ruthmcdowall@gmail.com

+64 22 313 4775

CURRENT LOCATION: AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Ruth McDowall  is a New Zealand born photographer. In 2008 she travelled to northern Nigeria, creating a project teaching at risk youth photography. Her documentary photography started from these initial years immersed in the city of Jos.

Ruth McDowall’s work throughout West Africa documents the resilience of marginalized communities and youth affected by conflict, exploring how they navigate displacement, preserve cultural traditions, and confront the impacts of climate change on land-based livelihoods. Now based in the Pacific, her projects continue to explore the relationship between people and the natural world, focusing on how communities sustain cultural and ecological ties to land and sea in the face of environmental and social change.

Since 2012, she has been documenting the resilience of Fulani cattle herding communities in Ghana and Nigeria. Her long-term project explores how these communities strive to preserve their herding traditions while facing challenges such as climate change, state marginalization, and limited access to education. A selection of her work focusing on nomadic education was presented at the United Nations Headquarters and featured in a global collaborative book with other photographers highlighting education around the world.

In 2015 she received a Photo Reporter Grant to complete a project about youth that escaped abduction by Boko Haram in Nigeria.  This project was selected as Times best 10 photo essay of the month, a finalist in Lensculture visual story telling awards 2015 and featured on New Yorker Photo Booth, National Geographic Proof and Raw View magazine.

Some of her clients include, New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, L’Obs, Esquire, National Geographic Proof, Telegraph, Elle, The Guardian, Le Telegrame, IO Donna, Jeune Afrique, Heinrich Boll Foundation, Al Jazeera magazine, Buzfeed, Bloomberg, Glamour, UNESCO, Action Aid and UNICEF

Awards, Workshops, Exhibitions, Teaching

 2019

World Press -6x6 Southeast Asia and Oceania Talent

2016

Raw View Magazine, “Women looking at Women” curated by Susan Meiselas,

Heroine, Elizabeth Housten Gallery, New York

Presentation at Nuku Studio, Nbuke Foundation, Ghana.

The Fence, Malaiku: Brooklyn, Houston, Atlanta, Boston

New York Times portfolio review

Lensculture Portrait Awards Finalist.

2015

Festival Photoreporter New Work Grant and Exhibition, France

Finalist, Lensculture Visual Story Telling Awards

Heinrich Boll Foundation Grant, Mulitmedia documentary on Internally displaced in Lagos, Nigeria.

2013

Journeys to School, Exhibition, UNESCO, UNHQ, New York

Journeys to School, book , UNESCO

Noor Masterclass conflict in Photography, France

2012

The Last Straw, Lagos Photo Festival, Nigeria