Richard Tilney-Bassett

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Trade 52 | TXF Africa

Okay, so my initial train of thought when first contacted about this trade was something like this: "Not sure photographing conferences is my thing" followed quickly by "Don't be silly; say yes, see what happens" and finally "Hang on, my work doesn't look anything like their other galleries - is it even a good fit for them?". But from chatting with Katy that was the point - give me free reign to try something different. They were also saying yes and seeing what happened. I remained unsure though the event if I was fulfilling this as I continued to wrestle with trying to use my flash correctly but hey... I was in Kenya and the TXF team were a blast to hang out with.

I met the staff on the first morning still shaking off the surreal feeling I was in Kenya, stuffed some free hotel food into my rucksack on their insistence and barrelled out the door into a taxi with founders Dom and JB. First stop was the Kibera slum to visit Little Rock school, a partner of charity AbleChildAfrica who was in turn sponsored by TXF.

The following day the event itself kicked off. Two days of business people talking about business stuff that was a bit over my head... but fortunately I wasn't there to talk about Africa as a developing economy - I was there to take nice photos. The Nairobi backdrop and plenty of sharply dressed Kenyans lent itself quite well to that task.

Nairobi, Kenya

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