The Arts Photography
Barnor with a shot of a pre-independence Kwame Nkrumah kicking a football
told him: ‘You can’t do that to Mr Barnor.’ Tat was the level of the relationship.” Although he was not necessarily the
leading photographer of the day, his fame was such that a telegram simply addressed to Mr Barnor, Photographer, Accra got to him. “Maybe because Accra was a small city by then,” he concedes. Barnor worked not just for the Daily
Graphic, but sold photographs to other publications, notably the pan-African Drum magazine. He recalls one of his earliest scoops for Drum was illustrat- ing an article on hanging. Barnor’s Ever Young studio was about 200 metres from the James Fort prison, so when he saw a van taking bodies to the cemetery, he fol- lowed it on his motorbike, and got some shots for Drum. His relationship with the magazine
photographer of the day, his fame was such that a telegram simply addressed to Mr Barnor, Photographer, Accra got to him. ”
allow them to be interviewed. Luckily, he found out that a teacher and some school children had granted an interview, so he got his information from them and filed his story. Although his story and photographs
made the paper’s front page, the 1952 scoop had a “by our reporter” byline instead of his name. “But I didn’t mind,” says the veteran photographer, before revealing that “sometimes the image of the crash comes to my mind.” He started as a street photographer, as
he did not have a studio. So he would set up a backdrop outside his rented bedroom and take the photographs, using the sun for light. “If there was wind, we had to wait till everything settled.” Although photographs could be done
within a day, particularly in the case of passport photographs, most jobs in those days took three to four days to turn around, because there was much retouch- ing to be done “to make the face look smooth and that takes time.” Photography then focused on the practical, as there
82 | April 2011 New African
was no room for arty pursuits. Barnor “was doing all right” without a studio and its attendant expenses, but later he was “forced” to set up his Ever Young studio because the landlord wanted his rented room. Just a couple of doors away from the once-famous Seaview Hotel in Accra’s James Town area, the studio soon drew a mixture of clients from families to night revellers and dignitaries. He remembers when “Nkrumah sent
Kofi Baako to ask me to come and pho- tograph a meeting at the Castle.” Tose photographs, like so many in his archive, have not had a public airing. Te exhibi- tion however has a photograph of a pre- independence Nkrumah kicking a football. Barnor did not only photograph Dan-
quah on numerous occasions at the Legis- lative Assembly and elsewhere, but also de- veloped a close personal relationship with him. He recalls when he nearly blew his top because of some incident at the Daily Graphic. When he told Danquah what had happened, “he rang the editor and
“ Although he was not necessarily the leading
and its proprietor was such that when he first came to London, he used their Fleet Street office as his base. He had heard that television was to be launched in Ghana, and so in an effort to add more skills to what he already had, he left for England in 1959. Drum informed him about a London advertising agency that wanted a photo- graph of an “African beauty”. He took the photographs, and even though he did not have facilities to print his photos, he was paid “a fantastic amount” for the negatives. In London, Barnor attended evening
and other part-time classes to gain more experience, before receiving a Ghana Co- coa Marketing Board scholarship, which enabled him to attend a full-time pho- tography course at the Medway School of Art in Kent. It was not easy sitting in class with youngsters straight from school, and learning mathematics, chemistry and lots of theory. He nevertheless passed, and the college immediately offered him a job as a technical assistant. Ask him about the secret to his longev-
ity as a photographer, and he says he is not a person that plans: “Tings just happen, and I take them as they come.” At 81, Barnor is not thinking of retir-
ing. He has embraced new technology – he now uses a digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera, and is adept at using email, and a scanner, which he uses to digitise and catalogue his vast body of work.
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