Jesco Denzel: Lagos Waterfront Under Threat

Art Criticism

Introduction
The above picture was photographed by photographer Jesco Denzel, who works under the photography agency, laif für Photos & Reportagen. The photograph who won first prize singles for world press photo competition under the theme contemporary issues. The picture was titled as ‘Lagos Waterfront under Threat’ and it depicts a group of tourists in a boat steering through a canal of the Makoko community in Lagos, Nigeria. Makoko community is based in Lagos Lagoon making it a humongous informal settlement after it was recognized as an ancient fishing village. The photographer, Jesco Denzel (2017) explained the story of the series in his website as following:
“Otode Gbame and Makoko are ancient fishing settlements on the shores of Lagos Lagoon. They’ve been there well before modern-day Lagos and existed peacefully for about 150 years. But now big Business is kicking in. Building ground is scarce in Lagos, and powerful families with strong ties to the government are putting their hands on the prime real estates on the waterfront. The

It depicts a man who is part of a theatre production getting applauses by the audiences. There was no huge and obvious contrast such as the main photograph but the projection of the subject matter is similar. The differences lie within the color in the surrounding. This picture blends in well with the surrounding which is a good indication that the surrounding is with the subject matter but in the main photograph (the Lagos community), the surrounding lack saturation which makes the subject matter has the out-of-this-world feels to it.
From all the comparisons and contrasting done above, Denzel's still-life pictures use colors and contrasting to tell the story of the surrounding, the event or the incident. His works are charismatic but controversial as well, and that is a good indicator of eye-catching photojournalism.x