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Background
In 2005 I helped organise an exhibition of the work of two Cameroonian studio photographers in the National Portrait Gallery, London (see ed. Swenson 2005). This arose from my twenty year involvement as a social anthropologist working in Cameroon. One of the photographers, Joseph Chila, introduced me to Jacques Touselle who had taught him photography in the early 1960s. Together we made several visits to 'Photo Jacques' in Mbouda, Western Province, and I was shown the pile of boxes containing what I now know to be some 40,000 negatives, which is the legacy of Touselle's 40 year career. The collection is an unparalleled archive of local photographic practices spanning several decades. With the help of the British Library's 'Endangered Archives Programme' the negatives are being scanned and catalogued as a first step to ensuring their long term survival.
Since pioneering work in the late 1970s (e.g. Sprague 1978) there has been an explosion of interest in African photography. This has been demonstrated by exhibitions such as the In/Sight exhibition at the Guggenheim, New York 1996, and similar exhibitions in Paris (e.g. L'Afrique Par Elle-Meme 1998) and UK (Mercer 1995), summarized in, for example, the Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography (1999). Several books published in the 1990s attest to widening interest among art historians and others in non-western photography. For example, Pinney (1997) discusses colonial and Indian influences on image-making in India, Poole (1997) ideas of race in the Andes. The 1990s publications represent the beginning of a true art history of African photography.
Introduction to cultural context of photography in Cameroon
Professional black and white photography in Cameroon had been under threat from colour photography since the 1980s. It has now all but disappeared following the introduction of new identity cards in 1998. They were issued complete with instant photographs, removing the need for 'passport photographs'. These had been produced easily using 120 format film since contact prints were the correct size for identity card photographs (it should be noted that Touselle used an enlarger so his ID photographs are not close-ups, see below). Rural photographers could process and print the film without needing access to electricity. Throughout West Africa a small supporting industry of photographers, (including the earlier examples of Sidibé,...