Week 14 Course Update: Africa

The last week of the semester is here. While most class time is now devoted to working on and presenting essays and final projects, Past Tense, Present Tense was packed solid with good photography this week. The subject was Africa, presented by guest lecturer Kunbi Oni. It had never really occurred to me just how ignorant I was about the wealth of incredible African photography and its rich history.

So, for this week, let’s go to Africa!

Sierra Leone seems to have had a very active postcard business with scenes like this:

And this:

And this:

Scenes such as these would have been the big sellers that were sent back to Europe:

and this:

And HERE is a Brief history of photography in Africa to ca. 1940.

Moving along…

(Schadeberg is German and moved with his family to South Africa but worked as an official photographer for Drum Magazine.)

Drum Magazine, Africa’s Life Magazine:

HERE is an interesting e-book about Drum from 1976-1980.

Class ran over at the end as there was a discussion about Pieter’s images. The discussion revolved around THIS issue.

HERE is a link to the catalogue for the 2009 Bamako Photography Biennial.

Oh, and of course,  no discussion of Africa would be complete without this: