Nana Kofi Acquah

Photographer and Blogger

Accra, Ghana

Nana Kofi Acquah was born two hundred metres away from Sao Jorge da Mina, the first slave castle built in tropical Africa. He lived with his grandmother who owned a pub where wayfarers, fisherman, their wives, and police officers would come looking for somebody to pour their souls out to. As a child, their stories intrigued him and when he got bored he indulged in playing soccer with his friends, catching crabs or helping fisherman pull in their catch of the day. Today he lives in Accra with his wife, three children and two dogs.

As far as Nana can remember, he has always been extremely fond of stories and grew up on them and started writing poetry when he was about 10. It was whilst working in radio that he discovered the power stories have to influence societies. He quit radio when he thought the visual part of him was dying and took a job in advertising, starting as a copywriter trainee and rising to executive creative director within 5 years.

After winning multiple awards every single year as an advertising creative, Nana decided to follow where his heart was leading him – photography. Today, he works across Africa (especially sub-saharan) telling stories, sometimes really dark ones like Ebola, but always careful to not further dehumanize the victims in these stories.

In fact, Nana Kofi Acquah believes that part of the reason why Africa is poor is because the continent has been so portrayed for centuries in the Western Media, and that it will be impossible to alter the fate of the continent, without first changing what stories we tell and how.

Nana is a member of the famous Instagram group, @everydayafrica, which has over three hundred thousand followers, and his personal page, @africashowboy, has over ninety thousand followers.

He is the first recipient of the Tim Hetherington and World Press Photo Fellowship (2016), and in January 2017 was listed by Shutter Stock as one of the top 100 photographers in the world, worth following.