A group of Ghanaian photographers, led by Mawuli Sikanku, Nana Kwame & Teresa Menka, organized a volunteer, donate photograph session at Akuapem Tutu in Aburi, Ghana called Help-Portrait 2012. In partnership with the Trinity Home Academy Orphanage, Ghanaian photogs, yours truly included, took pictures for the hundreds of kids who were present. Ghanaian reggae rap sensation, Iwan was also present and gave the event some celebrity/media coverage.

The smiles the laughter and of course the sounds of numerous shutters from the Help-Portrait Ghana photogs who volunteered made last Christmas a special one for me.

The orphans were made-up and excited to be in front of the camera; everyone wants their beauty to be appreciated....

The amazing happened as the kids, most orphans, got comfortable in front of our cameras. I don't remember a more worthwhile cause to spend my December 24th at. Looking forward to the the Help-Portrait in whatever country I'm in on December 24th, 2013....

More pictures here: itake photos 1985 on Facebook

Three days to election day and everyone is gearing up for one of the most hotly contested elections in Ghana's history. Since 1992, there has perhaps not been as much media fervor and anticipation for a presidential election as this. The reported 32 radio stations based in Accra alone, and dozens of television station allow more avenues for discourse for everyone to be engaged in the political debate. The nationally televised and online broadcast presidential and vice-presidential debates notwithstanding, there are still a number of  young people I met at the Accra mall who were not intending to vote come Friday, December 7th 2012.

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Some of the young people I spoke with were skeptical about voting. A gentleman who is an employee at one of the businesses at the mall, and wants to remain anonymous, lamented that he could not return to his place of registration in the Volta region and come back in time for work. I pressed him further and asked if his employees gave the impression that his job would be threatened because of his absence and he admitted to the contrary, he did not think it was worth the hassle and would consider voting if it was more convenient for him to do so.

photo credit: emmanuel a. gamor

Jeffrey Tetteh Obese, the Operations Manager at Barcelos fast food eatery at the mall, was pleased to pledge to vote. He shared that the management at the mall sent letters to all shop renters and employers that the mall will not be opened before noon on Friday to allow employees and workers to exercise their right to vote. Whether the notice about the mall's late opening was trickled down to all employees is another matter.

Jeffery Tetteh Obese at the Accra Mall photo credit: emmanuel a. gamor

A young lady with whom I spoke with at the MTN service center, hinted that though she lives in Accra and her registration/voting station is at Legon, she was not sure she would vote on Friday. She admitted she was a bit intimidated by the rhetoric between the NDC & NPP with a seemingly close election race may lead to violence. When pressed on what would make her more politically engaged and vote on Friday, she joked that a private chauffeur to the voting station without the wait in line would be best.

photo credit: emmanuel a. gamor

photo credit: emmanuel a. gamor

After the Arab Spring uprisings we are yet to see if the large demographic of young people in sub-Saharan Africa will affect or influence the presidential elections. The two dominant political parties have made a showing of employing young people amongst their ranks, and the NPP's main campaign promise revolves around serving young people with free Senior Secondary School education. Ghana Decides' Our Vote Our Voice campaign seeks to engage all young people, regardless of their political affiliations to go out and vote. Voting is a democratic right that should not be taken lightly as the opportunity usually comes once every four years with considerable implications to our collective well-being in the very near future.

Emmanuel A. Gamor for Ghana Decides

I got a chance to take pictures of Kofi & Crown Glory, an award winning gospel group a few weeks back. It was a challenging shoot that started off at a church in Maryland



The video production team, Motion Media, was completely in control of the lighting and I had to improvise as much as possible to compensate. I'm grateful the D80 is pretty decent with low light, wont complain when I can upgrade to a full body D3 series...sigh



We left the church and changed venues to the National Harbor....that's when Kofi and the crew had the most fun. I was cracking up when I found out from Kofi himself, that his style(crown belt, shades, swagger and dances) was apparently borrowed from his 4 year old son.

Shola wanted to have a business professional-esque shoot. After we got the shots we needed we played around with the 'presidential Obama-shirt-no-tie' concept a little bit. Quite possibly Mr. Tojoula could be the next Obama Nigeria, the most populous West African country, has been looking for. History will tell.

Angelique Kidjo a Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer-songwriter interacting with a fan during her performance.



Angelique interacting with the crowd and getting the audience to croon to the hook of her song.



John Legend, bottom right, applauds Angelique Kidjo after her outstanding performance.


Angelique Kidjo's phenomenal performance at the Africare Bishop Walker Dinner to honor John Legend.
I intern with Africare a non-profit that serves 25 countries in Africa and the dinner is one of the end-of-year programs to honor outstanding contributors to Africa's cause. Of course the D80 came along, it would be a travesty for me not to have taken pictures!

If I ever take on a singing and/or dancing career, I may just look like this. Um or maybe not. Dude was super confident though. Looked at the audience like they should have known that he just 'kilt' it.

Apparently shakara means "to show off" in Nigeria. As the models walked up and down the catwalk, there was a lady asking them to 'shakara' to the audience [more here] Fashion courtesy of the Nigerian embassy.

Pres. Evans Atta Mills came to Washington DC after giving his address at the UN General Council earlier this week and spoke at a town hall meeting at the Gh embassy. Adolph Afful, President of the Council of Ghanaian Associations presented him with a plaque and yours truly was there on behalf of the New Ghanaian Newspaper.

I haven't posted a journalistic picture on the blog in a while so this is to spruce things up a little.
I attended Nigeria's 49th Anniversary of Independence celebration yesterday at the Nigerian consulate in D.C. with my dad-per an invitation to the New Ghanaian newspaper staff [one of the few perks that comes with the job]. This picture is of the recently crowned Miss Nigeria, sharing a laugh with the Charge D'Affaires, Mr. Baba Gana Wakil.

As promised the pictures from the Asante Association dinner & dance. And yes, I am placing an order for my own personal kente.

I attended an Ashanti Association Dance last weekend and I was pleasantly reminded of how beautiful Kente is. There were so many patterns and styles that I could not help but feel proud to know how intrinsically Ghanaian they were...only for the search for my own Kente cloth to prove fruitless. Sigh. [more pix to come]

One of the indigenous products made in Ghana is the Kente cloth. Apparently, the first Kente maker got his queue from the spider and learned how to interweave strings to create elaborate patterns. Back in the day Kente was worn by royalty on special occasions. In modern times, more people wear Kente and I caught two people adorning the sometimes colorful cloth at an event.