In the early 1930s photo makers like Seydou Keita, Malik Sidibe, James Barnor, Samuel Fosso and J.D. Ojeikere pioneered African photography and ever since it has served as an extended mirror to our identity as Africans, not in encompassing spheres but to a large extent. As first a writer, I know that photographic memory is pleasing but it is pleasanter to have photography records. Heavily inspired by predecessors, I founded Random Photo Journal

Random Photo Journal is a public record, a study of the daily lives of people in their natural habitat, a visual explanation of our immediate environment, a way for us to understand better the continent we live in, and for the world to better understand us. It is a freeform creative label that fuses mediums of storytelling.  

Another moot point is that thirty years from now things are bound to change, for good, for better or for worse, a structure that was here today will be removed tomorrow and if one man in the world has a photograph that represents what space once represented, then that is a visual record of history everyone will appreciate. Words can go a long way but a photograph will travel a much longer road.  

If anything, Random Photo Journal is not a travel magazine or tourism studio, how can it be? We are not inviting or showing anyone how to spend their vacation, we are simply saying: This is us, we exist, this is what we do, this is how and where we live, and we love it a lot.  

Arinzechukwu Patrick