In honour of Africa Day on 25 May, we’re highlighting inspiring stories that recognise the diversity and aspirations of the creative communities across the African continent and celebrating the next generation of African talent.

Kenyan photographer Peter Ndung’u takes great pride in exploring his home country, capturing the raw beauty of the natural world and evolving urban landscapes in his work. For him, photography has always been a gateway to escapism, something to feed his curiosity about the world around him.

It started in 2014 when he came across a photo of the Nairobi skyline in a national newspaper and was instantly mesmerised at seeing the city in a completely different light. “I thought, I’m not living in the same city where this picture was taken,” Ndung’u recalls.

As he became more immersed and experienced in photography, he came across a trending photo editing app, VSCO, which he started using for his photos. At the time, Ndung’u was in law school and would impatiently wait for weekends or any free time he had to travel around Kenya. “I would take pictures of anything and everything under the sun. That could be pictures of animals, plants, insects,” he says. To this day, he sees photography as a way to “give beauty to the things we don’t give much attention to.”

With the bounty of spectacular landscapes that Kenya offers right on his doorstep, Ndung’u is constantly inspired by what’s around him and wants his work to evoke excitement and wonder. “There’s almost every type of landscape, with beaches along the coast, lakes where people go fishing in the west, mountains to the north and deserts in the middle,” he enthuses.

Here’s a look at some of his pictures, and how he transformed the original photos to their perfect final finish with VSCO.

Where: the Giraffe Centre, Nairobi.
Composition: the neck of the giraffe was framed so that it popped up from the bottom right. Ndung’u describes how this gives the impression of “a calm and stage-like character, where the grand stature of its neck extends to the middle of the frame. I really wanted to show how magnificent they are.”
VSCO edits: the photo was processed with the C5 preset. The Clarity tool was used to bring out the details in the giraffe’s skin and under the Tone tool, the Highlights slider was used to recover and retain detail in the clouds.

Where: helipad at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), one of the tallest buildings in Nairobi with a 360 degree view.
Composition: Ndung’u wanted to align the subject’s yellow raincoat and the yellow lines of the helipad. “I got to a lower viewing platform and positioned my phone in a way whereby the helipad line led to the subject behind the sunset. The shot’s main hues here are blue and yellow.”
VSCO edits: processed with the E4 preset. Adjustments were made using the Highlights and Shadows sliders under Tone to discreetly brighten the raincoat while preserving the dark contrast of the clouds.

Where: Msambweni, a small fishing town on the Kenyan coast.
Composition: taken from the water to show off the shoreline, “I wanted to capture the reflection because I could see the movement, so I knelt down slightly to get it. I took this shot with Burst Mode and snapped away as they were playing around.”
VSCO edits: processed with the M5 preset. The Adjust tool was used to straighten the horizon and the Exposure tool to enhance brightness. Under Tone, the Highlights and Shadows sliders were used to add ambience to the image while maintaining a balance between the reflection and land composition.

Where: a sunflower farm between Kikuletwa Hot Springs and Lake Chala in Tanzania, with a stunning view of Mount Kilimanjaro in the background.
Composition: “A few hours before [the photo was taken], Mount Kilimanjaro wasn’t visible; however, around sunset, the mountain began to appear and I positioned my shot so that the mountain was in the middle of the frame while maintaining symmetry with the sunflowers.”
VSCO edit: processed with the C6 preset. To amplify the blue and the pink colours seen in the original shot, the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) tool was used; the blue and magenta colours were selected and amplified using the Hue slider.

What advice does Ndung’u have for up-and-coming photographers? “The first piece of advice is that photography is simply playing with light; the easiest and best camera you have is in your pocket. The second thing is to keep practising; my first year I took maybe 6,000 photos and I never deleted any of them so I can track the progress I’ve made. Third, share your work, because when you do, that’s how you grow.”

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