photography - The African Mirror

Jul

2023

Senegal’s lone developer fights to revive photography with film

FROM a concrete jetty on Dakar's sun-baked coastline, Senegalese photographer Amy Saar clicked the shutter of her vintage Pentax camera, capturing the light of the horizon on colour film purchased from the country's only developer. "Dakar looks great with certain coloured films because they really bring out the warm, vibrant colours," Saar said, loading a fresh roll into the camera. "Film can be really great in Africa because in general, it’s sunny (and) very colourful.” Saar is part of a growing resurgence of analogue photography enthusiasts in Senegal, nurtured by Le Sel studio in the capital’s Ouakam neighbourhood. Founded two…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

People of colour: there’s a bias in how pictures are used to depict disease in global health publications

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

PHOTOGRAPHY is a powerful tool in storytelling and scientific communication. But it can also cause harm when used unethically. We started to realise how photographs can send the wrong message when we were approached, as a group of infectious disease specialists, to develop a presentation on resistance to antibiotics. Our audience was a clinical group in east Africa. Authors ESMITA CHARANI, Honorary Associate Professor, University of Cape Town MARC MENDELSON, Professor of Infectious Diseases, University of Cape Town The global health organisation that asked us to do this wanted to use its own branding on our teaching slides. But when…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Seeking the truth about Anton Hammerl

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

JOHN HOGG ANTON Lazarus Hammerl went to Libya as a freelance photographer 10 years ago. It was during the fight for control of the oil-rich country, with foreign powers like Nato, the United States and Canada meddling to “help” dethrone dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Anton didn’t return home from that assignment. He was shot and killed on 5 April by troops loyal to Gaddafi. The whereabouts of his body remains unknown. Anton was more than a just fine photographer, he was a mensch. It was said at the time that he was doing what he loved and that he was pursuing…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Reframing women in Namibia’s early history of photography

LITERATURE

LORENA RIZZO, Senior lecturer, University of Basel WOMEN photographers, and black African women photographers in particular, are largely absent from early histories of the medium. Even in South Africa, which has attracted more attention than other parts of the continent, few women photographers from the early and mid-1900s appear in the historical record. There are even fewer whose work has been collected and received serious treatment, like Constance Stuart Larrabee and Anne Fisher. Women photographers in Namibia have languished in even greater obscurity, and scholarship that embraces this neglected history is only just emerging. My new book Photography and History…