Self and Accessory in Gambian Studio Photography

If You Were in My Sneakers: Migration Stories in the Studio Photography of Dakar‐Based Omar Victor Diop

“…In the Senegalese portraitist Mama Casset's images, we see a pen, a telephone, and a notebook (Figure ). The proliferation of props in portrait photography, which Buckley () also notes in The Gambia, draws on the idea of layering to create an identity, a concept that comes from the word adornment and its link to tailoring. These props point to the jamano , a Wolof word that translates as “the era or fashion of the times” (Buckley , 76).…”

“…The proliferation of props in portrait photography, which Buckley () also notes in The Gambia, draws on the idea of layering to create an identity, a concept that comes from the word adornment and its link to tailoring. These props point to the jamano , a Wolof word that translates as “the era or fashion of the times” (Buckley , 76). In sharp contrast to colonial‐era photography that sought to capture social types, the use of props in African portrait photography allowed photographers and their clients to play with multiple identities .…”

Facing Victims: Forensics, Visual Technologies, and Sexual Assault Examination

“…Anthropology has addressed the question of photography's ''other histories'' by exploring the history and use of photographic technologies outside the West (Buckley 2000;Pinney 1997;Pinney and Peterson 2003). The idea of photography's other histories need not apply solely to ''East-West'' divides or questions of locality.…”

Islam and the Media of Devotion in and out of Senegal

“…Although families and groups of neighbors or friends listen intently to such broadcasts, especially on their first airing, at other times these video‐ and audiocassettes may become a backdrop for conversations and gatherings much like a portrait of a shaykh hangs on the wall, gracing the space with its presence and endowing the bearer with a righteous persona. The religious videos are often part of a wider collection of frequently viewed media, including videos of life cycle ceremonies, video and print photo albums, and music videos (see also Buckley 2000; Mustafa 2002).…”

“…As I mentioned, once the viewer of the video is taken into the Murid library and presented with a discussion of the significance of the hadîya offerings, the camera then returns to images that were shown previously: the masses of pilgrims arriving in boxcars, to those waiting in line to enter the mausoleums, to those performing ziyara (religious visits) to living guides, and of dhikr chanting and again to the offerings and redistribution of those offerings. Like the Gambian studio photographers described by Liam Buckley (2000:71–91), it would seem that Murid videographers also seek to “multiply surfaces” to produce multiple views, and thus meanings, by cutting the images into montages. Thus, the video works much like photographs of Murid shaykhs traded in the market in which montage is a popular way of manipulating images.…”