Interesting article with 20 photos that shows a more balanced view of "Everyday Nigerians"

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/everyday-nigeria-not-idealized-not-debased/?_r=1

Helon Habila grew up in northern Nigeria and has written vividly about it, most recently in “Oil on Water,” a novel that explores the oil industry’s effects on the Niger Delta. A former newspaper editor as well, he now lives in Virginia and teaches at George Mason University.

But when Mr. Habila looks at American newspapers, magazines or Web sites, the photos he sees give at best only a partial view of the Nigeria he knows. Most photographers come to the country either to show poverty or political violence, he said, with “predetermination about what they want” to find.

When he was approached to help choose and comment on smartphone photos of ordinary life in Nigeria for the Instagram feed “Everyday Africa,” he reacted enthusiastically, since the photos evoked many memories.

“They showed people just being people, without the intention, without the politics, without the biases — whether it’s positive bias or negative bias,” he said.

“It’s just people as they are, and I think that’s the way people should be seen, wherever they come from. Not idealized, not debased, but just people.”

“These photos bring back all the aspects of life in that country in its entirety,” he said. “It presents Nigeria in so many different ways, so there’s a kind of truth about it, an authenticity.”