Malian studio portraiture

• Daylight studio: a skylight, a glasshouse or a courtyard, with a backdrop behind the sitter.
• Open shadows: bright surroundings (walls, ground, sky) fill them; no reflector needed.

Shadow edges

Shadows that fade gradually from light to dark, cast by a large or diffused light: a window, a softbox, a cloudy sky.

Shadow depth

Shadows kept light and full of detail by a reflector, a fill light, bounce or bright surroundings (a low lighting ratio, up to about 3:1: the shadow side at most a stop and a half darker).

This plan is worked out from the style’s choices, so it is drawn as a schematic. One way to get the light, not a record of how any photograph was lit.

Then

35–50 mm · f/5.6–f/16 · 1/50–2 s · ISO 50–400 on 13 × 18 cm, inferred from the gear and the look. Cameras documented: Keïta's 13 × 18 cm camera with a broken shutter, timed by lifting the lens cap in daylight; Sidibé's Agfa 6 × 6 and Foca Sport 35 mm, flash at parties, tungsten in the studio. Lenses, stops, times and film speeds are inferred.

Focal length

Roughly the eye’s own perspective; no visible distortion.

Angle

The camera at the height of a standing person or of the subject.

Distance

Whole figures and their immediate surroundings.

Balance

The subject faces the lens; planes run parallel to the picture. The subject in the middle, the frame balanced around it.

Depth

Depth collapsed into pattern and flat shapes.

Duration

An unmoving scene, exposed slowly and carefully.

Let sitters choose the pose, then refine it: seated upright or standing full length, shoulders square to the camera, eyes to the lens, face composed; one hand resting on or holding a prop (a radio, a bag, flowers) or on the hip; couples and friends stand close, an arm on a shoulder; at parties couples dance together for the flash.

Body position

On a chair or stool, back straight, hands and feet placed: the formal sitting. Upright, weight on both feet, shoulders level: the plain, even stance of a formal sitting or a line-up.

Turn to the camera

Shoulders and hips face the lens straight on: direct, symmetrical, sometimes confrontational.

Head & gaze

Looking straight into the camera, so the subject meets the viewer’s eye.

Arms & hands

Hands busy with a prop or a tool: flowers, a phone, a cup, a cigarette, an instrument, one’s own work.

Expression

Unsmiling, composed and blank: the face gives nothing away.

Several people

Bodies close together, overlapping and leaning in: friends, a band, a family on a sofa.

With the sitter

The subject performs for the camera and shapes the picture. The sitter arranged and still, facing the camera.

Sitters come in their own best: boubous, headwraps and jewellery, or sharp youth fashion with cocked caps, slim trousers and sunglasses; a patterned cloth hung behind, its print set against theirs; a radio, watch, handbag, bicycle or chair as studio props and status objects.

Clothes

Best clothes, jewellery and accessories put on for the studio or the occasion. The wearers’ own festive, religious or wedding clothes: saris and lehengas, boubous, robes, kimono. Outfits the wearers put together to be seen, designer labels included: layering, sneakers, statement pieces.

Set & props

A painted, cloth, paper or seamless backdrop behind the subject. Things shown to say who the sitter is or wants to be, their own or lent by the studio: a radio, a bicycle, a watch, books, tools.

Look of the styling

Patterns, objects and textures piled together: pattern on pattern, flowers on brocade.

Monochrome

Rich blacks, clean whites and every grey between.

Film

A view camera on a tripod: great detail, slow and deliberate. Roll film in a medium-format camera, often square.

Post-production

Nothing changed beyond exposure and development.

Shown as

Each picture stands on its own.

Shown in

Prints for an album, a card or a frame at home.

Stay away from low-key & chiaroscuro, shallow depth of field, composite & montage, deadpan, unseen camera, black shadows, awkward & in-between and unstyled, as found.