Barbara Minishi

Barbara Minishi is a leading fashion photographer in Kenya who has been in the industry for more than 10 years.
When she started out in 2003 there was no one Kenyan photographer who did what she wanted to do and from whom she could learn. She however credits people who were not photographers who had faith in her and were willing to give her a chance when she started out. She credits Carol Wahome who lent her a camera to use on shoots she styled. She gave her a first chance to do a shoot for the weekend supplement of a newspaper and it just grew from then on.

She had an individual vision and there was no one around her that did it at that time. She considers herself lucky to have discovered that she connected to photography as a way that she could have a voice, and was stubborn enough to follow it through on her own terms.

Barbra has worked on several projects, notably including: The Red Dress Project for which Barbara swapped skinny models for normal people, photographing a wide range of women all wearing the same red dress, as a symbol of unity and national identity in the aftermath of the 2007 post-election violence in which more than 1 000 Kenyans were killed.

She has also been the subject of a recent episode on the Al Jazeera English series, Artscape: A new African Photography about artists breaking stereotypes.

In 2014 she won Best Art Director for the film, Nairobi Half Life during the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards. 

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