Abstract
Based on ethnographic research in Cameroon, this article discusses recent developments in the field of African studio photography. It focuses first on how technical innovations have changed photographic practice and how this has affected studio photography in Cameroon. While new image-making professionals have emerged, most of the studios going back to the black-and-white era had closed down at the time of my research. Many of their photos were discarded or damaged. In the second part the article discusses how studio photography has been appropriated by the Western institutions of art and academia since the late 1980s, and how these ongoing activities contributed to the valorization and commodification of photographs outside their original contexts. As many photographs have either been destroyed, appropriated by the art market or have found their way into academic archives, I will conclude by arguing that these parallel developments have made the remaining studio photographs both precious and precarious.
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