Kevin Ouma: The Tenacious Photographer

Published by Paukwa on March 12, 2021

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“We are the world. We are the children.” This song was released in 1985, a year after the widespread publication of Mohammed Amin’s images of the Ethiopian famine. This song and these images were Kevin Ouma’s introduction to the power of photography, and unknown to him at the time, Amin’s work had created a lasting impression in his young mind.

But even before Kevin’s first encounter with Amin’s photojournalistic capabilities, he already had an insatiable curiosity for photography. His father possessed a sizeable collection of cameras which were tucked away from other people’s reach. Kevin yearned to press his eye behind the view finder and his finger on the shutter release, but these were objects of beauty, not to touch or even to look at by young children. This, coupled with the fact that there were not many professional photographers from Kenya that he knew of, shaped his outlook towards the profession and disillusioned him with its possibility as a career prospect.

If he could not be the person behind the lens, then he would be the person in front of it, and so Kevin set his sights on becoming a journalist. After sitting his KCSE exams at Agoro Sare High School in 2002, Kevin joined the East Africa School of Journalism. His time here quickly dispelled his forced interest in this field of study, and it was during this period that Kevin came across a newspaper advertisement inviting students to apply to the Mohamed Amin Foundation Broadcast Television Training Centre. Established in 1997, a year after Amin’s tragic death in a plane crash, the institute was founded to train the next crop of filmmakers. Only six scholarships were awarded annually, and in 2004 Kevin was one of the students who made the cut.

The change in schools and coursework was a breath of fresh air for him as he began to acquaint himself with the workings of audiovisual equipment. The space behind the scenes suited him better, and a year later he graduated from the institute and joined the film industry. His time at Mohamed Amin Institute had equipped him with the knowledge needed to produce, direct and edit films. Even though he was better suited to this career than journalism, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being out of place. Photography soon became Kevin’s outlet as he began taking pictures on his Nokia N70, a quality camera phone for its time, and enjoyed the gratification that came with it.

The feeling of discontentment continued to grow over the years, finally overwhelming and suffocating Kevin in 2009 when he decided to walk away from filmmaking. This decision was met by mixed reactions, especially from his father who consequently sat him down for a talk. The inevitable question – “What do you want to do with your life?” came up. He paused, reflected on his time since parting ways with cinematography, and responded by citing photography, albeit unsure of this choice. A few days later he received a gift from his father, a Canon 1000D, to help him jumpstart his career.

In the months that followed, Kevin dipped his toes into freelance photography, finding out what worked for him and what didn’t. His experience with film helped him learn the ropes, but this was a different beat he was dancing to. He had to learn about shutter speed, ISO and aperture. When in doubt, Kevin looked back at some of the images captured by his lifelong mentor, Mo Amin, and drew inspiration from them. Slowly his confidence as a photographer began to grow as he found his way into documentary photography: a style and genre that he enjoyed capturing – and still does to date.

In his tenure as a photographer Kevin has documented stories for UNDP, WFP – Somalia, and Technoserve, and was one of the featured photographers in Safaricom’s Capture Kenya 2015 challenge. His driving philosophy is that he is only as good as his last job, a philosophy that impels him to make every photo the best that it can be.