sory in Gambian Studio Photography’’ inVisual
Anthropology Review(2000–2001), Liam Buckley,
by contrast, discerns common ground in Gambian
practice between portrait-making and tailoring—
both are forms of surface adornment.
The use of photographs as anthropological and
ethnographic documents is another focus of con-
temporary study. Colonial ethnography was inevi-
tably associated with colonial power, and its
photography reveals the uneven relations of
power at the heart of this endeavor. On the other
hand, Western expeditions often maintained a
stock of pictures with which to impress the
‘‘natives,’’ unwittingly providing indigenous people
with a means of scrutinizing the West even as they
are observed. Among the contemporary scholarly
works analyzing ethnographic photography are
two that treat important expeditions to the Congo
before World War One: the efforts of expedition
leader Emil Torday and photographer M. W. Hil-
ton Simpson are considered by Jan Vansina in
‘‘Photographs of the Sankuru and Kasai River
Basin Expedition Undertaken by Emil Torday
(1876–1931) and M. W. Hilton Simpson (1881–
1936)’’ (1992), while Herbert Lang’s work is dis-
cussed by Enid Schildkrout in ‘‘The Spectacle
of Africa Through the Lens of Herbert Lang: Bel-
gian Congo Photographs, 1909–1915’’ (1991). The
oeuvre of Casimir Zagourski, a Pole active in the
Belgian Congo between the wars, whose photo-
graphy was collected in series entitledL’Afrique
Qui Disparaıˆt, shows how postcards and albums
served as important means of distributing ethno-
graphic images.
Government-sponsored colonial photography
projects were often structured through binary oppo-
sitions between ‘‘civilized’’ (Europeans or Wester-
nized Africans) and ‘‘savage’’ (‘‘unenlightened’’
segments of the population). Christraud Geary’sIn
and out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885–
1960 (2002) recounts the long history of colonial
image production in the Congo. Circulated in Eu-
rope as postcards and through illustrated period-
icals like L’Illustration Congolaise (1924–1940),
photographs were visual propaganda of ‘‘the pro-
tection and moral development of the natives’’ only
fitfully contested by reformers, whose photographs
laid bare the brutality of the colonial regime.
Politically aware African self-representation in
the colonial period occurred in images of and by
King Njoya of Bamun, Cameroon. Christraud
Geary’s Images from Bamum: German Colonial
Photography at the Court of King Njoya, Came-
roon, West Africa, 1902– 1915 (1988) attributes to
Njoya an aesthetic and political agenda that he
wished to express through portraiture. Earlier
exceptions aside, the years immediately following
national independence in the 1950s and 1960s saw
the greatest flowering of the photographic promo-
tion of African political programs. Official press
agencies like Syli-Photo in Guinea, Congopresse in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and
ANIM in Mali, crafted the public personae of
the charismatic leaders of the era. Among the
many photographers engaged in this effort was
Keı ̈ta, who toiled for the Malian government
from 1962 to 1971. The moment of national inde-
pendence also saw the efflorescence of indepen-
dent mass-media, particularly in the form of
South Africa-basedDrummagazine, which pub-
lished editions in Ghana and Nigeria.
Contemporary artists using photography, often
based in Western Africa’s diaspora communities in
the West, include the late Rotimi Fani-Kayode,
who explored, in collaboration with British photo-
grapher Alex Hirst, the connection between the
body and an identity, which in his case was Black,
African, and homosexual. In the 1990s, photogra-
phy’s conjunction of personal experience and his-
torical imagination has been interrogated by
Nigerian-born Ike ́Ude ́and Ghana-born Godfried
Donker, among others.
KEVINMulhearnSeealso:Documentary Photography; Fani-Kayode,
Rotimi; Fosso, Samuel; Keı ̈ta, Seydou; Photography
in Africa: An Overview; PortraitureFurther Reading
Bigham, Elizabeth. ‘‘Issues of Authorship in the Portrait
Photographs of Seydou Keita.’’African Arts32 (Spring
1999); 56–57, 94–96.
Buckley, Liam. ‘‘Self and Accessory in Gambian Studio
Photography.’’Visual Anthropology Review 16 (Fall/
Winter 2000–2001); 71–91.
David, Phillipe. ‘‘Photographer-publishers in Togo.’’ In
Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography.
Paris: E ́ditions Revue Noire, 1999; 42–47.
Enwezor, Okwui. ‘‘A Critical Presence:DrumMagazine in
Context.’’In/sight. New York: Solomon R. Guggen-
heim, 1996.
Flash Afrique: Photography from West Africa. Vienna:
Kunsthalle Wein, 2001.
Geary, Christraud.Images from Bamum: German Colonial
Photography at the Court of King Njoya, Cameroon,
West Africa, 1902–1915. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institute Press, 1988.
———. ‘‘Missionary Photography: Public and Private
Readings.’’African Arts24 (Fall 1991); 48–59, 98–100.
———. ‘‘Different Visions? Postcards from Africa by Eur-
opean and African Photographers and Sponsors.’’ In
Delivering Views: Distant Cultures in Early Postcards.AFRICA: CENTRAL AND WEST, PHOTOGRAPHY IN