African photography: history and future of a practice in a society with a rich cultural heritage

Photography was invented on August 19, 1839, during an official session at the Institut de France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), a Parisian theater designer, who divulged the first photographic process he managed to develop it by taking advantage of the research of his partner, Nicéphore Niépce.

Nicknamed “daguerreotype”, this process consisted of fixing the positive image obtained in the camera oscura on a copper plate coated with a silver emulsion and developed with iodine vapor. Making it possible to obtain a direct and precise reproduction of reality for the first time, this invention was immediately hailed by the entire scientific community and crossed borders in September 1839, meeting with great success abroad.

The introduction of photography on the African continent is in the 19th century, shortly after its invention in Europe. From the 1880s, photographers of Creole origins had settled in certain large cities of West Africa such as the Gold Coast (now Ghana). Its arrival in Africa, which is the result of European explorers/colonizers, took place as they interfered in the heart of Africa. But, at the same time as the European missionaries and explorers settled on African soil until they colonized almost all the territories of the continent, the blacks who constituted these colonies in contact with the white man began to take an interest to photography.

From one part of Africa to another, the growth of photography in one region was not the same as in another, with the British colonies having a head start with countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria. One of the African pioneers of photography and postcards would be a certain Akhurste, originally from the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

At the beginning of the 20th century, the discipline began to spread on the continent thanks to lovers of this art who showed great ingenuity to be able to obtain shots. Among them, Antoine Freitas, Congolese, who wrote in 1939 on the back of one of his photographs, sent to a friend: “You see me among the natives of Kasai. In this region, they call me the witch doctor. People don’t like to be photographed, I have to give them a box of rice. I am perceived as a banda [a sort of enemy brother] whom one must be wary of” (Revue noire, no. 21, June-July-August 1996).

In Kinshasa, studio photography developed thanks to photographers like Jean Depara (1928-1997, real name Lemvo Jean Abou Bakar Depara). Other precursors in Senegal: Mama Casset, born in 1908 in Saint-Louis du Senegal and died in Dakar in 1992, as well as Ibrahima Thiam.

From 1958 to the end of the 1970s, like all his colleagues in West Africa, Cornélius Augustt Yao Azaglo, an Ivorian photographer, experienced a period of great prosperity: it was the golden age of black and white photographic portraiture. made by craftsmen who mastered the entire operating process from shooting to printing on paper. Thanks to his studio called “Studio du Nord” located in the North of Côte d’Ivoire, the only photographic studio in activity in Côte d’Ivoire at that time.

The essential Seydou Keita from Mali, considered by many to be the father of African photography which propelled him beyond the borders of the continent, into the greatest museums and the largest collections in the world. “I knew that my photos were beautiful […], beauty is art. he affirmed. All these personalities have contributed to the recognition of African photography in the same way as Western photography.

In traditional African society, photography was practiced in photo studios only by professionals. Photographers were mainly requested for weddings, baptisms, ceremonies of all kinds in order to immortalize family events through portraits.

After the accession to independence of several African countries in the 1960s, the practice of this art underwent a change. “African photography was born from an unashamed appropriation of a technique without suffering its aesthetics, declared Saint-Léon and Pivin. It is perhaps in this sense that we can say that there are African photographs, without however trying to create a style”.

In the dynamics of the post-colonial period, demography and the constant development of large cities have at the same time modified the place of photography within African society. The new generation of photographers, more numerous and more mobile, has reshuffled the cards. Indeed, they began to get more involved in socio-cultural life where they played a major role. The turmoil of the years following independence gave rise to festivities of all kinds in almost all of Africa. Static photography, confined to a photo studio, has moved into the streets, during dance and music festivals, during football tournaments, etc.

At the same time, some dictatorial regimes used photography as a means of propaganda to inspire fear in opponents. Political leaders offered the services of the best photographers, who filmed the execution of opponents or photographed their lifeless bodies to appear in the newspapers.

Today, photography is an indispensable constituent of modern African and even traditional society. If the practices of photography are as diverse today on the continent as on the others, it is thanks to the pioneers who started the practice and who knew how to convey their knowledge to the new generation who knew how to adapt it to the evolution.

African photography, more urban than ever, is practiced at any time and in any place. Professional or amateur, equipped with a camera or smartphone, everyone manages to do well. New practices such as animal photography have emerged, which highlight the natural wealth of Africa. The richest and most influential men, from politicians to entrepreneurs and singers, have made it a powerful means of communication, especially through social networks. It is no longer reserved for a segment of the population, but is universal and within everyone’s reach.