Dark Frame II: Tobiloba Ajimuda Captures The Stillness of Life Through Light and Shadow

By Michael Kolawole

Tobiloba Ajimuda captures the stillness of life through the reflection of light and shadow. It is essentially explored in his pictorial contributions to the Dark Frame II exhibition, the international virtual exhibition hosted by Carlotta Gallery.

The Nigerian-UK photographer, whose working name is Escencia Visuals, employs rays of light and shades of darkness to accentuate the subjects of his pictures. The subtleties buttress the feelings often hidden in the placid everyday scenes.

Titled “Silent Bloom, Whisper of Solitude,” and “Sunlight Cutting into Sound,” his monochromatic pictures at the 2025 exhibition lean into a high-contrast film noir aesthetic. It transforms mundane pieces of technology, people passing the time, and a vase of flowers into intriguing moments of reflection.

Sunlight and shadow streak across scenes, creating a striking effect called chiaroscuro or dapple light, is a captivating tool in photography. Photographers use this technique to add warmth, drama, and mood. It involves direct, intense light, often from the sun, that forms sharp contrasts on a subject or background.

Light filtering through blinds, trees, or structures acts like a secondary actor in Ajimuda’s photography, emphasising shadows and adding depth to the image.

The first picture, titled Silent Bloom, introduces us to how the interaction between light and shadow makes something ordinary look ethereal. Similar to the famous Dutch flower paintings of the 17th-century Golden Age, the picture is perhaps the most assured and poetic of the three.

Its composition of a round table bathed in a raking light by the window and a glass vase holding dry stems, evokes the transient nature of life. How the light spills through the window panes and stretches across the tabletop creates a rhythm of stripes that directs the eyes to the delicate, withered, and spindly stems in the glass vase.

Understanding that what is not seen is as important as what is seen, Ajimuda uses the wilted flowers to represent venitas (the vanity of life). The “dusty” quality of the black-and-white processing gives the picture a nostalgic air, more like a gradual fading of memory.

There is an uncanny beauty and unpolished honesty to how Ajimuda frames the subjects of Whispers of Solitude. Featuring two people sitting outdoors, the picture captures the specific late evening heavy sunlight that turns shadow into ink.

The picture is palpably absurd, bearing a loud silence that’s hard to ignore. Its bird’s-eye view framing gives it a voyeuristic aptitude, as though Ajimuda is peering into the subjects’ vulnerability.

One of the subjects is divided by light and shadow. The other, with his back turned to the one bisected by darkness and light, is entirely in the light. Both look lost in thought, probably contemplating something.

The “London to Hogwarts inscription on the hoodie of the subject in the light renders a sort of muted communication between us and the subjects, breaking the silence of gloom.

Sunlight Cutting Into Sound, Ajimuda’s last photograph in the collection, is a picture of a lonely radio. Placed against the harsh diagonal of sunlight and shadow bisecting the entire frame, the mundane piece of tech is transformed into an extraterrestrial piece.

Ajimuda’s framing puts the isolated radio in a palpable position of longing, as though it’s waiting for a signal or to be touched by a human.

The radio has a dejected air, feeling lost between the light and the shadow. The right side of the radio casts a pentagonal shade in the backdrop, creating a streak of light between the radio and the huge shadow above and beside. The triangular shade of shadow on its right side casts a gloomy air on it.

Stripping away colours, Ajimuda forces us to focus on the skeletal structure of the scene: the coarse tile the radio is sitting on; the grainy wall in the background, and the electrical sockets almost hidden in the shadow.

Put together, the three photographs reveal Ajimuda as an astute photographer with a keen eye for finding meaning in the mundane things of life.

For all its brilliance and technical assurance, Ajimuda’s selection for the Dark Frame II exhibition occasionally tilts too heavily toward the very aesthetic that gives it life. Though striking at first glance, the insistence on the high-contrast chiaroscuro is predictable across all three photographs. Settling into visual monotony, the tension between light and shadow stops evolving, almost tainting the photograph’s poetry of bathing in darkness and light.

Case in point is Whispers of Solitude. Its conceptual ambition slightly outpaces its execution. The voyeuristic, aerial view suggests an affecting presence but the subjects remain frustratingly opaque. Their inner worlds are suggested but are never convincingly accessed, leaving them hovering between intrigue and detachment.

In a similar vein, Sunlight Cutting Into Sound risks overstatement. The anthropomorphising of the radio, imbuing it with longing and isolation, looks imposing rather than being organically earned through the image itself. The composition is meticulous, but its symbolism hinges on obvious, lacking the subtle restraint that elevates Still Blooms.

That said, within the imperfections of Ajimuda’s selection lies a promise of aiming for something more expansive or surreal in the mundane things. He makes a tangible effort to make a distinct visual language by using light and shadow as a form of photography communication.

“Ajimuda’s photography brilliance casts souls into monochrome, with masterful use of tone and composition,” said the curator of the Carlotta Gallery, Carlotta Olympia Pompei, after awarding Ajimuda with a Certificate of Recognition.