Ed Kashi on the Greatest Work You’ll Do

Ed Kashi on the Greatest Work You’ll Do

November 07, 2013
2 min read

“What it takes is a desire, a hunger, to see and to capture things.” —Ed Kashi

The city of Kano, Nigeria has seen decades of ethno-religious violence. There, as elsewhere in the long-tense north, Islam and Christianity, past and present, meet head-on.
The city of Kano, Nigeria, from the November 2013 National Geographic story “The War for Nigeria.”

Ed Kashi believes that a photographer’s greatest work comes from the issues he or she genuinely cares about. His commitment to the geopolitical stories of our day has taken him from the Niger Delta, where he covered the development of oil and its negative effects on the region, to his own backyard, where he documented his own experiences with aging in America. For Kashi, it is important that his work makes a difference and inspires engagement with the audience. “Photography is singular,” he said, “in that it makes you stop, it makes you think, it makes you question.” His work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, World Press Foundation, Communication Arts, and American Photography. —G. Ligaiya Romero, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This video portrait was produced by National Geographic magazine in partnership with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. It is part of an ongoing series of conversations with the photographers of the magazine, exploring the power of photography and why this life of imagemaking suits them so well. Learn more about the making of the series and watch the full trailer here.

Follow Ed Kashi on his website.

Video Production Credits
Photography: Ed Kashi
Producers: Pamela Chen, NGM
Chad A. Stevens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Associate Producer: Elyse Lipman, NGM
Editor: G. Ligaiya Romero, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Camera and Sound: Spencer Millsap, NGM, Shannon Sanders, NGM

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