History and Anthropology

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Black-and-White Photography in Batcham: From a

Golden Age to Decline (1970–1990)

Jacob Tatsitsa

To cite this article: Jacob Tatsitsa (2015) Black-and-White Photography in Batcham: From
a Golden Age to Decline (1970–1990), History and Anthropology, 26:4, 458-479, DOI:
10.1080/02757206.2015.1074899

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2015.1074899

© 2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor &

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History and Anthropology, 2015
Vol. 26, No. 4, 458–479, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2015.1074899

Black-and-White Photography
in Batcham: From a Golden Age
to Decline (1970–1990)
Jacob Tatsitsa

In this article, I explore the biographies of three professional black-and-white photographers

of the 1970s from Batcham, West Cameroon. They are Edouard Fofou, alias Photo-
Edouard; Michel Kenne, also known as Photo-Kmichel and Gaspard Vincent Tatang,
alias Tagavince. They and their work stands as an example of the very many African
photographers whose work could be archived but probably will not be. If we know of a
few celebrated names like Malik Sidibe but not Vincent Tatang it is as much by chance
as anything else. This then is an exploration of a possible but unrealized archive. What
we could call an archival path not taken.

Keywords: Edouard Fofou; Alias Photo-Edouard; Michel Kenne; Alias Photo-Kmichel;

Gaspard Vincent Tatang; Alias Tagavince; African Studio Photographers; Photographic
Archives

Following the pioneering work of Edwards (1992) on early photographic archives,

anthropologists working in Africa such as Bajorek (2010), Buckley (2008), Geary
(1986, 1990, 2013), Haney (2010), Morton (2012), Werner (1996) and Zeitlyn
(2010, 2015a) have drawn attention to the importance of the work of African studio
photographers. This paper provides an exploration of some studio photographers
from a small town in West Cameroon, and considers ways in which their work may
be a resource for historians and anthropologists but only if it is, somehow, archived.
There are many reasons why material does not end up in archives. Le Febvre (2015)
gives one account of the historical, macro- and micro-political reasons why a local
archive was not established. In this paper, I consider the history of material which is

Correspondence to: Jacob Tatsitsa, Department of History, University of Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé, Cameroon. Email:
tatsitsa@yahoo.fr

© 2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/Licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 History and Anthropology 459
eminently archivable but is very likely never to be so treated. Inspired by work such as
Dilley (2014) on the life and work of a colonial administrator and Herzfeld (1997) on a
Greek novelist, and the earlier micro-history work of Ginzburg (1980) this piece takes a
biographical approach to the creators of the contents of archives.1 The careers of these
photographers exemplify the complexity of historiography. In their life stories we “find
futures that are known and anticipated, but their achievement is uncertain and often
contested” Hirsch and Stewart (2005, 271). Moreover, since at the time of writing
there is little chance of the work of these men actually being archived, these biographies
have a particularly poignancy, tracing the historical contexts of archives not-to-be. It
would be a welcome irony if as a consequence of writing this article, their work
were to be archived after all. I leave for another occasion the discussion of historical
causality (and the causality of historians) that this would necessitate. As Zeitlyn dis-
cusses in the introduction to this issue, we must consider the hypothetical roads not
taken, including those turnings caused by our own actions.
Somewhat forgotten today even in the town where they worked, Edouard Fofou,
alias Photo-Edouard; Michel Kenne, also known as Photo-Kmichel and Gaspard
Vincent Tatang, alias Tagavince, were once the most celebrated black-and-white pro-
fessional photographers of 1970s Batcham, an administrative district of the larger
department of Bamboutos.2 Kenne established himself in nearby Mbouda,3 where
the photographer Jacques Toussele was prominent. Tagavince practiced his trade
first in Nkongsamba,4 then throughout Cameroon, and finally, elsewhere in Africa.
Fofou learnt photography when working on a plantation on the coast before returning
to Batcham to establish his studio. The work of these three photographers declined in
the mid-1980s as colour photography became increasingly popular. With varying
degrees of success, each tried to adapt to this turn of events. In this paper, I will con-
sider their professional paths and their primary accomplishments. How did they
respond to the decline in their profession? What is the current state of their work
and its archival legacy (negatives, photographs and materials)?
Influenced by pan-Africanism and its advocates, Vincent Gaspard Tatang describes
himself to be of “African nationality”. He was born on 28 February 1957, in Kumba (his
parents were from Batcham). While in Nkongsamba, he found a social association for
Bamiléké emigrants from the Mungo region. At the urging of his older brother, Jean
Jacques, Tatang applied for a place in the 6th form at Manengouba High School,
where Jean Jacques had also studied. It was there that, in 1972, in the 5th form, he dis-
covered photography and enrolled in the school’s photography club.
I discovered correspondence photography lessons by chance. Photography became a
passion and I’ve taken many photos. I’ve even travelled abroad to present my photo-
graphic works. We put together a collective exhibition in the 1990s that pretty much
went all around the world. So I’ve truly embraced photography. For me, it’s an extremely
significant art, because from one photograph, you can write an entire book; and also
because we operate in a civilization that celebrates the image. Unfortunately, this “civili-
zation of the image” comes at a time when photography as a profession has an arrow in its
wing: today, everyone thinks they can be a photographer. For me, photography should
remain an art. (Gaspard Vincent Tatang5)
460 J. Tatsitsa
Tatang took a correspondence course in photography with Eurelec which was based
in France. From 1974 to 1977, he was president of his high school’s photography club.
Some two years later, he covered events and wrote occasional pieces for the local news-
paper Les Nouvelles du Mongo, of which Bernard Essomba was then the editor-in-chief.
Tatang became so intrigued by photography that he neglected his studies, which led to
him resitting the 3rd form. His older brother bought him an expensive camera—more
precisely, he says, a smart camera that cost 150,000 FCFA,6 an automatic Konica with an
interchangeable lens. During school vacations, he would take the camera back to his
village to shoot. One key moment from that time was the opportunity to photograph
Malam Doukou, who, after spending a long period of time in the sultanate of Bamoun,
had helped introduce the Kana dance to Batcham. Below are a few images selected from
Gaspard Tatang’s own collection of his work (Figures 1–6).
In 1978, Tatang interrupted his studies and embarked on a country-wide photo-
graphic tour of Cameroon. After this, in 1979, he moved to Yaoundé, the capital of
Cameroon, where he toyed with the idea of becoming a professional journalist. In
1983, he landed a job with the magazine Journal Perspective, covering such events as
the unsuccessful Coup d’Etat (6 April 1984).
I was in a sort of no-man’s land, neither with the loyalists nor with the rebels. Several of
my works from elsewhere were hanging in the museum. A state-certified nurse was living
in the same house as me. I altered his white blouse, cut out a red cross, and stuck it on the
shirt. I can say honestly that I was overwhelmed as a first-aid worker. In my bag, I carried
my camera, which I could shoot and film through a hole in the bag; it was an autofocus
camera. I’d done so many photos by then that I knew what focal width was needed. I knew
at what distance I could snap something. I salvaged several cartridge cases from that event
that I still have, because I feel that they are a keepsake that I should preserve.

Asked if he was afraid of being arrested, Gaspard replies in the negative. He notes
that he had already shot events for many newspapers, and that every event deserves
to be recorded. I took enormous risks because it wasn’t easy. It was local newspapers
that published my photos such as Le Patriote and L’Africain magazines. I still have some
copies of Le Patriote, he says.
Tatang regrets that he no longer has any negatives or full prints from the time of the
April 1984 putsch. But even if I don’t have those photos anymore, I do have some contact
sheets from that era. They’re still useable because a journalism image isn’t like a studio
image, where you have to add a bit of powder in order to produce the photo. The goal
of the contact sheet is to reduce waste. We bill it to the client because a lot of clients still
can’t understand that many customers aren’t well-placed to judge a photo, he adds.
When a photo was not as good as it could be, Tatang would not deliver it to his
client. He remembers bickering with his wife over a photograph which she thought
was a waste of paper. I threw away so many photos that I didn’t find beautiful, but
that she thought were beautiful, because I wanted a photo stamped as my work to be …
something special, he says.
Since 1986, Tatang has been conducting research in Egyptology and cultural history.
That same year, Cheikh Anta Diop spent some time in Yaoundé. Tatang describes that
occasion as like a dream, because he wondered if a man like the Cheikh really existed in
 History and Anthropology 461

Figure 1. Malam Doukou.

flesh and bone like himself. He was not sure, so he decided to meet the Cheikh. When
he arrived at the Hôtel des Députés, where the Cheikh was staying, he was disappointed
by one thing: the pseudo-intellectuals had already formed a tight inner circle and were full
of themselves. I came in my jeans, my tennis shoes, and my beret, Tatang recalls. He told
the men of his desire to meet the Cheikh, but they were against the idea and dismissed
him as crazy. Yet a few minutes later, he said, he glimpsed the Cheikh who was around
10–20 metres away, and instinctively waved to draw his attention. The Egyptologist
came over and took him by the hand. We went up to his suite in the Hôtel des
462 J. Tatsitsa

Figure 2. Malam Doukou being served palm wine.

Députés. He sat down and said, “My son, what can I do for you?” I told him, “The fact that
you picked me out means that you’ve already given me everything, but, just as my appetite
is strongest when I eat, I would really like to talk more with you.” So he gave me an appoint-
ment at SOFITEL that night, where I was able to photograph him.
I talked with him for a good twenty minutes … among those pseudo-intellectuals, there
were some who watched us and understood nothing of what we said. He really taught me
how to think, and so, in a way, did Martin Luther King: those two Africans carved and
illuminated my path. If, in a single instant, just 20% of Africans could follow that path,
we would no longer be asleep on our backs. Looks at what’s happening in Ivory Coast,
what’s happening in Libya; at the same time as these events, people here drank cham-
pagne, ate rich food, spent the Cameroonian taxpayers’ money, up to billion FCFAs, to
celebrate 50 years of [Cameroonian] independence.

Yet, Tatang, for his part, feels that Cameroon is more dependent now than it was
60 years ago. He asks himself how a country that no longer possesses anything resem-
bling the sovereignty of a modern state can believe itself to be independent. I knew
SONEL (the National Electricity Society) in the past, when we had a say in its operations,
but today, those who own SONEL (AES-SONEL [now American-owned]), can get rid of it
if they want to. It’s their cash drawer that matters, not your mouth …
Tatang has always envisioned the existence of a Pan-African museum of photogra-
phy. He did not know all of the Pan-African leaders, but he went to great lengths to
have their images. He adds that in that era, photography permitted him a decent life-
style. He notes that he made beautiful photos and was much sought-after. According to
him, there were not many photographers who made such beautiful photos or who had
 History and Anthropology 463

Figure 3. Gaspard Tatang and his bag for hidden photography.

such demanding clients. As proof, he states that the photo below cost his client 45,000
FCFA: beautiful things merit their price, he remarks.
Tatang stresses that he has many souvenirs. For him, what is interesting is that these
souvenirs are not strictly material. As he explains:
Today, I’ve showed [my portrait of] Cheikh Anta Diop everywhere. There are artists who
are very famous today because of my photos. Take the example of the choreographer
Bartelo, and Ekeme who directed the Olympic Club in Bastos in Yaoundé. The photo
that you saw on the wall there, in the open-air show at the French Cultural Center—I
took that photo. I showed it in at least four countries: in Ivory Coast, in Cameroon, on
the island of Madagascar, and in Senegal. For other countries, the photo went there,
but I didn’t accompany it.
464 J. Tatsitsa

Figure 4. Gaspard Tatang and camera.

From 1994 to 1998, Tatang participated in several photography and journalism exhi-
bitions, both in Cameroon and abroad. He was one of the artists invited to MASA, the
Marché des Arts Africains (Market of African Arts), which included a photography
exhibition. At least seven countries were represented, and he represented Cameroon.
After the show, he staged another exhibition, and the newspaper Le Jour d’Abidjan pub-
lished his photos of the group Nyamakalas from Guinée Conakry and the group N’dai
N’daï. The extract in Figure 6 shows one of the photos the paper published, entitled
“D’une soirée à l’autre [From one party to another]”.
Tatang also showed his works twice in Dakar. The first time, he was invited to an
international symposium organized to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of
Cheikh Anta Diop’s death. For that event, he mounted an exhibition at the Camer-
oonian Ministry of Information and Culture. He also put on a show at Cheikh Anta
Diop University, and still has pamphlets and workbooks from these exhibitions. He
also remembers the appeals of his fellow photographers who invited him to present
in the Caribbean, and regrets letting himself be distracted from pursuing this.
I was careless, but I can always restart things with them, because I can say, without brag-
ging, that I am the photographer who has the last beautiful images of Cheikh Anta Diop.
In Cameroon, there was the photographer from the Ministry of Information and Culture
who had covered the symposium, and there was the Institute of Human Sciences, but no
 History and Anthropology 465

Figure 5. Gaspard Tatang at exhibition of his work leaning on a photograph of Cheikh

Anta Diop.

one could take as many photos as I could. I went straight to the interviewer. It’s a shame
that the interview wasn’t published. It wasn’t published because in 1990, with my bad
experience—I call it my bad experience in parentheses because I was lucky to escape
from Chad with my skin; my boss at the time created problems that could have cost
me my life and my money—I put the interview aside. Since that date, I’ve decided …
I’ve put certain photos and documents underneath an embargo, so to speak, to show
that I will only publish them in a paper of which I am the director of publication.
466 J. Tatsitsa

Figure 6. Press coverage.

Tatang says that he possesses an official declaration about his work, but laments setting
the bar for publishing his work at what he recognizes is a utopian level—in short, for
setting that bar at very high heights. He believes that had he started at a lower level,
for example, with a “tabloid” pamphlet of twelve pages, he would have had ample
time to scale the art photography ladder. Yet he also feels that it is not too late, and
 History and Anthropology 467
that his interview with Cheikh Anta Diop, given its depth and relevance, should be pub-
lished despite that it has been more than twenty years since the interview itself took place.
Nevertheless, he feels that the interview remains relevant, because the warning the
Cheikh sent to African youth is applicable today: “If you youth do nothing”, the
Cheikh said, “you will live in hell in Africa, even though God made Africa to be paradise”.
Explaining the circumstances and reasons as to why he took photos of celebrities,
Tatang declares that:
At the time, it was sufficiently complicated, even for a well-recognized photographer, to
take photos of people of that stature here in Cameroon. Under Ahmadou Ahidjo, you had
to make phone calls [to take photos], and in order to make those calls, you had to submit
an application with a photo and a photocopy of your identity card. So I went to work for a
newspaper, and with that affiliation I had access to people and events. But for the past 15
years, I’ve refused to take such photos for personal reasons. Today, the photos I take are
for my research work (he is working to publish a tourist guide).

Remembering the difficulties he encountered as a professional photographer, Tatang

reveals that he was once questioned during “Les années de braise” [the “Burning
Years”, a reference to a particular period of social and civil unrest in the early 1990s]
by a colonel of the SED (Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense camerounaise [Secretary of
State for Cameroonian Defense]).
I was held in custody for 24 hours because I had been taking photos of the damage caused
when a bus was set on fire. He stopped me for questioning. I said, “No, this is my work;
tomorrow, people will need to know what happened, and if we don’t have images, we’ll
have to have really beautiful writing to make up for it. You have to understand, we’re
living in a civilization of the image; these days, the image practically speaks for itself.”
He didn’t understand at all … I spent 24 hours at SED, and then he released me. He
took the film that was in my camera, but forgot that I had already taken other films,
he recalls.

Despite these difficulties, Tatang remains firm:

When you have passion, love for something, he insists, no matter what the difficulties, you just
can’t give up, although I admit that I’m not someone who’s familiar with discouragement … I
have a problem: it’s that I don’t know how to be afraid. Maybe that’s the reason why I’m still
alive … I’m convinced that fear makes more trouble than trouble itself. I’ve been assaulted by
bandits several times, been held up at gunpoint, but with my cold blood I always succeeded in
getting out of the situation. He also feels that his profession steered him clear of a materi-
alistic lifestyle. I missed out on a lot of things because of photography, but I’m satisfied
morally, because my travels around the world are due in large part to photography, he
emphasizes.

He points out that he is a relatively self-taught man (apart from his early correspon-
dence course) and had the privilege of reading the lectures of Cheikh Anta Diop.
Tatang says that photographers today are primarily interested in the profession for
financial reasons. Because they place money before art, Tatang feels that such photo-
graphers are not capable of creating photographs of the same caliber as his. Yet he
does not blame them for acting as they do. When asked if his profession brought
him happiness, he has much to say (Figures 7 and 8):
468 J. Tatsitsa
… there are people for whom happiness is perhaps a little bit of wine that they drink,
there are those for whom happiness primarily consists of money … for me, it’s something
totally relative. When I say that to people, as I often do, they usually reply, “He says that
because he’s penniless.” But by what standard am I poor? Someone who owns lots of
things but has an empty head has nothing … I prefer my photos. I still have faith in

Figure 7. From the Tatang archive: Celebrations at Foumban 1983.

 History and Anthropology 469

Figure 8. From the Tatang Archive: Batcham development group launch 1980.

photography. I can’t lie to you—I’m slow to attach myself to digital photography, because
it pains me. I’m nostalgic because photography today has become like a free-market: it’s a
free-for-all, everybody nowadays takes photos … if you ask a photographer, talk to him in
technical terms, he’ll be completely lost. He can’t keep up with the conversation. Happily,
I’m currently setting up a museum within the framework of l’Institut Panafricain d’Etude
et de Recherches Appliquées pour la Renaissance Africaine de Batcham (IPERARA-
BATCH [The Pan-African Institute for Study and Applied Research on the African
Renaissance in Batcham]). All the photographic accessories that I’ve purchased over
the years will be housed in this museum. For example, it will house the densitometer
that I’ve had since 1979.

Tatang was not the only photographer working in Batcham. Among the contempor-
aries of Tatang were Photo-Samuel (also known as Major), Edouard Fofou (alias
Photo-Edouard) and Martin Mbou. While Mbou and Major are deceased, Fofou was
still available for interviews in late 2012 and it is to him that we now turn.
Edouard Fofou7 entered photography in 1975, and was trained by Jean Mermoz,
who was from Bangang. The latter had himself learned photography from a Nigerian
who had taken up residence in the Cameroonian town of Melong. Fofou came to pho-
tography through an unusual route: when he was born, his father did not formally reg-
ister his birth. Despite the lack of documentation of his age, Fofou was able to attend
primary school, but in his second year of middle school had to leave for lack of a birth
certificate. His father then suggested that he take up photography, but Fofou, angry at
being expelled, went to various colonial plantations in search of farm work. During this
period, in 1960, his father died.
470 J. Tatsitsa
First he worked for COC in Foumbot where he amassed some small savings at their
bank. It was the death of his father that made Fofou decide to leave the COC8 and travel
to Niabang (Melong), where one of his childhood friends was working. There, he was
recruited to work on a small farm that was part of a larger coffee plantation owned by
the colonialist Gremelor. Armed with some small savings from this work, Fofou
remembered his father’s suggestion and apprenticed himself to a local photographer
from Bangang village known as <Jean Mermoz>.9 The apprenticeship cost him
25,000 FCFA—then the equivalent of thirteen and a half months of work. When his
photography apprenticeship ended, Fofou returned to work at the farm in Niabang.
The money Fofou earned from this farm work permitted him to travel to Douala to
purchase a full set of photographic materials. While there, he also bought a five-year
old Yashica camera for 25,000 FCFA as well as an old enlarger for 30,000 FCFA;
equipped with these, he returned to Batcham to start his own photographic studio.
In addition to his work as a studio photographer, he also worked as an itinerant photo-
grapher. Fofou still has some of the first photos he took, though most of these early
photos are now in his children’s possession (Figures 9–12).
For Fofou, the arrival of colour photography brought about the decline in black-and-
white photography:
We filmed and we were the ones who fostered development and instruction … in short,
we were the ones who did everything. When the color photography cameras came out,

Figure 9. Edouard Foufou in his bar in late 2012.

 History and Anthropology 471

Figure 10. Edouard Fofou: Uncollected print.

our activity started to decrease. But what really pushed me into quickly abandoning the
profession was that I realized that my eyesight was starting to weaken.10

Fofou attributes the decline in his visual acuity to his profession, in particular to dark
room photographic processing. However, remembering black-and-white photography,
he says:
As I was an orphan, it’s thanks to photography that I built my first house. And this, in
turn, allowed me to gather the dowry for my first wife. After that, I built a take-away
stand next to my photo studio where I sold alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
472 J. Tatsitsa

Figure 11. Edouard Fofou: Uncollected print.

Fofou also notes that in conjunction with the decline in black-and-white photography,
the equipment itself has also aged. I gave my equipment to an acquaintance so that he could
use it to make ends meet, he says, adding that that he knew only one other person, now
deceased, who was interested in black-and-white photography. For Fofou, people
today are not truly interested in photography; instead, they are only attracted to it
because the act of taking a photo has become very easy. The climate of Western Camer-
oon poses conservation difficulties for photographs, and Fofou has seen his negatives
decay in storage. Nevertheless, he still possesses an impressive collection of black-and-
white photos commissioned but never collected by his clients (Figures 13 and 14).
 History and Anthropology 473

Figure 12. Edouard Fofou: Uncollected print.

The third Batcham photographer I consider here is Michel Kenne. He was born
around 1941 in Batcham. His father, Mathias Tsakeng, a former envoy first of the
Germans, then of the Franco-British alliance, chose to send his son to a Western
school. Yet after finding no success in an educational environment, Kenne left the
school in 1963. Gaston Tsakeng, Kenne’s older brother, had already discovered the
advantages of the photographic profession, and suggested to Kenne that he begin an
apprenticeship in the profession. Gaston put his brother in touch with a professional
photographer, Joseph Keino, who was then based in Dschang but had been born in
the village of Baleveng. This was hard work. Kenne struggled particularly with a
474 J. Tatsitsa

Figure 13. Edouard Fofou: Uncollected print.

technical part of his training: handling the film in the dark room. He had to be very
strict with the development timings else the negatives were either too dark or too
light. However, he succeeded in mastering it and at the end of his apprenticeship in
1970, Kenne opened his first studio in Mbouda, where the photographer Jacques Tous-
sele, (known as Photo Jacques), also worked. In the same year two of Jacques’s pupils
(known as Photo Pascal and Photo K. Etienne; the latter was also trained by Keino),
also began to work that in Mbouda and the neighbouring villages. Kenne received
his materials from Douala and Bafoussam, and sold surplus stock to other photogra-
phers and some amateurs.
 History and Anthropology 475

Figure 14. Edouard Fofou: Uncollected print.

In 1988, Kenne returned to Batcham-Ville, where he opened another studio. He

remained there until 1994, when he moved to Batcham-Chefferie (Quartier Baguié).
This was because of the decline in black-and-white photography, as well as the tra-
ditional duties associated with his role as a lineage senior. Despite the decline of interest
in photography, Kenne continued to take some photographs after his return to the
village centre. However, he says, his (informal) supplier of materials, jealous of his
success, stopped supplying him. At this point Kenne then took up subsistence
farming which he continues to practice in 2014.
476 J. Tatsitsa
Kenne is nostalgic for the prosperous years of black-and-white photography. When
my father died in 1957, this compound was idle; it was the revenue that photography
brought me that enabled me to rebuild it and run it. He also regrets the disappearance
of black-and-white photographic equipment: if this equipment hadn’t disappeared,
I would have been in this profession to the point where I would rather have gone completely
blind before I abandoned it, he laments.
According to Kenne, the abandonment of black-and-white photography was due to
the scarcity of its equipment and the proliferation of colour film that students could
buy at low cost.
We used to count on holiday periods to bring us money: students would take a lot of photos
during those times as well as during exam grading periods. Schools would ask us to take
identity photos, and that also brought us in lots of money. We also took photos for adult
identity cards. It was the government agencies responsible for identification that made us
withdraw from this market, because now it’s the police who are in charge of taking
photos for identity cards and passports. During holiday periods, young people are now
going to their rich friends with cameras in order to take photos; they don’t go to studios
anymore. And so that’s how the black-and-white photo lost so much importance that I
had to abandon it, he says.

Michel Kenne, following his photographic training, preserved all of his film negatives
and ordered them chronologically. Unfortunately, one conservation difficulty he has
encountered since retiring has been rodents: mice have eaten away a good part of

Figure 15. Michel Kenne: Ex-display prints.

 History and Anthropology 477
his archives. Furthermore, while the photos he stored in closed boxes remain in good
shape, the photographs that were once on display in his shop are now covered in dust
(Figure 15).

Conclusions
All three of the photographers considered here have preserved some of their photo-
graphic work, but only Tatang seriously hopes that his work will be archived. Their
example stands as a message for all such photographers, that they need to conserve
their own photographic collections (slides, negatives, videotapes, photographs, news-
papers, letters and rare documents). In order to avoid the physical deterioration that
has already affected much of their collections, the material needs conservation, to be
stored in safe boxes and indexed appropriately. Ideally multiple copies should be
made, some of which should be sent to the Cameroonian National Archives and
local universities as has been done with the Jacques Toussele archives.
In his introduction to this special issue, Zeitlyn (2015b) discusses Paula Amad’s analy-
sis of a French film archive. She summarizes an archive as “a bet against the future” (2010,
1). In effect the archivists are betting that the records stored will be found useful at some
point, for some purpose. The concern here is that the bet may never be laid, and the pro-
cesses for archiving the photographic material that remains after the exigencies of village
storage may never get underway. Although very different from Le Febvre’s discussion
based on research in the Negev in Israel (2015) the final result is the same.
As we have seen these three photographers have had quite different careers, yet at the
outset there was little to distinguish them from one another. Their histories exemplify the
arbitrariness of fame and international success: why do many know of Seidou Keita and
not of Gaspard Tatang? In the article I have concentrated on the careers of these three
photographers, as examples of the creators of potential archives. In the introduction I
mentioned some biographical approaches to history, ranging from Ginzburg’s micro-
history to Herzfeld’s reflections of his conversation and discussions with his friend, the
novelist Andreas Nenedakis. The cases I have considered here allow us to raise the
issue of success since biographies are usually only written about the famously successful
(or infamously criminal). It may be that the photographers I have considered have more
in common with Domenico Scandella (Menocchio) the Sixteenth-Century miller whose
opinions Ginzburg could trace through the chance survival of a heresy trial than with
contemporaries such as Nenedakis. Dilley (2014) explored the archives of family and
state in writing his life of the West African colonial administrator Henri Gaden, but
one wonders how that would read when contrasted with, for example, the (yet to be
written) biography of a somewhat earlier colonial officer Northcote Whitridge
Thomas, (1868–1936) who having served in the British Colonial Service in Nigeria
and Sierra Leone in the early years of the twentieth century left under a cloud during
the first world war, and whose subsequent career is unclear. Success or its lack has no offi-
cial place in historical methodology except when it is implicit: we study people who
achieve prominence, which is usually a synonym for success. Even in subaltern studies
and studies of “the everyday” which ostensibly are about those who are not successful
478 J. Tatsitsa
in worldly terms, we still tend to study the leaders and not the followers. The studies of
protest and revolutionary movements, my own included, tend to focus on the leaders and
opinion shapers for these are the individuals who leave archival traces. In terms of the
contrasts used in Papua New Guinea the focus continues to be on the “Big Men”
(with archival traces) not the “Rubbish Men” (without archival traces) for all that the
bulk of the human population falls into the latter category. Be that as it may, to return
to the immediate theme of this paper, the cases I have presented are examples of potential
archives, the “roads not taken” that could have led to archiving, the penumbra of possi-
bility which archival studies should acknowledge: for every document included there are
many that have not made it across the portal, that have not been accessioned.
Finally, we should return to the arguments of the pioneering authors cited in the intro-
duction, and the suggestion that the work of these photographers and their work should
be taken as a resource for historians and anthropologists.11 Like many other small arti-
sans from the early years of postcolonial African states such photographers remain a rela-
tively understudied topic of study and their work provides the raw material for a wide
range of historical and anthropological research on the display of self and the visual
environment. Indeed, we can see the work of these photographers as exemplifying the
struggle to be modern in a recently independent African state, both in their individual
biographies and in the photographic work they created during their careers. These photo-
graphers have documented modernity in the course of creating it.
Translated by Elizabeth Durham.

Notes
[1] There is a large literature on biography and life writing in anthropology and history. Zeitlyn
(2008) provides an introductory survey.
[2] For more information on the origins of this village, see Kenne Fouédong (1991).
[3] For discussion of the creation of this subdivision, see Tatsitsa (1996, 3).
[4] For more information on Bamiléke emigration toward Nkongsamba, see Guiffo (1992, 105).
[5] Note: the interview with Gaspard Tatang was conducted in French.
[6] Then worth 3000 French Francs, c $700 in 1975.
[7] Edouard Fofou, personal interview, 5 November 2012, Batcham.
[8] The Compagnie de l’Ouest Cameroun (COC) was the largest coffee farm in West Cameroon
(2400 ha) owned by group of French investors. They also ran a savings bank (see Uwizeyi-
mana 2009, 333).
[9] The nickname borrows the name of a French aviator from the 1930s.
[10] The interviews with Edouard Fofou and Michel Kenne were conducted in Ngyemba (the local
Bamiléké dialect). I transcribed the Ngyemba and then translated it into French.
[11] A first step is the recent thesis (Mboulla 2014).

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