During my internship with The Finder, I was sent out with my camera to cover various events throughout Accra. While a number of events were fairly run of the mill and frankly boring, I was given the opportunity to photograph a handful of events with very important people present.
These people covered both Ghanaian and American diplomats alike. The American politicians were quite a surprise to see in Accra and I couldn’t help but wonder if I will ever get the opportunity to be as close to them in the United States as I was here in Ghana. As I started to take more photos of important people in the political realm, I decided to play a sly game of bingo with myself.
I covered an event called the Young African Women Congress hosted on the University of Ghana’s campus. While there I got to photograph both the first female Chief of Staff Frema Opare as well as First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo.
About a week after this, I was invited to cover a tour of a clothing factory in Ghana called the Dignity Do The Right Thing factory. As it turns out, this factory was built with joint efforts between the African Growth and Opportunity Act and U.S. aid. Due to this, the people on the tour was a group of U.S. Congressional delegates. Among them were Representative John Lewis, Representative Ilhan Omar, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Then, another week after that, in one day I photographed the two people in the highest political positions in Ghana respectively. During a morning event for the World Business Angel Investment Forum I heard Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia speak about the importance of entrepreneurship in Ghana.
A few hours later I watched President Nana Akufo-Addo judge an entrepreneurial pitch event wherein he presented prizes to the winners.
Each of these events gave me the opportunity to reflect on how lucky I am to be here to find myself in the same room as powerful people. While I may not agree with the politics of each person I photographed, I was excited to simply have the opportunity to record their presence in Accra as a part of history.
