David Chijindu Iloba

Defamiliarization by @tellthatstory_ made me look twice at Osun Osogbo this year.

Everyone comes for the drums, the white-clad devotees, the long procession to the river, the trance of it all. I came for that too. But somewhere in the second hour, I stopped chasing the big moments and started looking down, sideways, at the small things nobody photographs.

While the crowd moved as one loud, colorful body, I found myself drawn to what gets lost inside it. The textures. The details that don’t shout for attention and wait for you to slow down enough to notice them.

That’s the thing about defamiliarization. It doesn’t ask you to see something new. It asks you to see something old like it’s new. I’ve walked past this festival’s textures on my last trip and never really looked at them until I decided to look differently.

This year, Osogbo didn’t just give me a festival.
It gave me a texture study I’m still processing.

📍Osun state, 2026
#osún #iseselagba #osunstate #fujifilm