I was vetted & selected into the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Accra Hub (mouthful, I know) in the middle of last year. The group comprises of 13 other phenomenal young Ghanaian leaders working together on projects to make a positive difference.  One of the projects we've embarked on since January 2014 is the monthly Accra Discourse.

The Accra Discourse is a monthly conversation and networking event where passionate voices in Ghana connect with key drivers within sectors of leadership, business and development to have conversations that contribute to shaping the future of Ghana. Past guests include Young Global Leaders as well as enterpreneurial mavens in the country. I have learnt quite a bit and I look forward to the first Monday of every month discussions at 6:30pm at La Villa Boutique, Osu Accra.

 

The Accra Discourse January:
This is the launch of a series of monthly conversations about change/entrepreneurshipleadership and development in Ghana. January speaker: Ruben Atekpe, Executive Chairman, Merchants Company of West Africa – MECOWA Group, Ghana.

The Accra Discourse February:
This is a series of monthly conversations about change/entrepreneurship>leadership and development in Ghana. February speaker: Kofi Kwakwa is the Founder and CEO of Sagevest Holdings.

The Accra Discourse March:
March panel discussion on women's leadership featuring Estelle Akofio-Sowah the CEO of Google Ghana, Akua Nyame-Mensah, the CEO of Lamudi & Hanna Atiase, Sales Manager of Ghana Home Loans. #TheAccraDiscourse

Besides meeting progressive minded people, The Accra Discourse has been a great opportunity to chart a positive way forward& shape my little corner in the world into a better place.

If you've been following my blog over the past few weeks, this blog is nominated for "Best Photo Blog" at the Ghana Social Media Awards by the good folks at Blogging Ghana, yippee! The nominations are over and thank you to all who voted. We're waiting till March 23rd to know the results.

In the same vein, I was asked to send in a brief blurb about how & when I started blogging to the organizers of the awards, and here's is the link to my first blog post ever: >>Walk By Me<<

An online preview of my book of first year pictures here: Year One and here is the post that was posted on Blogging Ghana's website.

And my big bro NKA, and fellow nominee commented! Definitely made my day:

Saturday was an eventful day. After joining forces with Rotaract Club of Adentan & Blogging Ghana, I got to photograph my first blood-drive at the University of Ghana - Legon.

Pentagon Hall, Legon.

Donor card.

Biggest sport, gave blood with a smile!

Wikimedian people!

Blogging Ghana member gave blood!

At Accra Mall

Nat Health Service Officials at Accra Mall

Edward Tagoe showing off "@ttaaggooee" tee

@gamelmag!

Video Team Ghana Decides with @wizsharifa

Doc came through

The Blogging Ghana Crew at Uni of Ghana - Legon

Woohoo so this blog is nominated for Best Photo Blog by the Ghana Social Media Awards. Blessed, elated, grateful to be in the company of fantastic photojournalists! The other nominees in this category are:

• mutombodapoet.tumblr.com
• africaphotographer.blogspot.com
• emmanuelgamor.blogspot.com
• hatehasnomedicine.tumblr.com
• ggariba.blogspot.com
• tjletsa.tumblr.com

Kindly check them out, pretty good stuff! And you get to vote for me here: GSMA voting

Visit: http://www.blogcampghana.com/ghana-social-media-awards-shortlist for more deets.

After all the festivities during the national rallies, hosted by the National Democratic Congress & New Patriotic Party yesterday, today seemingly started with much less fanfare on the streets of Accra. Shortly after mid-day the pouring rain, as if in attempt to wash away the posters and banners, left-over vuvuzela's and print-outs in town, cleansed the capital of all political campaigning paraphenelia on the final day before elections.

Sentiments about the elections have been heated, debates and national officials of either party are both guilty of raising the rhetoric to alarming levels of accusations and counter-accusations.
 "We are the peaceful party, watch out, the others are the more violent."
"We do not control the military or the police force, they do, but like the youth in Tunisia, we have the mandate of the people and the mandate of the people is the mandate of God."

If you spent time in either party's camp, ambushed by red blue and white (NPP), loud vuvuzela buzzes you would come out reciting the free high school education platform and accolades of Nana Akufo Addo; if you were overwhelmed by the white and green, mouth contorting slogan of "edey be kɛkɛ" you would be an advocate for the "better Ghana" incumbent initiative. Amidst the rhetoric what was more impressive was symbol of unity friends of both parties showed when as they walked side by side, hand in hand late night after the political rallies. Taxi drivers were cautious to share their political inclinations, most from either party hinted that the race may be too close to declare early victory for either party and progressive, foreign educated Ghanaian's lamented about the absence of a strong political campaign machine to support other choices besides John Mahama's NDC and Nana Addo's NPP; the likes PPPs Nduom and CPP's Sakara.

Napthaline Djokoto at East Legon, Accra photo credit: emmanuel a. gamor

The "Our Vote, Our Voice" campaign by Ghana Decides seeks to engage young people in the electoral process, by providing pledge cards and an online link to vote, the Ghana Decides team seeks to remind young voters the importance of their contribution during the 2012 elections. Most young people were registered to vote, when pressed on whether they would vote on Friday, however, some gave excuses that where they were registered was inconveniently far from where they currently work or reside in Accra and weren't as pressed to show up at the polling station come December 7th.

A good section of the people also expressed a sense of being fed-up with the political rhetoric the incessant name-calling, the intimidation of potential violence due to the accusations of the dominant parties of what the other might do. Yes the democratic process is important to most people, and you can engage in a lively debate by mentioning colors, slogans, political parties names or prominent politicians. You will very likely find an ardent fan or vocal opposition almost anywhere on the streets of Accra.
More importantly though, Ghanaians enjoy good music, we enjoy concerts both religious and non-religous and more importantly, Ghanaians have embraced peace.

May the best man win.

Emmanuel A. Gamor for Ghana Decides

Friends and well-wishers at my last 2012 DC shindig, my next project & a new chapter in my life www.ReportingGhanaPresidency.com There will be photo, audio, video updates on here soon. This blog will see a revamp as itp85 shares share the love with [rgp] & TNG. Photography courtesy of Maxine Naawu.

Cris and Curtis have been dating since high school. I attended West Potomac High with Cristina and met Curtis at senior prom. Years, almost a decade later, I was excited to asked to be the photographer at their quaint union in Arlington, Virginia.

Davis Wedding from itake photos est. 1985 on Vimeo.

High school friend, Cristina, has been dating Curtis.... well since high school. Union of Cris and Curtis Davis, Friday July 6th, 2012 Arlington Virginia.

One of my favorite quotes by former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan: "The world is at a critical juncture, and so are you....go ahead and make your plans...and don't stop learning. But be open to the detours that lead to new discoveries."
My friend, Ayah leaves the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, DC to enroll in a culinary school in Berkeley, California with a pit stop at The Mtogolo Community Based Organization (a project advocates a holistic approach to combating HIV/AIDS) in Malawi. To detours, in life, that lead to new discoveries....

When I came to the United States I was taken back two class grades in High School. I watched as my peers, the class of 2007, graduate from college as I waded through my last two years of undergrad with a mission: to proudly walk down the stage in the presence of my family and peers during commencement.

Photo credit: Edson Andre

Graduation for me was an incredibly emotional experience. My mother and I cried together as we were reminded of the trials and tribulations that got me, the first boy among 3 girls, through college. My journey from Ghana, West Africa, through Alexandria, Virginia and finally on the University of Florida stage as a Gator graduate was tumultuous. I literally felt a huge weight of responsibility being lifted off my shoulders as I strolled past Bernie Machen as my name was called at the O'dome.

What I remember from commencement 2009 is that regardless of the challenges behind me, I believed I could strive and succeed with the help of God and my family. And regardless of the challenges ahead, be it a challenging economy, I took that same resilience to propel me forward through my endeavors over the past 3 years. To the class of 2012, don't shy away from the challenge. The world is ever-evolving and the lessons from undergrad should come in handy. Stay the course, pursue your dreams and passions with hard work and consistency. Congrats to the class of 2012. To many more successes in every one of your endeavors.
- itp85.

November was an exciting month! My line brother got married (now we're counting down who is next) and it was a beautiful quaint ceremony. And while we were in Gainesville, Florida (at my alma mater UF), our fraternity chapter welcomed four new members into the fold. Like welcoming a new member into the family, as Greeks, we take new membership seriously and one of the remarkable moments (amongst many, for me it is also graduation) regardless of how long you've been in an organization, is the probate show. When you see a potential come into their own and publicly declare their affiliation to a brotherhood/sisterhood you hold dear; it reminds you of your journey and an appreciation of how far you've come. In our case, in upholding Scholarship, Leadership, Citizenship, Brotherhood and Fidelity.

Of course my camera(s) came along. This time I was equipped with a D90 & a 1.4 50mm fixed lens I was excited about. One of my frat brothers who has recently picked up photography also came with a D90, but he'd left his mount-on flash at home. I had an idea, something my dad had spoken frequently of doing at a wedding! I swapped cameras with my friend and mounted a 17-50mm 3.5 on mine and set his (with the 1.4/50mm) set to gray-scale pictures only. All my shots would be in black & white!

Having Bassy (@SavvyShotsPhoto ) taking pictures with a mount-on flash gave me the flexibility to capture raw emotion (or as much as I could very quickly) without the distraction of color. More importantly, it let me shoot at low light setting without getting too many blurry images. At different times we swapped cameras and tips as we captured as much of the event as possible. We both ended up with about 1000 pictures from the event, let me know what you think @itakephotos1985:

Series 1:


Series 2:


Series 3:


Series 4:

So I've been multitasking a lot, apparently any one born in the 80's/90's can attest to not just being an internet/technology baby, but also a multitasking addiction: we text without look at the keypad of our phones, write term papers and work reports while tweeting about the nearest natural disaster or posting a quote on Facebook for our numerous 'friends' to ruminate.

Well my youngest sister and my summer project turned into a full fledged company so I had the privilege of revamping my itake photos est. 1985 website so some eye candy here:

More on my sand creations and how much fun you can have when you visit the website (you can move the images around any which way you want):

I guess president Obama was right when he said "We're who we've been waiting for."

In college we had a phrase: live like its a movie: epic!
I recently decided to have fun with some of the footage I have been experimenting/recording on my HTC cell phone. I run it through iMovie on my laptop and viola...look out for feature length behind the scenes of itake photos est. 1985 photo shoots at a theater near you, but especially on here.

O and cheers to "Me Twa Photos Films" lol shout out to my man @M3nsaMusic more to come....



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I haven't updated here in a while and I apologize, besides a logo revamp, I'm working on a website revamp as well and want to save some of the spectacular awesomeness for the new improved itake photos est. 1985!

In the meantime, I increased itp's visibility by registering with thumbtack a few months ago. Pleasantly surprised I was recently ranked #1 photography by Thumbtack. I guess I get bragging rights, hold the applause (sike). Seriously, thank you so much for patronizing my site, twitter, fb group and most importantly my services. More to come now, 2012 and beyond!