Dean Sameshima Portrait Photography

I met this young Himba girl near to a place called Etengwa in the far north of Namibia. We trekked a few kilometres in the midday heat, over a rocky hill to a small village within wh...

I met this young married Samburu in the middle of a busy market in western Kenya. She was with a group of young women browsing the wooden stalls dotted across the dusty red earth in the lowlands of the Matthew’s Range. In Samburu communities young men spend years as warriors – a wandering lifestyle which make it impossible for them to marry. Instead they take girlfriends and give them beads and necklaces to indicate their relationship. Samburu girls adore receiving these presents and adorn themselves in more and more necklaces. The girl in this picture, although now married to an elder, still shows her beads from the time of being promised to a warrior: they are the band of 8 or so thin necklaces...

I met this young Himba girl near to a place called Etengwa in the far north of Namibia. We trekked a few kilometres in the midday heat, over a rocky hill to a small village within wh...

A young woman of the Afar culture John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and in their day to...

This Himba elder was at a huge funeral gathering in the western Kaokoland between the largest town of the area, Opuwo, and Otjitando. The area was flat, and very dry, with a strong w...

The steady gaze of Inchoy and child. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to captur...

A young man of the Afar culture in the town of Assaita. Many men spend the afternoons in loud debate in mud buildings and courtyards. Often with fistfuls of miraa leaves (ghat) and...

I met this girl from the Turkana community of Loiyangalani very near to the shores of Lake Turkana. She was walking with her head covered to provide some...

A young man of the Afar culture in the town of Assaita. Many men spend the afternoons in loud debate in mud buildings and courtyards. Often with fistfuls of miraa leaves (ghat) and...

John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and his subjects in their day to day attire. The C-t...

John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and his subjects in their day to day attire. The C-t...

This Himba elder was at a huge funeral gathering in the western Kaokoland between the largest town of the area, Opuwo, and Otjitando. The area was flat, and very dry, with a strong wind constantly whipping up fine, dry dust and flinging it across the landscape. The funeral was quite different in feel. People were engaged in deep, animated conversations, they smiled and laughed a lot in more of a festival atmosphere than one of sadness. Long parted friends came together to celebrate the life of the man who had passed – a man of huge popularity and social status. The funeral was to last a week and the crowd was swelling each day. There were huge animal carcasses being cooked on fires tended carefully by younger Himba men. I watched from a distance, concerned at the need for privacy at such a gathering, but a number of groups waved for me to come over. The elder maintained a natural authority within his small circle, and I noticed that others spoke to him with deference. In the past this man had hunted and killed desert lions. He then pointed to a large gouge on the man’s thigh – the results of one of these encounters. The lower necklace on this man are made of the soft ears of lambs. The small metal spear...