Shawn Kieffer: Photography is an art

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and that is why not every good photograph wins a prize, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

 So what is a good photograph, and can such judgment be reached objectively? We can assess images on the technical skills behind them, the mastery of light, composition, angle and so on.

 But a good photograph doesn’t always require technical skill and sometimes it is the only record of an important moment.

Photography being the most interesting but delicate career, the truth is that not everyone can take a good photograh .

Shawn Kieffer is a young man who has dedicated himself towards making this a career choice and from the look of things he is making headway in the industry at such a young age.

Keiffer, a Tanzanian national who is a resident of Cape Town, South Africa, has been working as a photographer for a year now and has already crafted a niche as one of the best who is ready to challenge the established order.

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Speaking to The Beat this week Keiffer says photography can be a means of expression and that in every photograph there must be a story.

To him it goes beyond the mere beauty, light, colours, textures, people, animals and shapes. 

“Being a photographer is all I have been dreaming of, people look at what surrounds us as normal but I see these things in a different way. I have been exposed to a range of cultural diversity and that is what inspired me to capture what I have seen around me to create a lifetime of visual,” he says. 

He adds: I also realised that there are so many possibilities that one can explore in creating beautiful and unique images and so I have decided that it is the perfect avenue within which I would like to express my creativity.

According to him, photography has the power to evoke emotion in people as they can make people happy, sad or even angry. 

“Photographs tell a story. Without photography people would just read or hear about what they weren’t so fortunate to experience.”

His passion for images is taking him places as he shifts from one fashion extravaganza to another on the continent.

He is currently working for the Menswear Fashion Week in Cape Town where he is among the 15 photographers who were selected out of 50 who competed for the project.

Within a year in the industry, Kieffer`s talent and creativity has been noticed both locally and internationally. 

During the 2015 Swahili Fashion Week, he was nominated the Best Photographer of the Year, a category which he comfortably won.

Within the same period Kieffer has worked with a number of leading modelling agencies in South Africa including Boss Models, D&A and Fusion.

“It is not something that happens regularly and it takes time to breakthrough some of these established ranks,” he says.

Keiffer acknowledges that there is no career success without challenges and that he takes them as lessons of which he uses to polish up his mistakes, add creativity for a better tomorrow.

According to him there are a number of photographers in the industry with most of them doing their best to be unique and creative. 

This kind of competition has made him what he is today because he knows he has to keep his head high to survive in the industry.

“This has increased my love for the subject as I realise we live in the world full of challenges. So far I am happy that people appreciate my work in South Africa,” he says.

Unfortunately even with such a sound résumé, not many of his peers in Tanzania know of him and it came as a surprise during the SFW 2015 when his name came up for the nominations.  Though many people love taking pictures, not many are passionate about the whole idea.

 “Photography, as a career involves a lot of introspection. The deeper you immerse yourself into it, the more you realise that it’s all about what you are interested in and how you feel about it, and what you want to say to the world,” he says.

Keiffer has never hesitated to share his experience and advice with upcoming photographers as he believes that this is the only way they can forge forward in a rare profession that many think is facing extinction.

“Those who still have dreams of becoming one must keep in mind that photography is a career and for that one should be focused; doing research and never hate being corrected helps in coming up with beautiful and marketable products.”