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| Ghanaian photographer James Barnor in 2019. File photograph. CPFGalerie / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. |
The World Photography Organisation has selected Ghanaian photographer James Barnor for its Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, recognising work that documented Ghana’s independence and the lives of Black communities in Accra and London.
Barnor, 97, will receive the honour at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony in London on 15 April 2027. The announcement, released on Thursday, 5 November, also includes plans for a retrospective at Somerset House.
The exhibition will run from 16 April to 3 May 2027, bringing together more than 50 works alongside archival material. Organisers will trace his development through newspaper assignments, studio portraiture, fashion photography and his experiments with colour.
Barnor began learning the profession in Accra during British colonial rule. Born in 1929, he trained with his cousin, portrait photographer J. P. D. Dodoo, before taking on assignments beyond the studio.
In 1950, aged 21, he became the first staff photographer at the newly established Daily Graphic. His newspaper work covered public gatherings, political activity and street events during the years preceding Ghana’s independence.
He opened Ever Young studio in Jamestown, Accra, in 1953. Its customers included students, shop workers, public officials and political figures, giving him subjects whose portraits recorded the clothing, occupations and social life of the period.
His assignments also brought him into contact with Kwame Nkrumah. Barnor photographed the independence leader on several occasions and recorded his declaration of Ghana’s freedom from British rule in March 1957.
Those independence photographs did not reach newspaper readers at the time. An account published by the Museum of Modern Art explains that Barnor sent the films to South Africa for processing, but delays prevented their publication.
Barnor moved to Britain in 1959 to extend his technical training. He studied at Medway College of Art in Kent and subsequently worked as a colour printer at Colour Processing Laboratories.
Alongside that work, he continued photographing for Drum, the South African magazine associated with anti-apartheid journalism. His assignments followed African diaspora communities in London during the 1960s and placed Black models and performers on the magazine’s covers and fashion pages.
London’s streets and landmarks supplied locations for his portraits. His subjects included broadcaster Mike Eghan and boxer Muhammad Ali, while other photographs recorded friends, gatherings and everyday encounters. The resulting work covered both public figures and people outside celebrity life.
Further training with Agfa-Gevaert took him to Belgium and Germany. In 1970, he returned to Ghana as the company’s technical representative and helped establish the country’s first commercial colour-processing laboratory.
He continued taking photographs while developing the processing business. His work in Ghana subsequently included assignments for public institutions and portraits at his second studio, Studio X23. Barnor later returned to London, where he now lives.
Reflecting on the award, Barnor recalled the distance between his early studio work and the recognition his archive now receives.
“When I opened my studio in Accra, I never imagined that my work would take me so far: through Ghana’s independence, to London and back again,” Barnor said in a statement.
“My camera became my companion, and I have never regretted it.”
The award announcement identifies Barnor as the recipient for the awards’ 20th edition. Previous honourees include Sebastião Salgado, Susan Meiselas and Joel Meyerowitz.
The Somerset House presentation follows exhibitions that have brought different sections of his archive to international audiences. A touring retrospective appeared at London’s Serpentine in 2021, MASI Lugano in Switzerland in 2022 and the Detroit Institute of Arts in 2023.
His photographs have also appeared at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Institutions holding his work include Tate and the National Portrait Gallery in London, as well as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, according to his published exhibition and collections record.