In 2009 through the buzz of the upcoming election, the saying "No food for lazy man" and "not standing still" were widely heard in Ghana, everywhere. Both were about the optimism felt about Ghana growing, changing, moving forward in a way that challenged recent years, a movement nobody wanted to be left out of. These images sought out the everyday people who were invested in these times and resonated these ideas, most notably the man with the horse who first brought these words to my attention.

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present — by this notion, I made this nine by intruding into sets of two strangers' moments together, sometimes spending a while with them, other times being hurried off, or even spying them from far. These images are effectively our visuals of each other.

Using the Mende verb which I've always been drawn to "There is a thing passing in the sky, some thick clouds surroud it; the uninitiated sees nothing" as the starting point because of the riddle it created, these photographs were an investigation into representing the answer. The Mende people are made up of the Initiated, who learn the wisdom of the tribe; and those who don't, the proverb describes that relationship, with the unseen thing merely being the sun. Showing the sun without showing the sun – the magical times when the sun is barely visible, but still clearly there.

Assisting photographer Michel Haddi for Vanity Fair Italia, this short fashion film was created alongside the images created for print.