"Glittering Women": Light, Aura, and the Aesthetics of Withdrawal in Wedding Photography along the East African Coast

This article explores the different ways in which light and, in particular, an excess of lighting have been incorporated into wedding photography along the East African coast. In particular, it looks at tensions that arise around religious interdictions and moral claims on women's bodies to conform to a particular aesthetics of propriety and piety, which in turn translate into new strategies of concealment and withdrawal in wedding photographs. Wedding photography emphasizes this moment of being photographed as important in its own right, when light and the effect of being represented take center stage. It is argued here that a veiled person, an opaque surface, or a tapestry of flashing lights at the same time offer something to view and withdraw it from visibility, thereby challenging simple binary oppositions of creation and destruction, revelation and concealment, and visibility and invisibility.