The Butcher Shops of Africa: a personal project

Since my very first trip to Africa, I’ve been drawn to the roadside butcher shops—pulled in by heat, smell, and instinct. Meat hangs openly in the sun, flies hum in the air, and hand-painted signs shout with color and confidence. It’s bold, primitive, and raw, a stark contrast to the sealed plastic and refrigerated distance of how we encounter meat in America.

Each butchery has its own personality. Improvised typography, weathered illustrations, walls marked by time and use. These spaces blur the line between function and expression, where necessity becomes visual language and culture is written in paint, rust, and shadow.

This personal project brings me back again and again as I travel through rural Africa. It allows me to explore a grittier, edgier approach to my photography—embracing hard light, deep contrast, texture, and discomfort. The result is an honest study of place, unpolished and unapologetic, shaped by the environment itself.