Self-Portrait

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As a teenager in the 1970s, Fosso started his own photographic portrait studio in Bangui. After hours, he habitually photographed himself in a variety of guises from businessman to underwear model. The images he saw of European popular culture and dress in French magazines and mail order catalogues inspired him to produce his own. “I posed in front of my camera and, for the first time, I felt alive.” Photography enabled Fosso to present himself on his own terms—cool, contemporary, fashionable—despite the culture around him discouraging such “audacious” displays of the human body. These images, made in secret, record acts of political defiance and self-exploration.

Keywords

Hat
Photography
Africa
Gelatin Silver
Self portraits
Glasses
Male