In and Out of Focus. Images from central Africa, 1885-1960.

We cite from the cover : /
"'In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885-1960 'is the first major publication to examine how widely disseminated images by Euro-American photographers created and perpetuated ideas and sentiments about the peoples of central Africa who lived under colonial rule. It also explores the role Africans played in projecting and creating images of themselves for foreign photographers and how they adopted photographic technology and made it their own. This is also the first book devoted to the important holdings of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, a department of the National Museum of African Art and a unique repository with more than 280,000 historical and contemporary images from all over Africa.
Using poignant case studies—among them the examination of the influential work of Polish photographer Casimir Zagourski (1883-1944)—In and Out of Focus raises important issues about photographic practice in Africa, the distribution of images, the circulation of ideas in Europe and the United States and African responses to photography. This book advances the scholarly discourse on colonial/anthropological photography and contributes to a better understanding of photography in Africa.
This book accompanies an exhibition at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.