Photographing the streets of Nairobi

Nairobi Road SIgn

Nairobi is one of those places which seems to have had everything turned up to 11. Its noise, colour, heat, traffic, population, pollution, smells, security, crime, wealth and poverty are an assault on the senses.

Home to three and a half million residents, or six and a half million if you include the suburbs, the Kenyan capital is the manufacturing, industrial, and financial hub of East and Central Africa.

But the Nairobi’s commercial success is juxtaposed with its poverty. According to a 2014 World Policy report 60 percent of its residents live in slums. In fact the urban slums of Kibera are the largest in Africa with an estimated population of about two million.

It comes as no shock that Nairobi crime levels are high – with  regular robberies, burglaries, carjacks, and street crime. In spite of this the positive energy of this city prevails and the smiles people give you as you walk along the street are some of the warmest I have ever had.

Here is a collection of some of my favourite street photographs taken over the last 12 months, while I have been living.

Piki Piki with an umbrella in Nairobi

Crossing the road in Nairobi

Washing day in Nairobi

Street scene in Nairobi

Plastic pollution in Nairobi

Street scene Nairobi

Shopping in Nairobi

Washing day in Nairobi

Poverty in Nairobi

Street scene on the outskirts of Nairobi

Fruit stall in Nairobi

Street market in Nairobi

Street market in Nairobi

Street stalls on the outskirts of Nairobi

Street scene in Nairobi

Piki piki drivers in Nariobi

Street scene in Nairobi

Security overload in Nairobi

Street scene in Nairobi

Hub caps for sale in Nairobi

Goat herder in central Nairobi

Street scene in Nairobi

Shoe shopping in Nairobi

Street market in Nairobi

Running for the bus in Nairobi

On the streets of Nairobi

The slums in Nairobi

Goat herders in the slums of Nairobi

Crossing the road in Nairobi

Bike repair shop in Nairobi

Street market in Nairobi

Washing day in Nairobi

Street art in Nairobi

The buses and matatus, with their gaudy hand painted murals from the world of film, music and football, are a colourful but dangerous addition to the streets.  As you are cut up for the tenth time that day by one of the matatu drivers, the religious slogans which are often written on the back, will either make you scream or laugh.

Matatu with a messge in Nairobi

Matatu art in Nairobi

Victory belongs to Jesus on this matatu in Nairobi

Painted bus in Nairobi

Football themed matatu in Nairobi

Adidas – Add Jesus – sign on a bus in Nairobi

Colourful buses in Nairobi

Face Off on a bus Matatu

I ain’t afraid of no ghost, but I am too scared to travel on one of these buses in Nairobi

In Kenyan buses we trust

Almost crashed when I read this one on the back of a matatu in Mombasa

Kenya sign on an underpass in Nairobi