This week at Lens-Artists, Steven Hyde asks to see our 5 best ever photos. So how to choose? On the one hand I have a large archive of scanned photos (the Old Africa Album), taken in the 1990s when we lived in Kenya(7 years) and Zambia (ten months). On the other hand, I have an even larger file of digital shots taken over the last 20 years. The scanned images come from slide and film negatives that were processed a decade or more after the originals were taken; they are not as sharp as the original prints (and some of my scanning was distinctly incompetent).
So it is perhaps a touch perverse to choose my five ‘best’ from this scanned collection. And also to further to discount photos from the ‘on safari’ archive (i.e. the so called Big Five wildlife attractions). Instead, then, here are five, mostly chance photos of local people. These are encounters that often hold many memories, far bigger than the sum of visual parts captured here.
The header photo was taken during a too brief Christmas-time stay on the island of Lamu. We had spent Boxing Day on a small fishing dhow, sailing through the mangrove swamps of the Manda Strait and out to the reef where some of us had fished for our lunch. The owner of the boat, seen dozing here, was Mzee Lali, a Bajun man who spoke no English, a devout Muslim and father of twelve. His youngest boy, ten year old Miski, came with us on the trip. He said not one word that I overheard for the whole trip. Meanwhile, Lali’s nephew, Athman, our guide, and for official tourism purposes, the boat’s captain (since he spoke English, Kenya’s official language, and could sit the necessary captain’s exams) told us much about island life, of livelihoods dependent on tourism and fishing now that the big Arab trading dhows no longer plied the East African coast.
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This is Esther and Tom. Esther had a curio stall on the roadside in Kiboko, on the Mombasa Highway some hundred miles south of Nairobi. I saw her now and then when we were staying at nearby Hunter’s Lodge. (Graham had a project in progress at the Kiboko agricultural field station). She was very keen for me to trade any spare clothes for some of her Akamba wood carvings. She also had a notion about where she wanted to have her photograph taken, and took me along to the Kiboko petrol station where there was also a cafe with this zebra mural. She then told me her address in nearby Emali where I could send the photos.
A young woman with a plan, or indeed several.
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While Graham worked, went to seminars, visited Kenyan farmers, I camp followed. And so here I was passing time, sitting in the garden of a Mombasa beach hotel with a fine view of the shore. Some of the transactions taking place there were tawdry to say the least – everything for sale at a good price, but then these Digo girls came laughing by. Probably going shopping, but so brilliant in their kanga wraps…
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Taking photos of sweet Kikuyu lads wasn’t the idea. I was supposed to be manning the fieldwork clip board and recording data. Or when required, holding the end of a large surveyors’ tape while Graham measured a plot of Napier grass. (There’s clump in the top left corner).
Napier grass is a staple fodder crop in the highlands above Nairobi, essential to smallholder farmers who, lacking access to pasture, must zero-graze their animals i.e. take feed to cattle and sheep kept in pens or small paddocks. The grass grows quickly and could be found planted out on any ground not given over to human food crops. This included roadside reserves. It’s a vigorous plant, but can also be susceptible to a fungal smut disease, which happened to be the subject of Graham’s field research. Our visits to the Kikuyu farms and the welcome we always received there, even when we told the farmers that some of their grass had smut and should be burned, were some of the best times of our years in Kenya. We always came home with gifts – sugar cane, orchard plums and pears, a live cockerel…
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Another country.
While we were living in Zambia, we took a road trip south into neighbouring Zimbabwe. This snap was taken one early evening in Harare. I wasn’t even intending to take any photos; for one thing the light wasn’t very good. We were coming back from the post office, but the young man with the biggest grin, spotted the little Olympus-trip in my hand, and asked me to take a photo. These are security house and shop guards waiting for the night shift pick up to take them to work.
Those smiles remind us of much that we miss.
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Copyright 2026 Tish Farrell
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Lens-Artists: Five of the best This week Steve Hyde asks us to post our 5 best ever photos. Now there’s a challenge.
I like that you concentrated on people for your five best Tish. They tell such stories. Great photos!
Your striking street man photo gave me the notion, Anne. So thank you!
Those are all absolutely stunning! The first in particular is so perfect in colour and composition, it’s like a painting one would see in a museum. Sublime!
Thank you for that very lovely comment, Edouard.
I love this collection – great choices! Have you already published a blog about how you came to live in Kenya? Was it hard to leave and come home? I’ve a friend living there right now. She was meant to come home in 2021, postponed it for two years, after that another two years… I fear I shall never see her again. Lovely post, and thank you for sharing these gems with us. pp
Hello, Pam. Thanks for being so interested. And yes, leaving was hard, although during the 90s the political situation was hair-raising at times. More difficult was adapting back to home territory. So much felt entirely alien. There is a blog post that tells some of the tale:
Ohmigosh! So much I want to say. First, of course, thank you for the link — I loved reading it (3 times now).
Mainly, though, I am impressed — genuinely — with how incredibly courageous you are. I’d never, not in a million years, have had then (as a young woman), nor now, the guts to leave home and fly across the globe like that (man or no man). The most heartwarming takeaway, though, is how long you stayed. That must have been some love story (the man and the country)!
I wonder, have you (or both of you together) ever considered writing and illustrating a memoir of your time in Kenya? Your prose is exceptionally articulate and engaging, and your words
always resonate with such clarity and grace. That combined with your amazing photography…. I’d buy that book for sure!
Thank you so much for the link — it’s been a lovely afternoon thanks to you. Oh, and Tish, except for the glasses, there’s barely any difference between your header photo and the one taken at Mzima Springs — we should all be so lucky!
pp
Goodness, Pam, thanks so much for all those very kind words, and for the triple reading. I have thought about a memoir. I guess I used a lot of what we experienced in my fiction. I used to write short stories for Carus Publishing in the States i.e. Cricket and Cicada magazines for young people. Seem to spend most of my time thinking about gardening these days 😉
Great post, Tish, and some lovely ‘peopled’ images! Favourite has to be the woman who knew how she wanted her photo composed
Yes, Esther was a star. Akamba country in southern Kenyan is famed for its feisty business women
Interesting! And good to hear
I love the pictures and their stories. I am just working my way through scanning three chests of slides from 1970 onwards, using a Nikon slidescanner.
I’m lining up Graham for some autumn-winter work as in re-scanning some my slides and negs. We have an Epson these days, which I have used on photos, but then there’s dust removal to do.
these are great shots!
Thank you, Beth.
❤️❤️❤️. These photos remind me to be grateful and find joy in my life as these people find joy with so little.
That’s a very heartfelt lovely comment, Janet. Thank you.
I’m so glad you went back to your Africa archives for this challenge, and that you concentrated on its people 🙂 The smiles in these photos are infectious and the stories you tell about the encounters are really special!
Many thanks, Sarah. So pleased you liked this.
These are amazing captures. Old is gold 😍.
Many thanks, Rupali. Definitely old is gold 🙂
A wonderful set Tish. You have such good memories of your time in Africa. Have you ever been back?
Thanks, Jude. As to returns, in the early 2000s we went on a brief trip to Namibia. A contract that didn’t happen. G also did a fortnight’s consultancy in Kenya. He said it was v. strange, feeling he ought to be going home to our Nairobi house.
These are great Tish. Their spirits shine in your photos.
Yes, those good spirits… Thanks, Flower.
Esther’s my winner. What a standout smile, Tish xx
She struck a hard deal too if you visited her stall 🙂
Tish this post is wonderful. The images are great but what an enjoyable read. I wish I’d given you dispensation to post more pictures! Those four smiling guys in Zimbabwe just made me smile. What a picture 🙂
So happy this hit the spot, Steve. Many thanks for your response and for the challenge.
I love your amazing stories, Tish. The photos are stunning. Thanks for sharing.
A great five shots. Good photos in their own right and infused with special memories and stories.
Many thanks, Margaret.
Fabulous! I especially like the mom and child with zebras in the background.
Many thanks, Jennie.
You’re welcome.
Great selection 😀 … so much more than mere photographs.
Many thanks, Widders. So pleased you think so too.
Oh what memories and I can see why you would miss this. The smiles are amazing but I really love the Esther and Tom shot. She really had visualised that one. Hoping her plans have come to fruition. I had many slides of being in India and of my father’s when a child. These among all the stuff I keep seem to have disappeared but I remember some of them clearly. These ones of yours too are so memorable.
Many thanks for all those thoughts. And yes, so many memories imbued in old photos.