Richard Avedon talking to subjects from the book “Evidence 1944-1994 Richard Avedon” © L. Wilson

Irving Penn also traveled to Dahomey (Benin today) in 1967 on an assignment for Vogue magazine to shoot landscapes, village scenes, Legba shrines and portraits in that country. As highlighted in the quote below, with his portraits his aim was not to faithfully record subjects as he found them but to insert himself and his vision in the picture-making process.

I was excited at the prospect of a Dahomey trip, but it was clear that in the native village it was going to be near impossible to find buildings in which to set up daylight studios. It was at this point that I considered for the first time a practical way of constructing a portable studio — demountable, sufficiently simple to be put up by unskilled labor ….

The young people of the village were lined up outside. I walked among them and chose those I wanted to photograph, roughly composing each picture in my mind as I went.

Irving Penn from “Worlds in a Small Room”, 1974 excerpted from the book “Photographs of Dahomey”.

Image from the book “Photographs of Dahomey, Irving Penn” © I. Penn

More recently there is the work of two photographers* (Ken Hermann and JoeyL), who hauled studio strobes and medium format digital cameras to the Omo Valley in the Horn of Africa like Penn before them. In various parts of his site JoeyL describes his process from shooting in Ethiopia to returning there to present prints to the subjects of his images to hosting an exhibition of his prints in Los Angeles.

Screen shot from the Photography Served site featuring Ken Hermann’s images from the Omo Valley © K. Hermann

Screen shot from JoeyL’s Tumblr site featuring images taken in the Omo Valley. © JoeyL

Attending this kind of image-making (as opposed to image taking) is often the question of manipulation and artifice. The problem is that this kind of work occupies the in-between space between reality and fiction. The commercial photographer’s work is thought to use the artifice of commerce including removing the subjects from their natural environment and putting them in the controlled environment of the photographer’s studio, subject to his/her agenda. This is a very subjective process, very much driven by the photographer’s goal, whether it is to portray beauty and dignity in their subjects or otherness and exoticness (grotesqueness?). This is a process quite separate from the stated goal of the documentary/news photographer who records images as a neutral witness taking unaltered pictures of what he/she finds. Given this lofty goal, the images of a commercial photographer in this realm get the side eye as not rising to this level of “honesty”. This process is especially problematic here in Africa where most of the widely seen image-making is by outsiders many of whom may be just looking for new and interesting stuff to take pictures of.

As I learn to appreciate images more, I believe there is no elemental/objective truth to be found in a photograph. There is only the image itself and the decisions the photographer took to make the image, good, bad or indifferent, subjective or objective. In this view, there is room for me to see reportage on the reality of life in the Horn of Africa on a news web site and a gallery presentation of the people who live in this harsh, arid and thus violence-prone but stunningly beautiful place.

*It is these images that inspired me to write this post, trying to work out my reaction to them.

AFRONAUTS: File this under: “a future that never was”. Photographer Cristina De Middel uses the fact of a failed 1960’s Zambian proposal for a space program as a starting point for a photo series called “Afronauts”. Lovely concept. Beautiful tones in the images.

MIXED MEDIA: I discovered Delphine Diallo’s work a few years ago with Magic Photo Studio a series of painted on/around photos created after a trip to Senegal. She has a current project, an art book titled “The Gift” being funded via Kickstarter. Go there and support the work of this artist-to-watch.

FELA’S QUEENS: Kalakuta Queens, circa 2011. Photographer James Petrozello’s portraits of the dancers of “Fela!”, the Broadway show currently touring the US. WARNING: some images NSFW.

SIDIBE WATCH: The New Yorker: The Party People of Bamako. This past summer the ever-fresh photos of Malick Sidibe were showing in not one, but two New York City galleries.

AFROBEAT x HIP HOP Gummy Soul artist Amerigo Gazaway presents Fela Soul. Here is an excerpt from the Gummy Soul web site describing the project:

What do you get when you put together afrobeat legend Fela Kuti and rap pioneers De La Soul? You get Fela Soul; musical tapestry created by Gummy Soul artist Amerigo Gazaway. More than just a clever title, Fela Soul is an 8-track, 33 minute journey into the world of afrobeat rhythms, funky horn riffs, and classic hip-hop gems. Using dozens of hand-picked samples from the Nigerian instrumentalist and political figure Fela Kuti, and 8 carefully-chosen acapellas from the Native Tongue rap trio De La Soul, Amerigo seamlessly intertwines the two into something completely new and original.

Be sure to Download the free album here. “Breakadawn” has been on heavy rotation here at casa forota.

DYSTOPIAN AFRO-FUTURE: The 2 song (plus remixes) Put Some Red On It EP finds the prolific Spoek Mathambo in a dark afro-futuristic mood musically and lyrically. On the title song he comments on the messed up mix of money, wealth, corruption, conflict that is the darker side of modern African life. The download is worth it to me for the lyrics to the original mix of “Put Some Red On It”. I love this inspired lyric: “Learned the split tongue trick from the mission school”.

Download the EP here

See Also: Speaking of dystopian, here is a great article on South Africa’s house music scene. Quote from Mathambo points to the source of the dark, ominous textures to be found in Township Tech. Snip:

As for the sound – South African house isn’t afraid to get dark. Much of the music has a minor-key, slightly ominous sound that differs from the House found in Europe, for example. “South African House has so much energy,” says Spoek Mathambo, who is a big fan of South African House music and often spins it when he performs as a DJ, “But I think the society is so dark and dense and weird, so that it’s not this happy-clappy energy. That’s not how we get down. It’s more aggression and angst. We have some of the highest murder rates and rape rates in the world. There’s a lot of tension in society.”

Spoek Mathambo from “Township Tech: House Music’s Dense, Dark and Weird African Cousin” By Marlon Bishop and Wills Glasspiegel.

Trailer for “Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer” a film by Charlie Ahearn

“As a street photographer, he was breaking all the traditions, of the Robert Frank traditions of street photography, having to do with spontaneity, and having to do with capturing images…

“Yes, he did everything that they would say was wrong. He would spend time with his subjects first. He would the pose his subjects, and in a very theatrical way. To which the earlier idea, it destroyed the life of what it was about. But I immediately perceived that this was an expression that was essentially hip hop. I had seen flyers of people posing like this from the late ’70s. In other words, the way he posed these people was not something that he made up. These were, in a sense, traditional cultural signifiers. They go back to the street culture of the ’70s.”

Charlie Ahearn on Jamel Shabazz‘ unique style of street photography

See Also: Through the lens of Jamel Shabazz. Snip from intro to New York Times slideshow of Shabazz’ work

“He made these folks visible the way rap made them audible. He took everyday people and turned them into icons. Nobody told him to do this. He just went out and struck gold.”

Bill Adler, hip-hop historian and photography aficionado on Jamel Shabazz’s work.

“One Love” Flatbush, Brooklyn, 1982 © J. Shabazz

While doing a little digging at my parents’ home I stumbled across TOPIC, a mid-70s periodical published by the U.S. Information Agency for distribution in Africa. It was a general interest magazine on the technology, politics, business, arts, pop culture of the US. The magazines were sprinkled with articles on the “good works” the US was undertaking in Africa, Africans of note living and working in the US, as well as coverage of African arts/performance events in the US. There is also some plain old “USA, USA” flag waving (life in small town America, the economic/social progress of “the blacks”, American business culture, etc). Looking at TOPIC now, more than 30 years later, it is a great time capsule of American popular culture and print design of the mid-70s.

To wit: there is a piece on Design Works, one of 50 business created via the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation started by the late Sen. Bobby Kennedy to transform the Brooklyn, NYC neighborhood. It sourced financial resources to aid projects that rehabilitated housing, provided jobs as well as health, youth development, cultural and educational resources. Jackie Onassis provided the impetus for designing African-motif, American-designed fabrics, suggesting friends Doris and Leslie Tillett consult on a project in their own country (they had helped developing countries start their own design industries). Pull quotes from the article:

“The creative blending of traditional African art forms with with the American black experience has produced some of the most exciting fabrics available today.”

More:

“At Design Works of Bedford-Stuyvesant, colorful silk-screen printed materials for home furnishings provide employment for three dozen residents of New York’s largest black community. Their African-inspired fabrics are sold through a decorator’s supply firm with showrooms throughout the United States, in Canada and Europe.”

Source: “Artistry in Fabric” by Jane Stein: TOPIC Issue No. 76 published by the United States Information Agency. Photos © Richard Saunders

South African photographer Frank Marshall’s images of cowboy-clad metaleros from Botswana collected into a body of work he calls “Visions of Renegades”. Snip from article on the otherwise ribald Vice web site:

“… many metalheads in Botswana are cowboys from the villages and farms, so they mix the cowboy image with a biker metal look. Many wear hunting knives and parts of dead animals. We drink from the hollowed-out cow horns.”

Source: ATLAS HOODS: BOTSWANA’S COWBOY METALHEADS – Viceland Today Kofia tip: This is Africa

Since being ‘rediscovered’ at the first ‘Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie’ in Bamako in 1994, respect for Malick Sidibé’s photographic biography has grown steadily in both the Western art world, as well as among a young generation of African photographers. His photographs are popular because they depict Africa at a time of awakening and hope, and a young generation that one might be inclined to call the jeunesse dorée, were it not for their extreme poverty compared to their bourgeois European peers.
However, something else fascinates in Sidibé’s photographs, more powerful than their nostalgia, vitality, sensitivity and humour. Something that goes beyond their innovative visual form; the photographs evoke a delicate balance of ‘imperceptible forces’. The photographer gives his models space for self-expression, ultimately the gift of every good portraitist.

Screenshot from American Suburb X site. © M. Sidibe

American Suburb X: “Interview with Malick Sidibe (2009)”

PHE- Mali’s independence came about in 1960. How did the new political situation influence your own work?

MS- It wasn’t so much our independence as it was Western music that changed many things during that time. Music was really the revolution because after 1957, rock music, hula-hoop, swing, etc., came to the country. Music was a true revolution in Mali.

Malick Sidibe on the influences on Mali youth in the early 60’s, that found it’s way into his work.

New video from Spoek Mathambo for the song “Control”. Snip from Dazed Digital article premiering the video:

In collaboration with one of South Africa’s most influential photographers Pieter Hugo, and cinematographer Michael Cleary, the new video explores township cults and teen gangs. Shot on location in a squatted train boarding house in Langa, Cape Town, the video features a cast mostly made up of local neighborhood kids who run their own dance troop, Happy Feet.

Very nice.

Pieter Hugo?: “Permanent Error”

FINALLY. I have finally published a new site containing my current portfolio and archive of images I have taken in the last few years. The site is primarily a showcase of my work and my capabilities. Thanks to all the people who have collaborated with me to help make the beautiful images that comprise my body of work.

Select images are available for sale as prints, personal use downloads or for commercial and editorial licensing. Please feel free to view the images at the link below. Any and all feedback is welcomed. Better yet, buy something or help me get the word out!

forotamedia portfolio and archive site:

Watch the full episode. See more SundayArts.

Great interview with Lowery Stokes Sims , co-curator of the Global Africa Project exhibition now showing at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. Through the interview, Sims discusses how much cultural fusion there is in the “psychic African space” or anywhere African artists are in the world. Snip from exhibit description:

In order to present various dimensions of the work of African artists and artisans worldwide, The Global Africa Project is organized around several thematic ideas. These include: the phenomenon of intersecting cultures and cultural fusion; the branding and co-opting of cultural references; how art and design is promoted in the international market and the creative global scene; the use of local materials; and the impact of art-making on the economic and social condition of local communities.

See Also: New York Times Feature: “Five artists featured in the Global Africa Project“