Sharing lunch with Isaac at his beautiful home; sunlight slipping across the floor, music by Nina Simone playing in the background. I am reminded how queerness lives in the gentle, everyday moments of care, love, and connection we create for each other.

The Not So Ordinary is a deeply personal project rooted in friendship, love, and resistance; documenting queerness in Ghana from the inside out. Shaped by the bonds I share with my friends—Isaac, Berry, Maame Yaa, Kukua, and others; this body of work is not the result of distant observation. For over two years, I have photographed the lives of my queer friends not as an outsider, but as someone within.

What began as a personal photo album of my queer friends in Accra has evolved into a portrait of how Ghana’s queer community continues to live, love, and grow in the midst of uncertainty. My work celebrates lives shaped by intimacy, hope, safety, joy, and the ongoing search for self and belonging.

These relationships are at the soul of my work. The trust we have built allows me to photograph with an honesty that goes beyond the surface that could never be staged. My camera becomes an extension of these connections, reflecting not just what I see, but how I feel. Whether it is those quiet mornings with Maame Yaa, or afternoons with Kukua and Berry wandering the edges of the city, I am drawn to the spaces where intimacy and freedom meet.

Community is where these layers converge. Through shared meals, soft laughter, and bold self-expression, I show how we build sanctuaries in a world that often denies us space. In moments of joy, reflection, and quiet resistance, one phrase always finds its way in:“Gay Dey Reign.”It is something my friends often say. It is more than a joke. It is truth. It is a declaration. My camera honours these acts of love and challenges the notion that queerness is un-African.

The settings I photograph are deeply personal: our homes, where we rest and dream; nature, where we escape and expand. These spaces—both private and open—carry symbolic weight. Homes become havens; the outdoors a metaphor for possibility and anonymity. Each image speaks to both our shared experiences—the laughter, struggles, and tenderness—and to the distinct ways we each embody queerness.

This work is my contribution to a collective memory that resists forgetting. A memory that affirms: we are here. We have always been here.