‘Aso
kan na ni mo wo kiri Lana ‘.. Jumoke the ‘model’ the Internet had been
searching for speaks almost no English. She explained how she had worn
the exact outfit in our photograph the day before and someone showed her
her own photograph on his phone from facebook. A mallam led her to my
studio that morning.
She
narrated her journey to lagos
…A hair stylist from Ire in Osun state but
not making enough profit between she and her husband, a sliding door
installer in from same village, to care for their two young children .
At
the invitation of a distant relative who knew someone operating a
bakery, she relocated lagos with her 14 month old daughter to give bread
hawking a try, leaving her husband and older 5 year old behind.
As
I listened to her I wandered if the beauty I had seen on my screen as I
edited my image was a fluke…well until she smiled, I realized that I
was wrong, I had in fact, underestimated the beauty of this 27 year old
woman. As always, it was her eyes and of course her perfectly chiseled
features that jumped out at you when she chuckled. This lady belonged in
front of my camera. After a conversation with her husband telling him
the story of our meeting I decided I was going to photograph her that
very afternoon.. Within an hour ..Bimpe Onakoya, one of Nigeria’s
leading makeup artist and Zubby one of my favourite hairstylist were at
my studio to work magic. They had both followed the story online and
were more than happy to put in their very best for her.
Olajumoke..,
with curly extensions out ,revealed a short natural Afro that
beautifully hugged her face.@Bimpeonakoya also had decided to keep the
make up minimal… She stepped in front of my camera and I almost couldn’t
recognize her. She moved different too. Jumoke looked straight into my
lens emoting like she had done this all her life …. I knew we had found a
star
