Born in 1929 in Ghana, James Barnor started his career by opening a photographic portrait studio in Accra. In doing so he followed many African photographers of the same period, who had no other way of making a living.
(Incidentally, this gives their picture a particular quality, as they are done FOR the subject who's paying for them, not taken OF him/her without even asking, as many white folks do when they photograph black people)
In 1959, Barnor moved to London to study, and documented the African diaspora’s experiences in the city during the “swinging sixties”.