for the children and working with them.

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Having to come back home to Nigeria, you have your German background. How was it, merging the two cultures through the eyes of the lens?

Coming from Germany, it was quite interesting, but it was also an advantage because most of the things I saw with fresh perspective. I had never seen somebody frying things by the roadside or chickens running around. Things that were normal for you, for me, it was totally strange and I was just taking pictures of people running on the street. And people said that the way I was  capturing these things added a sort of fresh perspective to it. It helps to enter a place with a fresh eye.

Also, I had an exhibition in 2013, called Itan. It was a chronicle of what shocked me when I initially came to Nigeria, the way Nigerians marry religion, the Christianity and the fetish; how they can put everything under one heart. I was surprised by that, especially when I traveled to the villages and I saw that on Sundays people would go to church in the morning but later they would sacrifice chicken on a mountain. That was totally strange to me. And out of that, all the stories about mammy water, babalawo,

I now created a body of work that was inspired by that. I was inspired by the culture. What people took for granted in Nigeria for me was strange, so, I involved it in my photography, Itan. I am more based in Lagos than anywhere else. Lagos is still my centre and Lagos provides a backdrop for creativity and I have no regret coming into Nigeria, a very interesting place and the motivation that is going on here, I don’t think I would have gotten that in Germany.

When you take some of these works outside the country, I would like to know how people perceive us. Some of the things that you said are interesting; how do they react to some of these images when you take them abroad?

They love it. Foreigners are actually the ones who buy most of the works. Like I have curators here that set up exhibitions. Most of the clients, the people that acquire artworks, unfortunately, are still expatriates. Some Nigerians definitely appreciate art, but if I count the majority, it will be expatriates.

There was a time, we didn’t really appreciate what we have. Everybody tried to copy the trend coming from the West, but we got to a time when we started to appreciate what we have in our music and movies. It is like a consciousness, in terms of our music and fashion, now we proudly wear Ankara and Adire.

Now if you are talking to photographers on how to make impressions, especially when they are exhibiting abroad, what are the kind of things that people should look out for that would interest people that are coming from outside?

It is a new era now. Like you said, before we would go out outside and buy all the expensive Prada and Gucci things and spend our money on international products. Now it’s like we are proudly African, now it’s a new vibe and its definitely high time. And I also think that the people from abroad are encouraging us to do that.

For instance, they listen to us speaking to our children and they wonder why are you speaking English to your children, shouldn’t you be speaking your native language to them. So, I encourage everybody to jump on that bandwagon because other countries are not doing it differently, they are putting themselves first, so we also have to learn to put ourselves first.

What do you have for 2019?

There is another project I am doing with an NGO. We are expecting the exhibition to hold in July. Camara Studios will also be going on into videography, music video and all that. As a photographer it is the next thing to do.

Have your works been shown on international art platforms?

International art platforms, per se, no. Online, yes. Other organisations abroad, America, Germany have shown my works; there was one time a photography magazine featured me in Germany.

Two years ago, you started Mara Models, how has it been ?

I am not a model. As a photo studio, we always have models coming in. We are always dealing with models. It’s either because we need them for a job or they want to shoot their portfolio. They are always here. We are not a model agency per se. It is not like we are making big contract with models.

Because of this, we decided, let’s work with them. Whenever we have jobs, we groom them and put them in the jobs. We have professional trainings and workshops with them. We just try to keep very good relationships with models. And also not mix it up with Camara Studios, we called it Mara Models.

Has it been what you expected?

Yeah, its good because a lot of time we have clients, they like to have the inside recommendation from the photographer, which models fit these jobs best.

What makes a good photograph?

Sharpness, composition and colours. But I think that generally, if somebody looks at your picture longer than 10 to 20 seconds, know that that is a good picture. If it brings some message across to the person and the person spends time to look at it, then it is a good photograph. A totally blurred image can still be a good image if the message comes across, then you can start to build a conversation with the spectators.

Wedding photography is one major area that interests people so much these days – the pre-wedding shoot, especially. Do you see that sector as lucrative?

Yes, weddings, especially, in Nigeria will never go out of style. People will always engage photographers for their weddings. There is nothing to fear about that. It is not artistry-minded. I can see that wedding photographers keep reinventing themselves – their styles, their products. What they can offer after the wedding to the clients, after it and before the wedding… they are always very highly creative.