MONGEZI’S PHOTO ON VOGUE ITALIA

MBABANE – Trending internationally. After trending internationally a couple months ago, Mongezi’s photo of Sara Vost has been featured in the Italian edition of the world renowned magazine. 

The photo has been aptly named ‘Intombi Emnyama’, which translates to Melanin Queen. 

It was uploaded this past Monday on the website for the magazine, which serves as a photo portfolio for photographers from all over the world.

Locally

Worth noting is that a few months back, the photograph made waves locally as it made entertainment headlines and covers as well as a feature in French blog named ‘Fashiz Black’, who also noticed Mkhabela’s work and posted it on their Instagram page, which according to him was humbling to him as an artist. 

It also got further international recognition, when it was posted by Afropunk on their Instagram page. 

The Afropunk Festival is an annual arts festival that includes live music, film, fashion and art produced by black artists. 

Speaking to the Entertainment Desk, Mkhabela said shooting the photograph was really amazing as the environment which they did it in was fun and filled with lots of good energy.

“The shoot was initially a shoot that Will Brown and I decided on together as a way of strengthening each other’s weaknesses, with us also sharing our individuality on how we wanted to execute the shoot,” he said. 

Reason

 “I felt like the message I was trying to give out as an artist was well received, since my initial reason for shooting was to encourage all the melanin queens to feel comfortable in their own skin, to embrace it and forget about the standards set out by society,” he said. 

Earlier in July this year, Eswatini also celebrated Will Brown, whose photograph grabbed the attention of international supermodel, Naomi Campbell through the Vogue challenge, which took over social media during the lockdown.

Browns photograph did not only attract the attention of Campbell but also the attention of the giant publication. 

Imagination

Mkhabela gushingly mentioned that this was only an opening to doors that he could only imagine for the time being. 

The self-taught photographer, who has been taking pictures for over five years shared that he could not believe his work would go international although parts of him wanted that. 

Celebratory messages were shared by Instagram and Twitter users, who wished Sara Vost, who is the photographer’s model a blossoming career and reminding her of how far she had come with her crafts.  

Speaking to Vost, she could not hide her excitement as she said she could not believe the response from the public as it was quite overwhelming.

Vost shared that the responses from locals towards her feature in local photographer’s pictures made her realise the amount of support she had from emaSwati.

Heart

Born in South Sudan and having lived in the country for almost all her life, she said it really warmed her heart and motivated her to do more magical stuff that was out of this world.

Vost also said being recognised internationally made her realise her dreams of becoming a model. 

This is not the first time Mkhabela makes it onto the website as another one of his projects name Pixie Tunnel is on the website, which was uploaded on September 9, 2019. 

Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture (ENCAC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Stanley Dlamini encouraged such efforts by local artists to represent the country on international platforms such as these during the coronavirus pandemic which had forced a lockdown in the arts industry. 

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: