Victoria Kelly: Architectural Forms of Man and Nature

I am a journalist and photographer based in Lusaka. I’ve lived here since 2006 when I left my job as a financial journalist in London and came to Zambia to work for a local newspaper. I’ve been taking pictures since my early 20s, initially with film cameras, but then when I was given my first digital camera shortly after I arrived in Zambia, I ran with that, loving the freedom and immediacy of it. I took it everywhere with me as I travelled around Zambia and Southern Africa, chronicling what I saw. I am very lucky to have been to so many beautiful places, not just in Zambia but across Africa. It is an extraordinary continent.

In the last few years, I have gone back to film photography and have set up a darkroom in my studio in Lusaka, where I process my own film and prints. I enjoy the slowness of film and find it makes me think more carefully about what pictures I want to take. This in turn is reinvigorating my digital photography. This year, I plan to travel to the north, south, east and west of Zambia, taking pictures of the people I meet and telling their stories – a pilgrimage, if you like, around a country that has given me so much over the last 16 years.