Balarabe: How his lens creates a visual narrative of climate change

By Mazhun Idris

Balarabe uba Abdullahi's craft as a professional photographer specialising in portraiture isn't just about capturing faces. He frames emotions — vivid, stark, unaffected, smiling, serene, melancholic — and tells stories in light and shade.

Balarabe, aka Balancy, has built a reputation in his native Nigeria and some neighbouring countries through his studio work, but nothing gives him a greater sense of fulfilment than chronicling the changing faces of nature and its relationship with an evolving world.

"Many of my clients are taken aback when I tell them that I am an animal scientist," the founder of Balancy Photography in Nigeria's Kano, tells TRT Afrika.

The 43-year-old, who received a government scholarship in 1997 to learn photography in Egypt, opened his first professional photo studio in the early part of the millennium and gradually created a clientele that has continued growing.

"I am among the pioneers of digital photography in northern Nigeria. I have dominated the northern market for years," he says.

While Balarabe enjoys doing the usual things a professional in his field is required to do – prodding a shy bride to smile, adjusting an emir's turban, or getting a child to be still – his mission as a photographer-cinematographer goes beyond his day job.

He is happiest walking with a camera slung from his neck, recording images of humanity's interaction with raw nature beyond the fanfare of wedding ceremonies or cultural regattas.

Lens for humanity

"I was born in Bagadawa village of Dawakin Tofa province in Kano State. I have travelled across West Africa and seen what the environment means to different people. Environmental photography is close to my heart," Balarabe tells TRT Afrika.

Balarabe's eye for detail helps him capture every nuance in the struggles of ordinary people in the Sahel as they deal with the impact of climate change. Poverty and displacement form a big part of his storytelling.

One of his pictures shows a girl struggling to place a canister on a cart after filling it up with water from a stream. The image summarises the plight of the drought-affected regions of the Sahel, where people trek long distances to fetch water for domestic use.

His lens has captured similar vignettes of life in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal.

Balarabe, who has a bachelor's degree in animal health and husbandry and a master's in animal production from Maryam Abacha American University in Niger, brings all that knowledge and experience into his environmental photography.

"I focus on whatever I see in the lives of humans and animals. Modern life is imbued with the triumph of humans over the environment, reflected in urban jungles and a farm of solar panels," he says.

Gaining visibility

Balarabe draws satisfaction from the fact that his work is getting noticed beyond his bread-and-butter photography.

"When I saw one of my environment-related photos garnering 10,000 views on Google Maps in 2022, I got the belief that this type of work can raise awareness about environmental issues like water scarcity, sanitation, and pollution," he tells TRT Afrika.

His photographs depicting environmental change have been showcased through various international exhibitions, magazines, books, and films.

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