Ghana has been photographed for more than a century. The story of the first Ghanaian photographers who held the camera, and why, says as much about the beauty of the country as the pictures do.
The photographers featured in this guide span four generations and are some of the most renowned artists who have captured Ghana in a unique way. They have worked in studios, newsrooms and galleries, from Accra to London. What do they also have in common? They have photographed Ghana and Ghanaians on their own terms, through unfiltered views and raw emotion.
Where Did Ghanaian Photography Begin?
A good place to start is Jamestown, one of the oldest parts of Accra. Our guide to Gold Coast Ghana explains how the area grew around James Fort and Ussher Fort.
In 1922, James Koblah Bruce Vanderpuije opened the Deo Gratias Photo Studio in Jamestown, together with his sons. More than a hundred years later, it is described as the oldest photography studio still operating in Ghana. Kate Tamakloe Vanderpuije, the founder’s granddaughter, manages it today.
For over a century, the studio has photographed the people of the neighbourhood. Ghanaian press reports have described rare photographs in its archive, including images of Kwame Nkrumah.
Deo Gratias frames the whole story differently. Ghanaian photography is not only a story of outsiders pointing cameras at Ghana. It is a story of Ghanaians documenting themselves, from the very beginning.
Jamestown was home to another pioneer, too. In 1955, Felicia Abban opened her own studio in the same neighbourhood. You will meet her further down.
Who Is James Barnor?
James Barnor was born in Accra in 1929, when Ghana was still the Gold Coast.
James Barnor is the figure who links Ghana’s early studio tradition to the wider world. He was born in Accra on 6 June 1929, when the country was still the Gold Coast.
Ever Young and the Independence Years
In the early 1950s, Barnor opened his own studio in Accra, called Ever Young. He photographed sitters in the studio and life on the streets of the city. His camera captured Ghana in the years around independence in 1957, a time of huge political and social change. The Pan-African movement in Ghana gives the wider story of that era.
In the early 1950s, Barnor opened his Ever Young studio in Accra and photographed Ghana around independence.
Barnor also sold pictures to Drum, a magazine founded in South Africa in 1951. That link would take his work far beyond Accra.
London and the Arrival of Colour
In 1959, Barnor moved to London. He trained in colour processing and graduated from Medway College of Art in 1961. He stayed on as a photographer and technician for about a decade.
In London he kept working for Drum. He photographed fashion with Black models for its covers. His pictures of Ghanaians and other Africans in Britain became a record of a new diaspora finding its place. Our guide to the Ghana diaspora follows that story to the present day.
In the early 1970s, Barnor returned to Ghana. He set up the country’s first colour processing lab. In 1994, he moved back to London.
Barnor moved to London in 1959, then returned to set up Ghana’s first colour processing lab in the early 1970s.
Recognition
Ghana awarded him the Order of the Volta in 2016. The Royal Photographic Society made him an Honorary Fellow in 2020. In 2021, the Serpentine Galleries in London held a major retrospective, James Barnor: Accra/London.
Across six decades and two continents, his archive has become one of the most important records of Ghanaian life in the twentieth century.
Who Was Felicia Abban, Ghana’s First Female Photographer?
Felicia Ewuraesi Abban is widely described as Ghana’s first professional female photographer. She was born in Sekondi in the mid 1930s.
Her father was a photographer. She trained in his studio and was his only female apprentice at the time. In 1955, she opened her own studio in Jamestown, Accra.
Felicia Abban opened her own studio in Jamestown, Accra, in 1955.
Portraits With Purpose
Abban built her name on formal, dignified portraits. Her sitters dressed with care, and clothing became a way to express who they were. Her portraits showed Ghanaians as they wanted to be seen.
She also photographed herself. Before important events, she made self-portraits to promote her business. These images are now among her best known works.
In the 1960s, she worked for President Kwame Nkrumah, documenting the early years of independent Ghana.
A Late International Stage
In 2019, Ghana opened its first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, called Ghana Freedom. Abban was one of six artists chosen to show there. Her studio portraits and self-portraits reached a global art audience.
Felicia Abban died in Accra on 4 January 2024, at the age of 87. She opened a door for the many Ghanaian women who now work behind the camera.
What Makes Philip Kwame Apagya’s Portraits Unique?
Philip Kwame Apagya was born in Sekondi in 1958. Like Abban, he grew up in a photographer’s family. He was apprenticed in his father’s studio as a boy and later studied photojournalism at the Accra School of Journalism.
In 1982, he opened his own studio in Shama, a coastal town in the Western Region. There he developed one of the most distinctive styles in West African photography.
Backdrops of Aspiration
Philip Kwame Apagya’s painted backdrops place his sitters inside their own hopes, from aircraft steps to modern offices.
Apagya’s sitters pose in front of large, brightly painted backdrops. Some show interiors: shelves of televisions and speakers with brand names in large letters, or a refrigerator full of food. Others show wealthy streets or Accra’s international airport.
The sitters often wear traditional clothing. The result places ordinary Ghanaians inside their own hopes. The photographs show not only where people were, but where they wanted to go.
It sounds like a playful idea, and it is. The portraits are funny. They are also a sharp record of what modern life looked like to many Ghanaians at the time.
From Shama to the World
Apagya opened his studio in Shama in 1982. His work is now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Apagya’s work has been exhibited in Europe and the United States. His solo shows have included Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, and in Accra, the Goethe-Institut and the National Museum of Ghana.
His photographs are held in major collections. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, both in New York.
How Is Eric Gyamfi Changing Ghanaian Photography?
Eric Gyamfi represents the generation that followed. He was born in 1990 and lives and works in Accra.
Gyamfi studied at the University of Ghana, graduating in 2014. He later completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. In 2016, he took part in the Nuku Studio photography workshops in Accra.
Accra-based Eric Gyamfi won the Foam Paul Huf Award in 2019.
Queerness and the Medium Itself
His work explores queerness within Ghanaian life. It also questions photography itself: what a picture can show, and what it leaves out.
In 2016, the Magnum Foundation awarded him a grant for his project Just Like Us. In 2019, he won the Foam Paul Huf Award from Foam, the photography museum in Amsterdam. The award recognised his work to date, including his project Fixing Shadows: Julius and I.
A Conversation Ghana Is Having With Itself
Gyamfi’s work has been exhibited in Accra, Tamale, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Cape Town and Bamako. Yet it is not an explanation of Ghana for outside audiences. It is part of a conversation Ghana is having with itself, about identity and about who gets to be seen.
In that sense, he continues the work that began in the studios of Jamestown a century ago.
Gyamfi’s work explores queerness within Ghanaian life and questions what photography can show.
Where Can You See the Work of Ghanaian Photographers in Accra?
Accra does not have one single home for photography. The work shows up in studios, festivals and cultural institutions across the city.
Nuku Studio and Its Festival
Nuku Studio is one of the most active platforms for photography in Ghana. It has run photography workshops in Accra, where Eric Gyamfi trained in 2016. It has also held exhibitions in Tamale, in the north.
In 2018, Nuku Studio launched the Nuku Photo Festival Ghana, presented as the country’s first photography festival. It also ran the Portraits Ghana Photo Prize, with editions in 2017 and 2018. Check the studio’s website for current events, as programmes change from year to year.
Cultural Institutions
The Goethe-Institut Accra has hosted photography exhibitions, including a solo show by Philip Kwame Apagya in 2002. The National Museum of Ghana has also shown his work. Both are worth checking for current exhibitions.
Jamestown
If you want to see where Ghanaian photography began, go to Jamestown. The Deo Gratias Photo Studio is still operating there, more than a century after it opened. Contact the studio before you visit to check when it is open.
Jamestown is also home to the Chale Wote Street Art Festival, which fills the neighbourhood with art each year. Our guide to Ghana’s creative scene covers the festival and the wider art world in Accra. For more ideas on what to see across the country, read our guide to places to visit in Ghana.
Exhibitions Abroad
Ghanaian photographers are also shown in major museums abroad. The 2021 retrospective of James Barnor at the Serpentine Galleries in London is one example. Apagya’s work sits in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Why Do These Ghanaian Photographers Matter?
From Deo Gratias in 1922 to Eric Gyamfi today, these Ghanaian photographers share one idea. Ghanaians deserve to be photographed with care, by people who understand them.
Barnor captured a country becoming independent. Abban showed how Ghanaians wanted to be seen. Apagya painted their hopes onto the wall behind them. Gyamfi asks who has been left out of the picture.
For anyone living in Accra, this history is close at hand. From Green Views Residential in the Airport Residential Area, Jamestown is a short drive away. A century of Ghanaian photography starts there.
