“When people saw me with a camera around my neck, they
asked me to take a photo of them. That’s how I began,” noted Seydou Keïta. From
this humble beginning, Keïta would rise to prominence as Mali’s greatest
portrait photographer. “Everyone passed through my studio at one time or
another. Some days…there were hundreds of people,” Keïta recalled. Working with
a large-format camera, he made intimate portraits, precisely framed against the
brilliant patterns of his backdrops that eloquently portray the vivacity of
Malian society in a time of great change.