Studies in Visual Communication Volume 5 Issue 1 Fall 1978 Article 3 1978 How I See the Yoruba See Themselves Stephen Sprague Recommended Citation Sprague, S. (1978). How I See the Yoruba See Themselves. 5 (1), 9-29. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol5/iss1/3 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol5/iss1/3 For more information, please contact [email protected]. How I See the Yoruba See Themselves This contents is available in Studies in Visual Communication: https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol5/iss1/3 When I photographed in Nigeria, I mostly used a medium format camera and often a tripod. I always obtained the subject's permission and cooperation before photographing and invariably framed the sub­ ject straight-on. This turned out to be the way the HOW I SEE THE YORUBA Yoruba expected a good photographer to work, so I SEE THEMSELVES was immediately accorded respect among the Yoruba photographers and in the community, and I was se~­ dom refused permission to photograph. I know that 1f I had been making candid photographs with a small STEPHEN SPRAGUE camera I would have met with a great deal of suspi­ cion and little understanding or respect. Though our manner of working may be similar, my Photographers and photographic studios are preva­ photographs are obviously quite different from those lent throughout many areas of Africa today, and par­ taken by Yoruba photographers. While photograph­ ticularly in West Africa many indigenous societies ing, I tried to be conscious of my own training in the make use of photography. However, the Yoruba of Western tradition of documentary photography and western Nigeria, though not unique, are certainly ex­ to be aware of how this was influencing my seeing. ceptional in the extent to which they have integrated The resulting photographs, I feel, contain a mass of the medium of photography into many aspects of visual details, frame by frame, which are structured by their culture. a combination of personal and documentary aesthetic The following photographic essay visually presents considerations and anthropological insight. I hope some of the results of an investigation which I con­ that my photographs can be appreciated and under­ ducted primarily in the lgbomina Yoruba town of stood on all these levels. lla-Orangun during the summer of 1975. lla-Orangun In addition to making my own photographs, I col­ is a typical Yoruba community of about 30,000 in­ lected or copied examples of Yoruba photographs. habitants, which, at that time, had neither electricity These were obtained from both photographers and nor running water. Despite the lack of modern other members of the community. One of the best facilities, the town supported ten flourishing photo- sources was the photographers' negative files. Some graphic studios. 300 negatives were viewed at each studio in lla­ My observations of comparable matenal 1n the Orangun, and each photographer was requested to ljebu-remo area and in the large cities of Lagos, lba­ make postcard-size prints (3% in. by SV2 in.) of ten to dan, and Kana strongly suggest that the use of photog­ fifteen selected negatives. These were selected on the raphy in lla-Orangun is typical of m~ny Yoruba co~­ basis of criteria established, in part, from a stylistic munities, and probably has much 1n common w1th and subject matter analysis of 300 sample postcards other areas of West Africa. kept by Sir Special Photo Studio for prospective I have shown elsewhere (Sprague 1978) that the clients to view. Briefly, these criteria were (1) that the Yoruba, at all levels of their society, have indeed in­ photograph be a good example of a distinct subset of tegrated photography into both traditional and con­ Yoruba photographs as previously defined by the temporary aspects of their culture; and that Yoruba analysis of Sir Special's postcards; (2) that the photo­ photography is a genuine expression of the culture graph be unique in some way or not fit any previously with unique symbolic meanings and functions and defined category; (3) that the photograph seem to with an implicit set of culturally determined conven­ contain anthropological information useful to Marilyn tions governing proper subject matter and formal Houlberg, who was also in lla-Orangun continuing coding of the visual image. In the present introduc­ her research on Yoruba sacred children; and (4) that tion, I would like to outline my methodology for the photograph particularly reflect my own personal photographing and collecting this material and to aesthetic tastes. present some additional contextual information to The ten photographers in lla-Orangun were inter­ amplify the main points of the accompanying photo­ viewed, and they willingly discussed their profession graphic essay. and demonstrated their camera and darkroom techniques.1 Also, members of the community con­ Stephen Sprague received his M.F.A. from the school tributed information about the subject matter and at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1970. He is presently function of photographs that they owned. Yoruba an Assistant Professor teaching photography and photography in lla-Orangun was studied, then, from filmmaking at Purdue University. His main interest is the points of view of both producer and consumer as in the concepts of documentary photography, in the well as from an analysis of the photographs them­ ways in which photographs seem to present an illu­ selves. sion of reality, and in the ways in which the photog­ The Yoruba consider photography a respectable rapher's personal and cultural biases might be re­ modern profession for young people to enter, and vealed. though the vast majority of photographers are men, there are no stated restrictions against women. To HOW I SEE THE YORUBA SEE THEMSELVES 9 become a photographer a young person must first these portraits are often commissioned in order to have completed primary six (sixth grade) and must commemorate an event of some importance to the then become an apprentice to a master photographer people depicted.2 Though an important ritual object for a period of one to three years. He can then open a or prized possession such as a traditional sculpture or studio and practice photography, eventually attract­ a new car might occasionally be photographed, such ing his own apprentices. general subjects as landscapes, architecture, or ordi­ Photographers are highly organized. There is a nary objects and events are very seldom taken by local photographers' union in each town to which local photographers. every photographer automatically belongs and which Yoruba photography certainly shares some similar meets at least once a month. These local unions form categories of subject matter and some formalistic regional unions which meet about every six months. conventions with other West African societies as well The unions regulate the price structure of the various as with Western cultures, particularly the British. But types of photographs and services, the details of ap­ cultural patterning exists, not only in the subtle differ­ prenticeship, the professional conduct of its mem­ ences in these conventions but, more importantly, in bers, and so on. the unique culturally derived symbolic meanings and The typical photography studio in lla-Orangun is specific functions attributed to these seemingly similar usually small but efficiently laid out. Double doors forms. swing open to reveal to the passerby samples of the What I call the traditional formal portrait (see Fig­ photographer's work. A backdrop hangs a few feet ures 10 and 13) seems to be in part a fusion of tradi­ inside the studio with a bench for the sitter placed tional Yoruba cultural and aesthetic values with immediately in front of it. These backdrops are nineteenth-century British attitudes toward the painted by sign painters in various shades of black, medium. Both the nineteenth-century British and the white, and gray. They often display a fascinating if traditional Yoruba culture placed great emphasis on naive use of Western perspective and usually depict a tradition, proper conduct, and the identity and mixture of traditional and contemporary motifs. Be­ maintenance of one's proper social position in soci­ hind the backdrop is a tiny darkroom, often without ety. Early British portraits and Yoruba traditional for­ electricity or running water. Along one wall of the mal portraits visually codify these commonly held darkroom is a narrow table on which are set the pro­ values by the dignified manner in which the subjects cessing solutions in enameled bowls from the market. pose while wearing the proper clothes, and often dis­ A kerosene lantern with a red cloth surrounding the playing symbolic objects, which identify their social globe serves as a safelight. An old postcard-size view station in life. There are distinctions, however; British camera is installed with its back to a window for use as portraits also emphasize the Western values of indi­ a solar enlarger, and a mirror, located outside the win­ viduality and even ecce!ltricity, while the Yoruba tra­ dow, is tilted to reflect sunlight through the system. ditional formal portrait is meant to memorialize the An enlargement is made by placing a negative in the subject in terms of how well the individual has em­ back of the camera and projecting its image onto a bodied traditional Yoruba ideals and fulfilled his sheet of photographic paper clipped to a vertical given traditional position in Yoruba society. When the easel. Except for minor variations, this makes up the Yoruba subject dies, this is the portrait which might photographer's entire facilities. be carried in his funeral procession to particularize Since about 1960, the traditional view camera has the ancestral Egungun (Schiltz 1978:51). It is the por­ been increasingly relegated to the status of enlarger, trait which might be hung in his crypt or laminated to as there have become available a variety of cheap and his tombstone and which might be published in more flexible twin-lens reflex cameras taking twelve memoriam each year in the Lagos Daily Times.