John Parkes Decker

John Parkes Decker (c. 1840s–c. 1890s) was an early West African photographer, born in pre-colonial times of today's regions of The Gambia or Sierra Leone. Having worked in coastal regions from Senegal to Cameroon, his earliest mention is from 1867, and he was active until at least 1890.

Travelling between major cities in colonial West Africa, Decker worked for both European and African clients. His work included portraits as well as pictures documenting social and political life. In particular, he was commissioned by the British Colonial Offices to photograph buildings and urban spaces such as Freetown in Sierra Leone. Decker's contributions are notable for the history of African photography, representing early efforts by African-born individuals to document their societies through the photographic medium.

Biography John Parkes Decker was one of the earliest West African photographers. He was active from the late 1860s through at least 1890. Believed to have been born in The Gambia or Sierra Leone, he was among the first African-born photographers to work professionally along the West African coast. His images as itinerant photographer were taken in coastal regions from 19th-century colonial Senegal to Cameroon. Working for both European and African clients, his work included personal portraits as well as documentation of social and political life. It is not known, whether Decker ever operated his own permanent studio. His existing photographs in various archives span a period of about 25 years, until at least 1890. As was common for African photographers of the time, Decker did not only work in one city, but was rather looking for clients in wider areas on the western coast of Africa.

In one of his articles about Decker, historian Jürg Schneider from the University of Basel, Switzerland, wrote: "The earliest reference to the activity of an Africa-born photographer dates back to 1867. In the official journal, the Moniteur du Sénégal et dépendances, the photographer John Parkes Decker thanked the people of Saint-Louis, Senegal, "for the sympathies which he was the subject of."

One of Decker's works titled "Houssa Troops Trained at Lagos" was published as an engraving in The Graphic illustrated newspaper in December 1873. The last known photographs by Decker were made of the Polish explorer Etienne de Szolc-Rogozinski and his wife, taken on the island of Fernando Pó in 1890.

Reception

Photography as a new technology in Africa Photography, which spread and evolved through local and transnational networks of practitioners, was quickly appreciated by African patrons and businessmen. Photographers, clients and images moved along the major coastal cities, often crossing national and ethnic boundaries. The first studios were frequently temporary, set up by professional photographers who worked on the move from one urban center to the next. Photographers often reproduced and sold portraits originally made for private clients as cartes de visite also in commercial forms such as picture postcards, with or without the permission of the clients.

Commenting on the technical challenges of photography in 19th-century Africa, a study about the emergence of photography in Sierra Leone stated:

The 2023 scholarly article "Representing Freetown: Photographs, maps and postcards in the urban cartography of colonial Sierra Leone" related photographic history to the history of cartography. It argued that these two forms of representation, often viewed as separate, were frequently intertwined in the production of geographic knowledge. Only a few decades after its invention, photography had become a tool for European travellers, scientists and anthropologists across the empire. Research into the early photography of West Africa has shown that African photographers in the 19th century such as Decker played an important role in producing a spatial imaginary of place. In this way, photographs served similar purposes as did maps. Further, the article described photography and mapping as both having reduced the world to two dimensions, making the vast spaces of empire legible and knowable."

In 2022, three of his photographs were included in the exhibition "The Future is Blinking. Early Studio Photography from West and Central Africa" at the Rietberg Museum, Zurich.