Affirmations of the Week: The Art of Thandiwe Muiru
Thandiwe Muiru is a beauty and fashion photographer from Kenya who adores us. In us, she sees infinite beauty that she celebrates through her lens. Feast your eyes on the affirmation of Thandiwe’s masterpieces. We are worthy of knowing our beauty and claiming it. Enjoy.
Thandiwe Muiru.
Kenya
Fashion & Beauty Photographer.
Lover of Dark Skin.
Show Her Some Love:
Thandiwe's Powerful Work.
“At some point in my journey as a photographer, I realized ‘Why am I telling the stories of other people? Why can’t I start telling the story of my people and what I think is beautiful?’ We look to all these foreign magazines to tell us what beauty looks like. There are so many things that would have to change to attain their stand of beauty. I realized I need to start celebrating the beauty of my people. And so more and more my work has shifted towards only shooting dark skin models and just celebrating the beauty of African women”
“What I’ve always tried to do is have an international mindset. I know that I may start off in Kenya as a photographer, but my dream is to serve the whole of Africa...Africa in particular because that’s where the opportunities are and it’s my continent. If I don’t grow it, who’s going to grow it?”
“I actually really enjoy shooting African models because our beauty shows itself in so many different ways and dark skin for me is the most beautiful kind of skin you could shoot. The way it behaves under the light. It’s rich. It has personality...It holds the light in a very different way...I hope to build my career primarily on shooting African models and just showing the world that...short hair is beautiful, dark skin, full lips are beautiful.”
“I always had all this heart inside of me...and it was dying to come out. And I think once I I found my voice in photography it was all rushing out at once and it was ‘push the boundaries, go as far as you can as quickly as possible in your art’...”
“I would love to be known as the woman who photographs dark skinned people best.”
