Malick Sidibé

Malick Sidibé

Malick Sidibé's work is very new to me and straight off that bat you can tell his work is older than the modern day portrait shots. Through research i discovered that this was actually the case as he was born in Bamako, Mali in 1935.

On first glance his work to me shows a lot of african culture. And quite often includes women in traditional african outfits, not to mention it is obvious that the people both male and female he photographs either live in Africa are from African descent this is obvious through skin colour, outfits and also the background and surroundings on many images.

I chose to talk about these three images in particular because i felt they went together quite well. All three appear to have the same type of background, just a plain wall with no detail in it. Another thing i thought was very similar was how the people aren't making eye contact with the lens. The people in the top and bottom photographs are quite obviously not looking at the camera lens at all and although the women in the middle photograph's body is quite obviously pointing forwards towards the camera lens you have no idea where she is looking as you cannot see that. So to me collectively none of the people are actually looking. 

Another thing i like about Malicks work is that he manages to capture a persons personality by what they are wearing with out adding a background or a facial expression.