Sanlé Sory poster · the motorcycle helmet

The man stands in the middle of the studio, a pale two-striped helmet on his head and a pair of goggles across his eyes. A strap runs over his chest, a dark satchel hangs at his hip, a glove stays in his hand. Behind him the big polka dot backdrop, under his boots the diamond floor that runs through so many Sanlé Sory pictures.

At the Volta Photo studio in Bobo-Dioulasso, people came to pose with what they dreamt of owning. Sanlé Sory kept helmets, sunglasses, satchels and record players on hand, and each sitter built the character they wanted the country to see. The studio, in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, belongs to the West African studio photography of the 1960s and 1970s. The photograph was taken on a Rolleiflex, as a 6 × 6 square. The poster uses a vertical crop of it. The studio's mark is printed at the foot of the poster, VOLTA PHOTO · S. SORY · BP.139 BOBO DIOULASSO.

Risograph printing is not photographic printing. The machine lays down one colour at a time, pushing ink through a stencil, and each pass leaves a flat, frank block of colour on the paper. Here the image is printed in red and the cartouche in black, two passes and two inks. The halftone screen stays visible and the ink keeps its texture.

A2 format, 420 × 594 mm, on Munken 150 gsm uncoated matt paper. €40 including tax, shipped rolled in a tube. This is a printed poster, not a photographic print. Sanlé Sory's prints, numbered and museum framed, are shown on the artist's page.