Carlos Idun-Tawiah Turns Family Photo Albums into Ghanaian Epics

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Inspired by family stories and archives, Carlos Idun-Tawiah’s cinematic photography merges memories with reimagined pasts and futures, guiding broader conversations about joy and beauty in Ghana.

CARLOS IDUN-TAWIAH: I had a very communal upbringing in Sekondi-Takoradi, along the coast of Ghana. I grew up in the church, and that’s where I held my first camera. I kept a keen interest in it, so my dad bought me disposable Polaroid cameras to document our family gatherings as a means to chart our growth while he was away in London.

My mom and grandmother were also pivotal in my photography journey. They were archivists in their own way. They made these family albums compiled from photos we took every Sunday. Literally every Sunday, but also every day of the week when my mom was going to work, she’d have me take a photo of her.

Today, I’m interested in photographs meaning more than just one thing. I look to blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction, past and present, what’s real and what isn’t but could be. I’m interested in the gaps in the archives and challenging what is there and what feels missing. How can we tell stories about people who were not documented as much but deserve to be—lives that were very well lived but not seen by the camera?

For my 2023 photo story, Sunday Special, I was inspired by a close study of the family album and my childhood growing up in a Christian home, highlighting the beauty of Sundays and reimagining the alternative possibilities of the archives. It’s a chronological series depicting my family from the beginning of a typical Sunday till the end. Another recent series, Boys Will Always Be Boys, is a requiem and a memoir of my boyhood. It’s a poignant reminder to myself and my audience to see these nostalgic silhouettes of life as a reason to be fully present. The little beginnings are what I looked to capture—the mundane moments.

Every time I pick up a camera to tell any story about Ghana, I see it as a service to my people—not just those who are living today, but also the generations to come, so they can know the lives that we lived. I want to bring hope to the world by looking at the brighter side of things and our virtues as humans. These abstract qualities like hope, love, faith, community, and friendship will heal the world, in my opinion, and it’s fulfilling waking up in the morning knowing that my art played a role in restoring hope to our world.

Follow Carlos Idun-Tawiah on Instagram. 

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