100 Women: Nigeria weddings captured by iPhone
- Published
Photographer Glenna Gordon has been documenting weddings in Nigeria, with a particular focus on female wedding guests. As well as formal photography, she has captured many intimate moments with her iPhone.
Glenna Gordon says: "Nigerian weddings are a lot like Nigeria: big, noisy, and lots of fun. The music is loud and the food is spicy. Nothing is muted in Nigeria, and that is especially true at weddings."
"Some are huge, opulent affairs while others are modest parties," says the photographer, who has worked across West Africa.
"But regardless of scale, everyone dresses their best to celebrate the joining of two families."
"Wedding guests dress as elaborately as the brides and grooms. Most weddings have some version of “family cloth”, or aso-ebi in Yoruba, a language widely spoken in the south."
"All the bride’s friends will wear one cloth, her mother’s friends a different cloth, and the groom’s friends will follow suit too."
"As a documentary photographer, at first I found these weddings disorienting: so many people, so much music, everyone looking somewhere else, no apparent order to the chaos. But as is always the case, there was a rhythm and an order - it just took me a while to find it."
"I wanted something more intimate, too - to find that individual and have a moment of connection in the middle of frenetic celebration."
"Using my iPhone helped, as big professional cameras can create a barrier between the wedding guests and me - especially with young girls."
"The boys are quick to jump in front of my lens and demand, “Snap me! Snap me!” but often the young girls would hang back."
"With my iPhone, it was just like their friend snapping a picture to post on Facebook. In some cases, I would use both my iPhone and my SLR, but the iPhone portrait was almost always better. "
See more of Glenna Gordon's photographs by following her on instagram @glennagordon. And show us your shots using the hashtag #100Women.