Cine-film, Film-strips and the Devolution of Colonial Photography in The Gambia

Abstract

In the 1940s colonial administrators in the Gambia Colony hired local photographers to provide a vernacular window into colonial policies, procedures and successes. The political and aesthetic implications of their still photography were structured by forays into forms of visual expression that customarily lay beyond the bounds of the portrait studio – especially cine-film and film-strips. This photography inaugurated a political consciousness of colonial devolution within the administrative hierarchy. Even though Public Relations Office photography was clearly based within the bounds of government in the Gambia, it was a heterogeneous practice. Far from being a teleological tool of the state, colonial administrative photography in the Gambia was actually less stable, more innovative and significantly possessed of political and aesthetic power as to lead to its own demise.