Participating in the project Congo in Conversation gave Congolese-born Guerchom Ndebo his big break in photojournalism. "At its heart, the project was about collaboration," he says, "which was key in helping me to make rapid progress." In this image, villagers fuel a kiln to make charcoal on a section of deforested land at the edge of Virunga National Park, just north of the eastern Congolese city of Goma. Taken on a Canon EOS M50 with a Canon EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM lens at 21mm, 1/1600 sec, f/4 and ISO400. © Guerchom Ndebo for the Carmignac Foundation
It wasn't a camera that first sparked Guerchom Ndebo's interest in photography. It was a mirror. Growing up, his mother worked as a seamstress, and as a child he was always fascinated to see her clients' reactions when they tried on their new clothes, looked at their reflections and saw themselves in a new way. "I was curious, I wanted to share their emotions," explains the 22-year-old Congolese photojournalist. Guerchom now uses his photography to help others see his homeland in new ways, holding up a mirror to the Congo. It's a country that has been photographed extensively by outsiders – from Alice Seeley Harris's anti-slavery images in the 19th century to Richard Mosse's 2014 Deutsche Börse Prize-winning bright pink landscapes – but Guerchom's images give an insider's perspective.
Currently a student in Communication Sciences at Bujumbura Light University, Guerchom got his first big break in the photography industry with his series Congo's Charcoal. It was developed as part of the Congo in Conversation project spearheaded by Canon Ambassador Finbarr O'Reilly for the 11th Carmignac Photojournalism Award.
Originally, when Finbarr was named the winner of the award, he'd planned to report from the Congo himself. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, he revised his vision, switching roles from photographer to curator. The result was a collaborative website offering Congo-based journalists and photographers – Guerchom among them – a platform to share the multimedia coverage they were producing and an outlet where narratives about the country could be told by the people who lived there.