In and Out of Focus

Book excerpt: This book accompanies an exhibition at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, on the role of photography in Central Africa. This is the first book to link two related themes: the role of photographic images in constructing and circulating fantasies, ideas, and sentiments in Europe and the US relating to the peoples of Central Africa; and the role of photography in enabling Africans to project images of themselves by becoming familiar with photographic technology. Broad in thematic and temporal scope, the book focuses on several time periods, especially on the years before and between the two world wars. This is also the first publication devoted to the important holdings of the Eliot Elisofen Photographic Archives, a department of the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution and a unique repository with more than 200,000 historical and contemporary images from all over Africa. This book raises important issues associated with photographic practice in Africa, the distribution of images, the circulation of ideas in Europe and the US, and African responses to photography through several poignant case studies. This book also advances the scholarly discourse on colonial/anthropological photography, and contributes to a better understanding of African responses to photography.