Sanlé Sory poster · outside Volta Photo

Three of them outside the studio's painted shopfront, lattice windows, awning, panelled door, and the VOLTA PHOTO sign in the top right corner. One of them lies on their side, propped on an elbow, a pale cap on their head and a cigarette between their fingers. The two others stand behind, in sunglasses, one with legs apart, their hands clasped and raised, an arm over a shoulder.

The painted backdrop shows a shopfront, and the sign above it is the studio's own. Sanlé Sory opened Volta Photo in Bobo-Dioulasso in 1960 and made it a place in the city as much as a workshop. This is the shopfront of an African photography studio in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, painted on the studio's own canvas. People came in groups, built their poses, and left with an image to send. The name on the backdrop is the one the poster carries at its foot, VOLTA PHOTO · S. SORY · BP.139 BOBO DIOULASSO.

This is the only one of the four posters where the photograph is printed in black. The studio cartouche comes in red, on a second pass through the machine. Risograph printing gives that black a substance no photographic print has, drier and more graphic, screen in plain sight and ink sitting on uncoated paper.

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.