For years I have been inspired and mesmerized by Mirella
Ricciardi, a female photographer who captured the true essence of Africa for
more than forty odd years and published some amazing work, the first of which
was Vanishing Africa in the early
1970’s. This was however not what caught my eye…
I was in my early twenties living in London and desperately
dreaming of home when I saw her book, African
Visions, in a quaint little bookstore in Covent Garden and not being able
to afford it at the time, I went back several times during the next few months
to page through it.I loved the grain of the film, the rawness of her images,
the sincerity and the way you could smell the dust when looking at her
photographs. I especially loved the front cover showing her gently posing a
woman. She brought “portraiture” to Africa before many others did and she found
a connection like no other.
One of the very first things I bought years later when
arriving back in Africa was a copy of this book!
PS: All images courtesy of good old Google!
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