My hometown

Greetings, my name is Gerald Kokra and I am 26 years old. The story about my hometown is full of colors, authenticity, and uniqueness. But, before I go further into it let me first properly introduce myself, and what it is that I do. I am a freelance photographer based in the Bronx ( NYC). I love documentary, portrait, and fashion photography. I would define my style as realism, which is the main reason why I still shoot film these days. The accuracy, and translation to moods and colors are astonishing. My introduction to photography was actually quite a long journey, growing up I was always attracted to art. By the time I was 16 years of age living in Abidjan I started playing the guitar, but I did not have enough money to afford a camera so I would browse the internet to look at photographs or buy magazines and sit for hours looking at the beauty behind them. The idea of being a photographer or working in the art world always resonated, but considering the circumstances of my culture it was impossible to do so back then. Being a photographer in Abidjan wasn't taken seriously, people were often mocked for being broke or just not taken seriously at all. I left my hometown in 2011, after a political war/conflict. I have fled to France and later came to the United States of America. Fast forward to the year 2018, exactly in August after my mom passed I realized that life was too short to sleep on my dreams so I decided to pursue photography. It has been a very rough, long but extremely exciting journey. I have made it a mission to make it more acceptable in my society to be an Artist, especially for kids wanting to pursue a photography career. I have a strong desire to have my work exhibited and shown across the globe one day to inspire and motivate those who don't believe that it's possible to still make their dreams a reality. One of my biggest ambitions once becoming an established photographer would be to have workshops available wherever I could for kids who have no means to afford classes but are wanting to learn. My project "ABJ" has a heavy sentimental value to me as it was my first time returning home as a photographer.

My hometown is Abidjan the economical capital city of Cote d'Ivoire. I have recently gone back to the time of the holidays. I planned to work on a personal project called "ABJ". Its first purpose is to highlight talents within the city, and that is models, rappers, stylists, ad Artists in general. It was a way for me to show the rest of the world what urban culture looked like in Abidjan. The poetry of the streets at night, the feels, and also the fashion. This project has been a delight to work on despite the numerous adversities it faced. Now, you are probably wondering what could have gone wrong? well, I'll tell you. On my first meeting with Mohamed the stylist associated with the project, I fell on a set of stairs and broke my lens. Needless to say, I was extremely discouraged, I also found out at the same time that lots of the locations I intended to shoot were not free and the rental per hour was just too crazy of a budget for me to handle. Luckily, my lens got repaired, and I opted for a street environment, to showcase my art, and express myself. I have used three different creative tools throughout the trip, first my beloved Pentax 6x7 it is a reliable solid monstrous film camera, and my iPhone to capture street actions and videos. Abidjan is a city of style the fashion is nothing to be played with, I tried to work with the environment while matching the colors the best way possible. A vast majority of the work was shot in the neighborhoods in which I have grown up ( cocody , riviera, anono , treichville ). During my stay, I was very lucky to meet random people in the city with striking stories and features that loved to be in front of my lens. I have also captured some market scenes and very unique experiences in the city. In a word, I am very honored and happy to share with the rest of the world my body of work and show my city from a different perspective different poverty , and war.