Nichole Sobecki

Nichole Sobecki

Nichole Sobecki

Nairobi, Kenya

b. 1986, USA. Nichole Sobecki is a photographer and filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is represented internationally by the photo agency VII.

Nichole was born in the state of New York and graduated from Tufts University with a degree in political science. She began her career in Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, focusing on regional issues related to identity, conflict, and human rights. From 2012-2015 Nichole led Agence France-Presse’s East Africa video bureau before immersing herself in documentary photography. She is also a contributor to Everyday Africa, a collection of images shot on mobile phones across the continent, and an attempt to showcase the moments missing from dramatic news images — everyday life that is neither idealized nor debased.

Nichole aims to create photographs and films that demand consideration for the lives of those represented – their joys, challenges, and ultimately their humanity. Amidst our fractured present existence, she believes that a well-told story can cut through the noise, deepen empathy, and inspire a more conscious world. 

The primary focus of Nichole’s work is on humanity’s fraught, intimate, and ultimately unbreakable connection to the natural world. In 2016 Nichole began her body of work entitled Where Our Land Was, supported by The GroundTruth Project, which investigates the human consequences of significant environmental change in Somalia. She is currently exploring the vital role the Congo Basin plays in the ecological balance of our planet as a National Geographic Explorer. As climate change advances, sustained photography must illuminate the complex and multifaceted problems underway, evoke the power and beauty of the world we share, and remind us all of our collective responsibility to fix what we have broken.

In 2022 Nichole was honored with an ASME Award for Cheetahs for Sale which goes inside the trafficking network helping to drain Africa of its cheetah cubs--and the efforts by Somalilanders to stop the illegal trade. In 2021 she was shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) for Where Our Land Was. In 2018 she was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights prize in new media for her images documenting Europe's response to the African migration crisis. In 2015 Nichole was a Rory Peck Awards News Finalist for her coverage of the Westgate mall attacks in Kenya. Her work has also been recognized by Pictures of the Year, the One World Media Awards, the Alexandra Boulat Award for Photojournalism, The Magenta Foundation, and The Jacob Burns Film Center, among others.

Nichole’s photography has been exhibited at The United Nations Headquarters and Photoville in New York City, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, The Nikola Rukaj Gallery in Toronto, and beyond. She is a passionate teacher, workshop leader, and speaker.

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Children
Family
Elizabeth helps her mom out at the hair salon she works at in Gachie, a rapidly expanding suburb of Nairobi.
Animal
Local
In a string of Nairobi warehouses Java House's culinary team prepare food and beverages to be distributed to the company's growing number of restaurants, including roasting their own coffee beans and baking their own bread and pastries.
Portrait of Lowelu Krion, who is waiting on the side of the beach for the fishermen to return from retrieving the nets from Lake Turkana, Kenya.
Evelyn Ekutan (11) plays with her sister Stella Ekutan (2) in a bucket of water underneath the kiosk's tap in the remote region of Turkana, Kenya.
Traditional Accessory
Classroom
Bird
Classroom
Wooden carts drawn by donkeys rattle along the streets of Hawassa, Ethiopia, on January 17, 2018.
On the shores of Lake Hawassa, Ethiopia, people come at dawn to gather water and fish, on January 20, 2018.
People gather to celebrate Timkat, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's celebration of Jesus Christ's baptism, in Hawassa, Ethiopia, on January 19, 2018.
Portrait
Green Queens player Rukia Taleb (19) rests during halftime. The first game of the season for Zanzibar's women's soccer clubs saw the Jumbi Women Fighters beat the Green Queens 2:0 on the island's Jumbi pitch, on June 18, 2018.
Portrait of Glenda Chidyausiku (20) and her young son Malcolm (1), named after Malcolm X, on their small farm outside Domboshawa, Zimbabwe, on March 13, 2018.
A supporter of the MDC-Alliance (Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance) leader and opposition presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa watches the party's closing campaign rally at Freedom square from atop a tall tree in Harare, on July 28, 2018.
On a sunny afternoon an Olkaria engineer relaxes in the azure water of the Olkaria Geothermal Spa, which draws its mineral-rich water from condensed steam at the Olkaria geothermal power generation complex in Hells Gate National Park, Kenya, on August 18, 2018.
Zelalem Mulat Teklewold (Ethiopia)
Five-month-old camel Baarud playfully pulls at Aadar Mohamed's (44) hijab in Hiijinle village outside Lughaya in north-western Somaliland, on December 10, 2019.
Camel
Members of Sudan’s first ever women’s club football league, including goalkeeper for league team Eltahadi Huda Ali (28), during a co-ed training on a dirt field on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan, on February 9, 2020.
Musician Daniel Owino, who goes by the name Futwax, performs his latest song "Have you sanitized?" -- written and recorded in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic -- with his four-year-old son Julian Austin in their home in Nairobi's informal Kibera community, on April 1, 2020.
Nearly a week into a self-quarantine, Zelalem Mulat Teklewold follows news of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on his phone beneath a tree just outside his home in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 20, 2020.
Lydia Akoth and her best friend Valentine Ayuma, both 10, practice ballet through an online class on the sofa of Lydia’s home in Kibera, the largest of more than 100 informal settlements in Nairobi, on June 5, 2020.
A fisherman raises his arms as he emerges from Lake Turkana outside Kalokol town, on August 8, 2020.
Rebecca Akamasi carries her child Akal Akamasi across a small inlet off Lake Turkana beyond Kalokol town, on August 8, 2020.
Men from the Red Sea Mountains celebrate the wedding of Musa Wad Alomda by competing for the highest leap, in Uorhaib Village, Sudan, on September 20, 2020.
Model Suzan Charles has her makeup and hair done by fashion stylist Maab Siddig and makeup artist Waad Al Fatih ahead of a photoshoot at Khartoum’s edgy Graphious Studio, Sudan, on October 5, 2020.
A veterinarian checks the pupils of a barely conscious cheetah, dehydrated and suffering from infected puncture wounds, likely caused by another animal, at North Kenya Veterinary Services in Nanyuki, Kenya, on April 9, 2021.
Pastoralist Lobikito Leparselu milks his family’s lactating goats at dawn in their manyatta before they’re let out to graze in Meibae Community Wildlife Conservancy in Samburu County, Kenya, on March 26, 2021.
Mechanical engineer Monicah Mwalo welds metal together for the fabrication of parts for an electric vehicle conversion in Roam’s Research and Development unit in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 23, 2021.
Portrait of mechanical engineer Esther Wairimu, 25, as the Roam team works on a battery system for an electric converted Land Cruiser in for a scheduled maintenance in Roam’s research and development facility works in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 5, 2021.
Girls comes together for a special event at this small ballet studio in Nairobi’s largest informal settlement of Kibera, on April 26, 2021.
Scouts John Chege and Amos Mbuthi Kimani patrol Karura Forest, the city’s largest green area, with electric motorbikes in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 7, 2021.
Fisherman Andrew Odongo Omollo, an Asobo electric motor customer, and crewman Michael Okoth, prepare battery-powered lanterns before floating them one by one in the waters of Lake Victoria, in Mbita, Kenya, on May 10, 2021.
A fishermen secures an Asobo electric engine as he prepares his boat to return to Lake Victoria for a night of fishing from Koguna Beach in Mbita, Kenya, on May 10, 2021.
Visitors to Emboo Camp in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve enjoy a drive in a converted electric safari vehicle, a green innovation that could upend the Kenya safari experience — and help preserve the delicate ecosystems that draw some two million tourists to the country every year — on May 13, 2021.
Riders fill the popular Bad and Boujee “matatu,” one of many privately owned buses that have transported at least 60 percent of Nairobi’s population since the early ’60s, on May 19, 2021.
Sudanese tourists visit Jebel Barkal, Sudan, to climb the small butte that has been considered sacred for thousands of years, on August 1, 2021.
A haboob, or sandstorm, followed by a thunderstorm, rolls across the Meroë pyramids, Sudan, during a visit by a group of schoolchildren organized by “For Education” local youth volunteers, on August 3, 2021.
Portrait of Shakira Swalleh with her daughter Muhindo Shukri (6) in the living room of their home in Kampala, Uganda on March 9, 2022.
Portrait of dancer Brenda Branice, 14, outside Project Elimu in Nairobi’s largest informal settlement of Kibera, on May 7, 2022.
Bull elephants roam through Tawi Conservancy, a crucial corridor that links Amboseli National Park with the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo protected areas in Kenya, on May 22, 2022.
Entrepreneur Nooran Al Bannay, founder of Coffee Architecture, hosts a weekly Instagram Live to grow modern coffee culture in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, from behind the country of her popular cafe on July 18, 2022.
Guide makes a traditional cup of ‘qahwa’, the Arabic word for coffee, at the Heritage Village in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on July 19, 2022.
A mother elephant and young calf roam through Kimana Sanctuary, a crucial corridor that links Amboseli National Park with the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo protected areas in Kenya, on May 23, 2022.
A feeding demonstration for sharks and rays, representing 25 different species, at the largest aquarium in the Middle East, The National Aquarium, featuring more than 300 unique species of aquatic wildlife across 10 nautically-themed zones in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on July 24, 2022.
More than 250 women lined up for the 10km race in the inaugural Agnes Tirop Memorial Fun Run and Ride at the Koitalel Sammie University near Eldoret, Kenya, on March 5, 2023.
Portrait of Joan Chelimo after finishing an 8km training run through the forest in Iten, Kenya, on March 7, 2023.
Landscape
Landscape
Children play and swim along the shore of Lake Turkana, Kenya.
Dusk settles in across Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh, on December 3, 2018.
An Islamic cemetery spans the base of one side of Jebel Barkal, Sudan, a small butte that was considered sacred thousands of years ago, on February 4, 2020.
Dusk falls over a group swimming along the ocean's shore in Beira, Mozambique, on November 15, 2019.
Rub’ Al Khali (the Empty Quarter), the world's largest uninterrupted desert, in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on July 21, 2022.
Nathaniel Welch Peter Frank Edwards