Africa, a land comprising more than fifty nations and innumerable cultural variations, has long been associated with spectacle, image, colour and representation. Since the advent of photography in the first half of the nineteenth century, Africa has been the subject for myriad photographers: indigenous and immigrant, amateur and professional, explorer and colonist, naturalist and artist, journalist and writer have for nearly two hundred years recorded intrepid expeditions and chronicled the transformations of physical, cultural and political landscapes. "Photography and Africa" investigates the themes that intertwine photographs and the circumstances of their creation, placing them within broader cultural and historical currents. Presenting a wealth of astonishing and rare images, Erin Haney brings together some of the most vibrant examples taken in the continent of Africa. From royal portraiture in the nineteenth-century Cape Coast and staged vignettes of old Cairo streets, to apartheid-era South African resistance photography, this book illustrates the fascinating and long-standing relationship between Africa and the photograph.
The importance of pre- and post-colonial African photographers is stressed, and Haney investigates how the medium has influenced other art forms, including painting, sculpture, performance and textiles, from the nineteenth century onwards. A powerful and celebratory insight into Africa's relationship with the photograph, "Photography and Africa" will appeal to all those interested in the photography and culture of Africa, and anyone intrigued by the relationship between our 'oldest' continent, and the modern medium representing it.