Seydou keita photographer biography books

Malian photographer

For the footballer, see Seydou Keita.

Seydou Keïta (1921/23 – 21 November 2001) was a Malian photographer known for his portraits of people and families he took at his portrait photography studio in Mali's capital, Bamako, in the 1950s.^[1] His photographs are widely acknowledged not only as a record of Malian society but also as pieces of art.

Seydou keita photographer biography books

Biography

Keïta was born in 1921 in Bamako, Mali, although the exact date is unknown. He was the oldest in a family of five children. His father Bâ Tièkòró and his uncle Tièmòkò were furniture makers. Keïta developed an interest in photography when his uncle gave him a Kodak Brownie with a film with eight shots in 1935, after returning from a trip to Senegal.

In the beginning, Keïta worked as both a carpenter and photographer, taking first portraits of his family and friends, later of people in the neighborhood. He learned photography and how to develop from Pierre Garnier, a French photog