The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Naturally, for an artist the first step would be acquiring supplies, or growing their skill, but for some, the single step is far more daring than one would imagine. The first step for Mutua Matheka was considering the possibility of abandoning his 9 to 5 as an employed designer to focus on photography – an outlet that required patience and an open mind. But before we dive into this daring step perhaps, we should go back to his beginning.
For the first twelve years of his life, Machakos was home to Mutua. The growing urban area was, in those days, small and everyone knew each other. Mutua had a wholesome upbringing and one of his fondest memories is of his weekends when his mother taught him how to swim. He may not have known it then, but the endurance and patience in learning how to swim would take root in him.
He joined Lukenya Academy in class eight as a boarder. The remote location of the school in Athi River was full of wildlife, and while some would be afraid of the hyenas and giraffes roaming outside the school walls at night, Mutua yearned to see these animals. The brief time in this school brought forth an explorer within the young man. Mutua was so daring he even occasionally consumed cactus fruits.
For high school, Mutua was set to join Moi Forces Academy – a school in the big city. Unfamiliar with Nairobi, he relied on his mother’s guidance to help him find his way to school. You see at the time (and even now) there was a popular bus station in Muthurwa known as Machakos Airport. The ‘airport’ was located between two major markets in the Nairobi CBD: Gikomba and Wakulima. There was also a 28 storey building, the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, which Mutua’s mother advised him to use as a navigation point in the capital.
Mutua studied to be an architect, and his zeal was present even upon completion of university and his joining of the employment world. Work was good; however, he had a sudden itch – to document stories. Architectural classes had taught him to see things in lines and shadows and as he walked around Nairobi, this was how he saw the city. He discovered an online platform that was geared at making aspiring photographers professional ones and joined in the daily assignments. The few months of this informal course taught him to be disciplined in harnessing his craft but also made him form a habit of taking pictures every single day. It’s hard to ignore the possibility that the tenacity instilled in him during his swimming lessons played a role in this growth.
Still, his 9 to 5 took priority, and after a while Mutua started considering incorporating his photography passion into his future. The question that came to him time and time again was how to survive financially on photography. He expressed his thoughts to his employer and they came to an agreement. He would work part time and have more time to work as a freelance photographer.
The extra time led him to the tall building that he first saw when he came to Nairobi. A friend took him to the building rooftop and Mutua was amazed by how picturesque the city looked from above. He left KICC more or less changed and vowed to return. His second visit wasn’t just for site seeing as he took his camera along with him. The photos were edited and posted online. Comments with queries and compliments followed. Surely that wasn’t Nairobi, but Mutua assured his audience online that he was. This became the onset of his journey to documenting places.
In the present Mutua takes pictures with intention. He wants his photographs to be seen many years from today. He remembers lessons from university where he and other architectural students were taught to see the end from the beginning, and takes that into consideration as he walks around Nairobi finding the right places to capture spaces.
This is the kind of spirit we admire, the kind of storytelling that we strive for – the one that thinks of the future and creates in order for stories to be available for the ones that come after us. We applaud Mutua Matheka for this zeal and for being an inspiration to many.
