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“Is This Picture Not a Proof?”: Photojournalism and Anti-Colonial Politics in Lagos, 1930s–1950s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 August 2025
Abstract
African newspapers have been the subject of scrutiny from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. However, comparably little attention has been paid to the early visual archives produced by these presses. This essay mines the pages of West African Pilot and other newspapers to explore the genesis of the practice and profession of press photography in Lagos, Nigeria. Over the course of three defining historical moments, press photographs became a record and consequence of the ways that professional, legal, and political contours of visual freedoms were defined in an increasingly anti-colonial city and nation-state.
Résumé
Les journaux africains ont fait l’objet d’un examen minutieux de la part de divers points de vue disciplinaires. Cependant, peu d’attention a été accordée aux archives visuelles produites par ces presses. Le présent essai archivistique examine les pages du West African Pilot ainsi que d’autres publications afin de mettre en lumière l’origine de la pratique et de la profession de la photographie de presse à Lagos, au Nigeria. Au cours de trois périodes historiques cruciales, les photographies de presse ont constitué à la fois un témoignage et une conséquence de la manière dont les contours professionnels, juridiques et politiques des libertés visuelles ont été établis dans une ville et un État-nation de plus en plus opposés au colonialisme.
Resumo
Os jornais africanos têm sido alvo de escrutínio por via de uma série de perspetivas disciplinares. No entanto, comparativamente, tem sido prestada pouca atenção aos arquivos visuais produzidos por esses órgãos de informação. O presente ensaio baseia-se em arquivos e analisa em profundidade as páginas do West African Pilot e de outros jornais, com vista a desvendar a origem da prática e da profissão da fotografia de imprensa na cidade de Lagos, Nigéria. Ao longo de três momentos históricos decisivos, as fotografias de imprensa tornaram-se um registo e uma consequência dos modos como os contornos profissionais, jurídicos e políticos das liberdades visuais foram sendo definidos, no contexto de uma cidade e de um estado-nação cada vez mais anticoloniais.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of African Studies Association
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The Nigerian Daily Times
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Awolowo, Obafemi. 1960. Awo: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
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Coker, Increase H.E. 1968. Landmarks of the Nigerian Press: An Outline of the Origins and Development of the Newspaper Press in Nigeria 1859 to 1965. N.P.Google Scholar
Daily Times of Nigeria Limited, and Namme, L. N.. 1976. The Story of the Daily Times, 1926–1976. Lagos: Daily Times of Nigeria.Google Scholar
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Hayes, Patricia. 2015. “The Uneven Citizenry of Photography: Reading the ‘Political Ontology’ of Photography from Southern Africa.” Cultural Critique 89: 173–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, Leslie. 2018. “The Flying Newspapermen and the Time-Space of Late Colonial Nigeria.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 60 (3): 569–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killingray, David, and Roberts, Andrew. 1989. “An Outline History of Photography in Africa to Ca. 1940.” History in Africa 16: 197–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunstmann, Rouven. 2014. “The Politics of Portrait Photographs in Southern Nigerian Newspapers, 1945–1954.” Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40 (3): 514–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newell, Stephanie. 2016. “Paradoxes of Press Freedom in Colonial West Africa.” Media History 22: 101–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Zachernuk, Philip Serge. 2000. Colonial Subjects: An African Intelligentsia and Atlantic Ideas. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar