Adama Kouyaté, son of a master shoemaker, Adama Kouyaté was born in Bougouni, a village in the former French Sudan (now Mali). A contemporary of Malik Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, Adama is now over 80 years old. After having become a photographer with his partner by a photographer from Bamako at Christmas 1946, Adama found photography so beautiful that he only dreams of taking up the profession. By force of insistence with Pierre Garnier, he entered his service in 1947 as an enlarger in his studio in Bamako: Photo Hall Soudanais. Adama created his first studio in 1949 in the city of Kati: Photo Hall Kati, which he left in management to an apprentice. In 1964, in Ouagadougou in Upper Volta (now Burkina) he opened a second studio, then a third in 1966, in Bouaké in Ivory Coast. After the 1968 military coup in Mali, he returned to the country and, the following year, again inaugurated a studio in the city of Ségou, in the heart of the commercial district, rue Elhadj Oumar Tall: Photo Hall d'Union . For the opening, Adama makes an announcement on the radio, he offers "a free pose" to all customers who will be a photographer during the first week. The business works so well that we jostled each other every day for more than three weeks! "I was pulling six reels of 12 6x6 film and two reels of 24x36 each day. The photo worked so well that after six months I was able to buy a new car, a Peugeot 404."

Adama Kouyaté willingly takes liberties with the agreed rules of studio photography. Instead of having three lamps for a greater light, it content itself with two side lamps and removes the mood lamp. It highlights the shadows of subjects and accessories. It explores the desires and desires of elegance of the subject photographed. Even if the latter is not a smoker, he puts a cigarette between his fingers to make him look mundane. He organizes and aesthetizes the poses, creates a temporary connivance to make magic possible. The more the photographer dares to free himself from the «aesthetic» canons established by his colleagues, the more he creates a surprising image of his subject. And this invention becomes its trademark that each customer disseminates and comments on».

Adama Kouyaté died on February 2020

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Condition: new 

First edition- 112 pages

Gang Edition - October 2010

Texts in French and English