Victor Edeh on finding slowness and presence through the lens

Often when we have the chance to travel, we’re transported into a whole different pace of life – one that stops us speeding past the things that we might have once thought inconsequential, and allows us to come to a stop, gaping in awe at almost everything we pass. There’s certainly something about leaving for somewhere new with a camera under your arm that makes you all the more present in the “light, laughter and small gestures” of a place, photographer Victor Edeh shares.

On a recent trip to the Benin Republic, the Lagos-based photographer was able to reconnect with “a quieter side of my process”, he tells us, an experience that led to Here, In Light, a new body of work that is more personal and reflective, he feels, than “anything I’ve made in a while”. In just a short stay, “I felt something shift, not in a dramatic sense, but in the quiet way that travel often does,” he says.

The series started out with a fairly simple photographic exploration: “I wanted to capture the energy of Benin through its light, landscape, and people”, Victor shares. But during the photographers time there, wide open landscapes and streetside shots turned into intimate portraits of the people he met along the way. A sincere attempt at documenting somewhere, to simply have a visual record to bring back, instead became much more about ‘being’.

For the first time in a while, Victor allowed himself to explore what came into frame in a different way, capturing that which felt real and uncomposed. He did this by greeting people and pausing often. “Some of the most meaningful portraits came from chance encounters”, he shares, “what I learned is that the most powerful images sometimes come when you’re not trying too hard, when you're simply open.”

An image that stands out to the photographer is from his encounter with a young woman carrying two of her children – one on her shoulder and the other tied to her back, “all while wearing the biggest, most radiant smile”, he says. “There’s something deeply human and quietly heroic about that moment. It captures the resilience and softness that runs through the whole series. It speaks to care, strength, and presence, the kind of everyday grace that often goes unseen but deserves to be honoured.”

A gentle invitation to feel the warmth of the people of Benin, the project’s title Here, In Light became an apt name for not only the thread of light as a focus of each study, but the feeling of being welcomed and embraced in a place away from home. The collection of images stands as an invitation to slow down to Benin’s pace and find a stillness somewhere in the viewing: “I want the work to evoke warmth, reverence, and recognition, even if you’ve never been,” Victor says.

The project has opened something up for the image maker creatively, and he’s since witnessed a change in the ways he wants to speak visually and how he looks at things: “There are a few ideas already growing quietly in the background, but I’m letting them breathe for now”, he ends. “What I can say is that Here, In Light has reminded me that slowness and presence are non-negotiable in my process.”