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African photographers

281 artists

Africa has been photographed by outsiders since the camera arrived on its coasts in the 1840s, but its own photographers have made some of the most important pictures in the history of the medium. In the studios of Bamako, Accra and Bangui, Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, James Barnor and Samuel Fosso gave a newly independent continent its portrait. In South Africa, photographers such as Peter Magubane, Ernest Cole, David Goldblatt and Sam Nzima showed the world what apartheid was, often at great personal cost, and in the 1990s the photographers of the Bang-Bang Club covered the violent end of the system.

Today's African photographers range from visual activists such as Zanele Muholi to artists working with hair, costume and archives. This list brings together more than 270 photographers from across the continent who have articles on Wikipedia, most looked-up first; those with a profile on this site come first, as cards. For the history behind the names, read African photography.

Profiles

Photojournalist

Kevin Carter

South Africa · 1960–1994

Kevin Carter covered South Africa's township wars and, in Sudan in 1993, made the Pulitzer-winning vulture photograph. His life, work and the debate it started.

Actor and photographer

Ntare Mwine

Uganda · 1967–

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, the Ugandan-American actor of Treme and Blood Diamond, is also a photographer whose pictures of Uganda have been widely shown.

Photojournalist

Ken Oosterbroek

South Africa · 1963–1994

Ken Oosterbroek (1962–1994), chief photographer of The Star and a Bang-Bang Club member, was killed in Thokoza days before the 1994 election.

Photographer

Misan Harriman

Nigeria · 1977–

Misan Harriman, the Nigerian-born British photographer, became known for his 2020 Black Lives Matter pictures and shot a British Vogue cover.

Artist

Yinka Shonibare

Nigeria · 1962–

Yinka Shonibare dresses headless figures in Victorian costume of "African" Dutch wax print, a fabric with a European history, to question empire and identity.

Visual activist

Zanele Muholi

South Africa · 1972–

Zanele Muholi, the South African photographer and visual activist, documents Black LGBTQIA+ lives in Faces and Phases and turns the camera on themself.

Photojournalist

Dan Eldon

Kenya · 1970–1993

Dan Eldon, a photographer raised in Nairobi, covered the Somali famine for Reuters and was killed in Mogadishu in 1993, aged 22. His journals became a book.

Photojournalist

Greg Marinovich

South Africa · 1962–

Greg Marinovich won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, co-wrote The Bang-Bang Club and later investigated the 2012 Marikana massacre.

Photojournalist

Mohamed Amin

Kenya · 1943–1996

Mohamed Amin, the Kenyan cameraman behind Camerapix, filmed the 1984 Ethiopian famine for the BBC, inspiring Band Aid. He died in a hijacking in 1996.

Artist and photographer

Yto Barrada

Morocco · 1971–

Yto Barrada photographed Tangier as a waiting room for Europe, founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger, and now works across film, sculpture and plant-dyed textiles.

Photographer

Ernest Cole

South Africa · 1940–1990

Ernest Cole photographed daily life under apartheid and published House of Bondage (1967) in exile. His lost negatives were found in a Swedish bank in 2017.

Photojournalist

João Silva

South Africa · 1966–

João Silva, the Bang-Bang Club photographer, covered wars for The New York Times and returned to work after losing both legs in Afghanistan in 2010.

Photojournalist

Sani Maikatanga

Nigeria · 1975–

Sani Maikatanga, a Kano photojournalist, documents northern Nigeria's festivals, crafts and daily life, from the Argungu fishing festival to Kano's durbars.

Photographer

Roger Ballen

South Africa · 1950–

Roger Ballen, a New York-born photographer in Johannesburg since 1982, moved from portraits of rural South Africa to staged, unsettling black-and-white scenes.

Wildlife photographer

Austin Stevens

South Africa · 1950–

Austin Stevens, the South African-born herpetologist and wildlife photographer, hosted Snakemaster and once lived 107 days in a cage with 36 venomous snakes.

Artist and photographer

Laetitia Ky

Côte d’Ivoire · 1996–

Laetitia Ky, an artist from Abidjan, shapes her hair into sculptures and photographs them to speak about womanhood, beauty and justice. Shown in Venice, 2022.

Artist

Otobong Nkanga

Nigeria · 1974–

Otobong Nkanga, a Nigerian-born artist in Antwerp, makes tapestries, installations and performances about land, mining, trade and the body.

Photographer

Khadija Saye

The Gambia · 1992–2017

Khadija Saye, a British-Gambian photographer, made tintypes about Gambian spiritual practices, shown in Venice in 2017 weeks before she died at Grenfell.

Photojournalist

Sam Nzima

South Africa · 1934–2018

Sam Nzima photographed the dying Hector Pieterson in the 1976 Soweto uprising, one of apartheid's defining images, and paid for it with harassment and hiding.

Photographer

David Goldblatt

South Africa · 1930–2018

David Goldblatt (1930–2018) photographed South Africa's mines, suburbs, commuters and buildings for six decades and founded the Market Photo Workshop.

Photographer

Malick Sidibé

Mali · 1935–2016

Malick Sidibé photographed the parties, fashion and freedom of 1960s Bamako. The first photographer to win a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (2007).

Photographer and video artist

Leila Alaoui

Morocco · 1982–2016

Leila Alaoui, the French-Moroccan photographer of Les Marocains, made life-size portraits and films about migration. She was killed in Ouagadougou in 2016.

Photographer and designer

Hassan Hajjaj

Morocco · 1961–

Hassan Hajjaj mixes Moroccan street style, fashion and pop art in bright portraits framed with tins and everyday goods, including the Kesh Angels of Marrakech.

Photographer

Seydou Keïta

Mali · 1921–2001

Seydou Keïta ran Bamako's most famous photo studio from 1948 to 1962. His portraits of a city on the eve of independence are now classics.

Photographer and singer

TY Bello

Nigeria · 1978–

TY Bello (Toyin Sokefun-Bello) is a leading Nigerian portrait photographer, official photographer to President Goodluck Jonathan, and a gospel singer.

Photojournalist and activist

Boniface Mwangi

Kenya · 1983–

Boniface Mwangi photographed Kenya's 2007–08 post-election violence, showed it in a travelling street exhibition and became one of Kenya's best-known activists.

Artist

Adel Abdessemed

Algeria · 1971–

Adel Abdessemed, born in Constantine, left Algeria during the civil war and made provocative works such as Coup de tête, the giant bronze of Zidane's headbutt.

Daguerreotypist

Augustus Washington

Liberia · 1820–1875

Augustus Washington, an African American daguerreotypist, made the earliest known portrait of John Brown, then moved to Liberia in 1853 and entered politics.

Artist

Romuald Hazoumè

Benin · 1962–

Romuald Hazoumè of Porto-Novo turns plastic petrol cans into masks and built La Bouche du Roi, a slave ship of 304 masks now owned by the British Museum.

Photographer

Samuel Fosso

Nigeria · Cameroon · 1962–

Samuel Fosso opened a studio in Bangui at thirteen and has photographed himself in costume ever since, from 1970s pop-star poses to his African Spirits.

Photojournalist

Anton Hammerl

South Africa · 1969–2011

Anton Hammerl, a South African-Austrian photojournalist, was killed by Libyan government forces near Brega in April 2011; his death was hidden for six weeks.

Poet and photographer

Caleb Femi

Nigeria · 1990–

Caleb Femi, London's first Young People's Laureate, combines poems and his own photographs in Poor (2021), a portrait of young Black men on a Peckham estate.

Photographer

James Barnor

Ghana · 1929–

James Barnor photographed Ghana's road to independence from his Ever Young studio in Accra, shot Drum covers in 1960s London and helped bring colour to Ghana.

Photographer and painter

Zwelethu Mthethwa

South Africa · 1960–

Zwelethu Mthethwa won acclaim for colour portraits of South Africans at home. In 2017 he was convicted of murdering Nokuphila Kumalo and jailed for 18 years.

Photographer and filmmaker

Youssef Nabil

Egypt · 1972–

Youssef Nabil hand-colours black-and-white photographs in the style of old Egyptian film posters and studio portraits, portraying stars, artists and himself.

Photographer

Mohamed Maradji

Morocco · 1939–

Mohamed Maradji began as a street photographer in Casablanca in 1956 and photographed Morocco's royal family under Mohammed V, Hassan II and Mohammed VI.

Photojournalist

Peter Magubane

South Africa · 1932–2024

Peter Magubane photographed Sharpeville, the 1976 Soweto uprising and Mandela's road to the presidency, and spent 586 days in solitary confinement.

More artists

Most looked-up first. Names link to our profile, or to Wikipedia where we do not have one yet. Short descriptions from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons. Image credits

Better known for other work

Writers, presenters and public figures whom Wikidata also lists here; their profiles explain the connection.

Sociologist and image-maker

W. E. B. Du Bois

Ghana · 1868–1963

W. E. B. Du Bois, the civil-rights leader who died a Ghanaian citizen, used photography as argument in his 1900 Paris exhibit of portraits of Black Americans.

Filmmaker and photographer

Leni Riefenstahl

Sudan · 1902–2003

Leni Riefenstahl, director of Nazi propaganda films, photographed the Nuba of Sudan in the 1960s–70s. Why the pictures are contested, and who studies them.

Wildlife cameraman

Hamza Yassin

Sudan · 1990–

Hamza Yassin, born in Sudan and based in the Scottish Highlands, is a wildlife cameraman, photographer and TV presenter — and won Strictly Come Dancing in 2022.

Photographer turned rebel leader

Foday Sankoh

Sierra Leone · 1937–2003

Foday Sankoh was a wedding photographer and cameraman before founding the RUF, whose war in Sierra Leone was marked by atrocities. He died awaiting trial.

Television host and photographer

Frank Edoho

Nigeria · 1972–

Frank Edoho is best known as the host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in Nigeria; he is also a photographer, filmmaker and voice-over artist.

Writer and photographer

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Ghana · 1993–

Caleb Azumah Nelson, a British-Ghanaian writer and photographer, won the Costa First Novel Award for Open Water (2021), narrated by a south London photographer.