Malian photographer Seydou Keta, now in his 70s and showing his work at the Johannesburg Biennale, tells his own story
aI was born around 1921 in Bamako. I’m the oldest in a family of five children. When I was seven or eight, my father, Ba Tikoro, and my uncle Timoko began teaching me how to make furniture. I admired my uncle so much, I was always with him. He never refused me anything. That’s the way I began photography, from scratch, with no training and that German camera, a Kodak Brownie that my uncle brought back from Senegal.
In 1948, I set up my studio in our house in Bamako-Koura. That’s where I took all the photos that you see. And I’m still there today.
I started by taking photos of my family. But when people saw me with my camera hanging around my neck, they asked me to take a photo of them. Some of the shots were flattering, others weren’t so good. I got off to a bad start because people moved while I was shooting, or I was nervous. When I showed them the results they weren’t always pleased. That’s when things got tough, and everyone wanted to beat me up.
My father gave me the land with the house behind the main prison. And that’s where I opened my studio. It’s a place where no one wanted to live because of the “spirits” that threw stones during the night. Even today, if you sleep in that house and you turn off the lights, a great shining white horse spirit might appear. I myself never had any problems because with the photography there was always a light on.
I worked with both natural and artificial light. Many people liked the artificially lit photos that were brighter. I preferred using natural light. I always preferred black and white, too. People often came back and asked for more prints, so I kept all my negatives. I have more than 30 000 filed away. I made a good living. Those were the days.
It’s easy to take a photo, but what really made a difference was that I always knew how to find the right position, and I never was wrong. Their head slightly turned, a serious face, the position of the hands. I was capable of making someone look really good. To have your photo taken was an important event. Often they became serious – I think they were intimidated by the camera. I always told them to remain relaxed. They began to like it. It took only about 10 minutes.
In photography, everything should be as close to perfection as possible. After all, the customer is trying to look their very best. In Bamako we say i ka ny which translates as “you look well”, but in fact it means “you look beautiful like that”. Art is beautiful.
I didn’t usually know the people who came to my studio – not even their names. I didn’t ask any questions, because I didn’t have any reason to. Between 1949 and 1952, I used my fringed bedspread as my first backdrop. Then, I changed the background every two or three years. That’s how I recall, more or less, the dates of the shots.
It was about then that we began to lose our ancestors’ culture. People living in the city began to wear European clothes; especially the men: government workers and politicians. They liked to have their photo taken with stylish clothes. What was important for the women was that their jewels appeared in the photos. They wore elaborate earrings, rings, hairpieces, and bracelets in gold, coral or amber.
I would now, finally, like to take photos of rural people, around the time of harvest, and the ritual ceremonies that follow harvest.
That’s when the essence of Mali comes out.