#3: Introduction to Shadows

At some point, when I was traveling back to Kenya, I saw this boy laying down in the shadow, sleeping in the shadow of a tree. Actually, the picture is right here. It almost feels like the shadow in itself has an entity of its own and that's when I started being really interested in the shadow.

After I took that picture, which was very important, I think, I started also making pictures like this one, where people are kind of hidden in the shade, or only partly visible.

I think a picture like this, you can read it on different levels. One way you can look at the picture is from a purely photographic perspective. Like, how far can you go showing something and hiding something? So, often people say photography is painting with light. But for me, the shadow is kind of equally important.

And I think it's mostly what's hidden in the shadow, which is more interesting. Because we don't know it, we can't really grasp it. But also, on a political level, I thought this was an important image for me. Because I thought, also thinking about mainstream media at the time, still now, but less, the image of black women was really hardly visible.