Lagos — Sinem Onabanjo is a Turkish citizen married to a Nigerian. The lady of many parts, who had to jettison stereotypes to come down to Nigeria, speaks about her life, passion for art, and some other issues in this chat with Rotimi Akinwumi, CORRESPONDENT, Abuja.

Excerpts:

You just had your first experience in Nigeria. How was it?

It was amazing; I really loved it and obviously many things that my family warned me about never happened. I was told to make sure I was safe; "make sure you are secured, don't go out late at night, the traffic is horrible; the heat is going to make you melt at night." But in all, there was nothing like that. Instead, the experience was awesome and I was in my element.

You are originally from Turkey, which is predominantly a Muslim country; can you describe how it was like growing up?

I grew up in Turkey till I was 21; I was from a middle class family and just went to high school in an American International High School. I left Turkey at the age of 21 and came to the United Kingdom to do my Masters degree after which I stayed back for my PhD and then met my other half and ended up making the UK my home. But I travel to Turkey at least once a year because I like the heat. Turkey is a mixed bag because it is in the middle of Asia and Europe so it has got the European and Asia cultures embedded in a 2000 years of history. Turkey is at times chaotic and noisy and maybe sometimes polluted as Lagos so that is why I feel like I am at home.

What will you have to say about Lagos, which is the state you had the opportunity of being in since your visit?

Yes, I saw a little bit of the Lagos Mainland. I got to see a little bit of the mainland though I did not get the chance to see the markets as much I would have loved to see them. I also went to the Island and had an experience of the nightlife in Lagos, the much talked about Lagos party style. I also had a first hand experience of the traffic; I got stuck in traffic for several hours. I will say those were my experiences of Lagos and I will say it struck me as a city with a lot of potentials especially in the area of tourism but unfortunately Nigeria is not really a designated place of tourism as such but there are so much to see. Over two days I had the chance to go to a private beach here in Lagos and I could see the tropical forest on the coast and the beauty of the sea and the sky and I thought that this should be shown to people, to the world what Lagos is all about; it's not all about not being safe, it has too much traffic and all that. We have to show the positives as well and I think Lagos has a lot of potentials.

Before you met your hubby, how did you come to know about Nigeria and what was your view about the country?

Actually, this will sound so funny; I actually wanted to meet Jay Jay Okocha during this trip because he is like my first impression about this country. He used to play for the team I support in Turkey and I used to sit in front of the television and watch him the whole time. Basically, I knew Nigeria through football and also there were Nigerian students in school back then though they weren't common as we see them now.

How will you describe your relationship with your Nigerian hubby?

We have been married for three years but have known each other for eight years. Funny enough, I wrote a story for Made Magazine about Non-Nigerian women married to Nigerian men and one thing that came up again and again is that Nigerian men are very confident. They are confident, they have swagger and know what they are all about and that kind of gives the woman confidence as well as knowing that she is with a strong man. Another thing that many women mention, me inclusive, is that Nigerian men have drive; they know what they want and they go for it. Yes, Nigerian men know what they want and they go for it.

What attracted you to him?

He was my best friend before we ended up together and I will say he was honest. I think what attracted me to him was that we shared similar values and even as friends we used to talk about many important things in a relationship like love, honesty, trust and respect. So, if those are in place I believe that even if the relationship goes through trouble, it's going to come out stronger in the end. For the last seven years I must confess that those virtues have never failed in our relationship.

What advice would you have for other white ladies out there that have this phobia for Nigerian men based on what they hear about Nigeria?

Honestly, I have never seen that phobia in white girls over Nigerian men because they keep throwing themselves all over them. It's like Nigerian men are the best.

The first time I saw you, I felt I was looking at a face and a person that should be in the fashion industry as a model but you are into the Arts, so I wonder what inspired you into the Arts?

I think, it is studying English Language and Literature for my first degree and Masters as well as my PhD. I like writing and have written since the age of 10 and I got into photography through my husband only three years ago. I just picked up the camera one day and thought that I was actually enjoying it. I went for a landscape shoot and disappeared for the whole day; went out around 8a.m. and drove around the British countryside so to speak for almost the whole day and came back with 300 frames and came back to edit them. I think writing has always been there but photography came later.

What was that attraction coming from the literary scene and which Nigerian authors were you familiar with?

Coming from the old school I would say Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart was a beautiful book. From maybe the younger generation, I will say Chimamanda Adichie. I was actually looking for her new short stories that just came out and couldn't find it but I know when I go back to London I would get it. I read Half of a Yellow Sun, all 400 pages over a weekend and felt very emotional about the piece. I think that those two inspire me a lot in Nigeria literature.

You said you started photography from capturing landscape pictures, what kind of photography are you into now?

Obviously, I started with the countryside because, due to the nature of my job, I am a very private person. I enjoy long drives through the countryside and love to network. I then got into Street Photography, which is about just capturing that moment in time from men walking down the street which to me is like one moment in his life history. That is how I like to think that sometimes photography and literature go hand in hand because they tell stories. I did get quite a lot of street photographs while in Nigeria that I can't wait to go back and edit them. I took pictures of people on Okada. And then with my husband's passion for fashion photography, we also do street shots in fashion photography.

Talking about street photography, what do you look out for in a picture that makes you click and get the shots?

I look out for the move, maybe a young girl walking down Greenwich Park running around the park with her dog at full speed. That to me is one moment for me and that captures my attention and tells my audience a story. It may be a man waiting at a bus stop with an expression on his face, maybe a sense of frustration or bewilderment on his face. For me that tells a story about him at that particular time. I look out for that moment that tells the story of that person.

There is this particular virtue in artistes, which make them able to develop a style. Have you and your husband developed a style in your photography?

My husband and I have a blog and we used to put names on them, to distinguish which was taken by my husband or I but it got to a stage that we started working more as a team. Whatever I don't see, he does see and vice-versa. Sometimes he is the brain and I do more of the creative thinking and at times the reverse occurs but we stopped doing that because we don't want people to look at our pictures and want to guess whether Sinem or Suby took it. We just generally want to strike people but having said that doesn't mean that we don't have a style. We have things that we are particular about when we are taking our pictures. Suby has got this half face shot style that in every shoot he must get that kind of shot. If he hasn't got that shot then something must have been wrong with the shot and I have shots taken from different angles though I use higher angle shots. I do like climbing on top of a ladder or a chair and looking down at the model. There are certain things that will make you think that our shots may have been taken by Sinem or Suby but on the whole we want to strike people.

What kind of cameras do you use?

We use Canon. We are trusted Canon fans. We have our studio and our equipment. I will say that we have everything we need.

You said you are into fashion photography; do you create your kind of fashion photography or take shots to specifications as requested by your clients?

We create ideas and have an amazing creative team. Some of the body painting shots we have, were done by a young girl in a small town in Wales, she is too desperately passionate about her work. I call her a visionary because she can wake up one morning and have an idea and go straight to doing it. We also have wonderful wardrobe stylist who comes up with brilliant ideas. Sometimes when we are doing the shoot the idea comes up. I will say we have this organisation and interaction with the whole team.

What inspires the pictures you take and the collection you have?

Honestly, it could be when I am looking at a fashion magazine and I see one image or colour and the idea comes or sometime you can be watching the television and get inspirations from there. Recently, we did a vintage shoot for a magazine that showcased different styles from the 50s, 60s, 80s and 90s; those specific styles that people recognise like the Polka dot dresses or they recognise the 90s style or Grace Jones look. It could be a music video, it could be a movie and so on and they inspire me in terms of location and with locations ideas start flooding.

Concerning your picture collection before BHF, what were you doing with your pictures?

We had already been published with my writings as well. I am a published writer and still write for a couple of magazines including True Love (West Africa), Made Magazine and I have done works with a number of African or Black magazines in the UK. With photography we likewise did shoot for True Love and other magazines based in the UK. With BHF we saw something, a product we really believed had the same passion we had for African fashion for the beauty of African fashion and imagery and we wanted to come on board and see what we can do together with BHF.

As a writer, what genre do you tend to write about?

It could be anything; I write on a freelance basis for a lot of magazines and it could be fashion, African fashion, and features stories. Recently, I did one on plastic surgery that will soon be out on True Love magazine. I have done something on breast cancer and also done a lot of writing on charity. I did one on Down Syndrome Association of Nigeria (DSAN), I have done a piece on Africa, a charity based in the UK against child trafficking and I also do a lot of travel writing. I intend to diversify on different subjects.

Any literary writing?

Yes, I have done loads but most of the published ones have been back in university and some of them are in my native language, which is Turkish and others are in English. I have done some poetry as well.

Any hope of exhibiting your photographs?

Hopefully, that's going to work; it's in the pipeline and we are looking at the end of this year to do that.

What's your opinion of Nigerian fashion photographers?

Mostly, the people I admire are not the kind of people you see mostly in magazines often because they do different kind of photography like Jide Alakija. He is just an amazing guy and has an amazing weeding photography and an amazing street photography. In my opinion, he is one of the best photojournalists out there. He is my friend and we talk all the time.

Are you planning to help aspiring young Nigerian photographers improve on their job?

Definitely, I actually was supposed to get involved in a fashion photography workshop last October but it went through some technical hitches as regards the travel arrangement and got postponed. Another idea we have in mind is to help many young people in Nigeria who don't even have the opportunity or encouragement in their social background to go into photography, so in future we are definitely going to do a workshop for them.

It is a common practice for many successful motion picture practitioners to have come from the still photography background; do you have any prospects of going into motion pictures?

Not at this stage, although my husband feels passionately about going into motion picture at some stage, but for now, we are happy with what we are doing. We don't want to be known as a Jack of all trade in this industry though it is very rampant. Right now we are happy to be creative fashion photographers. Maybe in the future we may consider it.

What are your prospects in Nigeria?

We want to be working with a lot of Nigerian designers both in Nigeria and in the UK and we want to offer our services on a regular basis and showcase what they do without them having to fly their products to the UK. We want to make ourselves more available in the Nigerian market because we are already working with many Nigerian designers. We definitely want to come back and work with as many Nigerian designers as possible.

The Federal Government initiated a re-brand Nigeria project, how do you think you can use what you do to contribute to this?

I think Nigeria and African fashion is up and coming and this is a very positive development coming out of Nigeria that will help the image of Nigeria. This will help to show the world that Nigeria is not a country where children are dying of diseases or being killed and that is crime on the street; we have got to change that. I think that fashion and entertainment will help in doing this and that is what we want to do.

What opportunities do you see in the Nigerian Fashion industry?

I see a whole lot of opportunities because there is always a new fashion designer coming out in Nigeria almost every day and this is no exaggeration. There are plenty of opportunities in this industry for everyone and what we want to be doing is to help each other.

What is your advice to aspiring fashion photographers?

I will say persevere in the sense that you don't expect everything to fall on your lap; you have to work for it. People ask us how we get our works published in magazines and the truth is that it didn't happen overnight; we didn't just wake up and it happened. We had to chase Editors; we chased people who knew editors. It involves a lot of networking and keeping your contacts. If you call me to give you my contacts, I will be thinking you got to do your study; maybe because fashion is the in thing so everybody wants to take up the camera and become fashion photographers. You have to work hard for it and have your strength. Not everybody can do everything. If you do your work very well you will definitely take you places.

Which Nigerian food do you enjoy most?

I had been enjoying Nigerian dishes way before I came here. This is going to shock many people and I haven't had the chance to eat it; I love eating Ikokore, which is from the Ijebu region of Nigeria and I am an Ijebu wife.

How best can you introduce yourself to the world?

That is a pretty difficult question; I will say I am a 31-year old woman who likes writing with a passion, who likes photography with a passion and who believes the story on her photograph and that of her husband as well has got stories to tell with her writings also. I have got stories to tell through my photography. My stories are very focused about Africa and I have got stories to tell about inspirational people and I hope that whatever I leave behind will affect people. I don't want to leave behind a monument or theatre halls or something like that. I just want to leave behind photographs and a piece of writings that somebody will read and remember as inspiring and which will have a story to tell and a beauty that will inspire for decades to come.