In this Exclusive Editorial, Cape Town, South Africa-based fashion and lifestyle photographer Dan Carter urges us to honor our ancestors as we reclaim our heritage.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME -
To honour the ones who came before us, the ones who uprooted their lives for us, for the ones who risked it all for us, this is a continuation of a progressing series about taking back the ownership over our identity which I believe, could be our greatest inheritance of all.
As a Fashion and Lifestyle Photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa, beauty is at my fingertips. From outstanding landscapes to rich and diverse cultures, inspiration is inevitable but more often than not, my work is an outworking of an inward wrestling. Artists create to heal; we create to understand; sometimes we create out of our ignorance, sometimes out of joy or frustration, perhaps even our resentment. I think these very raw and real emotions are what people connect with so deeply. There is nothing more human than to question and to wonder.
Over the last few months, I have been wrestling with the topic of ‘inheritance’ - who we are, where we come from and what we will leave behind. Travelling back to the UK allowed me to continue exploring this theme from another angle. While it was my despondence towards landlessness in post-apartheid South Africa which prompted me to first question what it is that our generation will inherit, my context of study in the UK was directed towards displacement and the longing for a sense of home.
Working with talented fashion stylist, Bianca Nicole, we wanted to create a nostalgic feel with these images, subtle nods towards the past through careful styling that was not representative of just one community but instead represented an era of time, concluding it would be most appropriate to take this shoot to the south coast.
So, in honour of the ones who came before us, the ones who uprooted their lives for us, for the ones who risked it all for us, this is a continuation of a progressing series about taking back the ownership over our identity which I believe, could be our greatest inheritance of all.
MODELS: @lennykragba & @soosinead
PHOTOGRAPHER: @dancarter
STYLIST: @biiancanicole
LOCATION: London, United Kingdom