A Photographer’s Introduction to the Ivory Coast

Preparing for a visit to one of the most advertised locations in Africa is something you need to approach both carefully and critically. This article is here to help you.

“Land of Masks”.  “Tribal Paradise”. “Land of a Thousand Dances”.  And so many more.  The Ivory Coast has been sold as any and all of these things for the last 15 years or so from anyone and everyone operating (or selling) tours throughout the country and, frankly, for the casual tourist, it is all that.  It’s a fantastic place to visit with loads of things to see and experience.  Personally, as a collector of tribal masks from around the world (yes, more than 100 rare and semi-rare grace parts of my home), I saw more different masks in my two weeks in the Ivory Coast than any other country.  I was able to visit, some days, two tribes on the same day and if the days had 32hrs in them and I didn’t need to sleep, I would be able to visit three, without coming across similar tribes.  And yes, each tribe has at least two, more frequently three but sometimes as many as five different dances for different occasions.  So, the ads meet reality, almost word for word.  And absolutely, the Ivory Coast is a super exciting, interesting, challenging, beautiful and magical place to visit - I concur with this 100%.

And yet, photographically, the Ivory Coast presents so many challenges I honestly do not know whether I would openly advise a serious photographer to visit and hope to capture really heart-stopping photos - and trust me, I know how polarising and polemic this will come across for some photographers.  You see, there’s a challenging dichotomy embedded in any tribal visit in the Ivory Coast - specifically - which pretty much completely “prevents” any serious photography from taking place.  And this is something which has been created, over the years, jointly by tour operators (including, unfortunately, all those photo tours) and tribal traditions.  This conjunction of crash commercialism and tribal traditions is simply intended to literally wizz people from one tribal experience, usually centred around a performance, to the next, to the next and so on, with each meeting governed by time constraints, truly bad (sometimes atrocious) locations, mystical tribal traditions (unfortunately increasingly driven by money) and, well, travel logistics.

I’ll analyse and explain each one in a moment, but let me, for a moment, present you with two very conflicting pictures: to the left, Kenya and to the right, Ivory Coast.

I think a picture is starting to form, no? To ground this a bit more, let me describe two visits to very famous tribes in the Ivory Coast and what I faced:

Visit 1:

• Arrived at the village and was shown to the location of the performance, a small square, literally covered with garbage and surrounded by modern, cement-brick buildings and electricity poles, framed by plastic chairs of every colour conceivable, parked cars and motorbikes galore

• more than 100 people from the village, mostly children, were already gathered, screaming and running all around, standing at every single conceivable spot

• I challenged this, explaining how unacceptable that was for a photographer and following negotiations, I was allowed to scout the entire village for an alternative locations

• Found a truly amazing, magical and photogenic location, one which would make both the performance and the pictures look heavenly (really!) less than 100m from the original place

• Was told that this location was beyond a sacred line beyond which the performers would not be able to go while in costume. Why? “The spirits won’t permit it” was the explanation I was given - true? We’ll never know, but there was no further discussion

• Through massive additional negotiations we managed to arrive at a compromise - good one? No. Better than the original dump? Absolutely. We did get access to a location normally forbidden to visitors, but even that was simply less than the place I had found.

• This whole situation cost us 2hrs and almost $100 in “donations” to the village (eggs, chickens, wine etc)

• Ultimately, the ritual and performance were amazing and the people lovely to photograph, but rather than being able to spend 3hrs photographing, we ended up being able to spend just over 1 and the pictures still include a cement wall, wires etc and still people sunk in behind and would appear in photos randomly

Visit 2:

• Arrived at the village (also, mostly modern, with giant speakers blasting pop music from the local bar, etc), met the chief and got permission to photograph anywhere we wanted.  He even assigned one of his assistants to accompany us to ensure we faced no issues.  Both of them absolutely lovely people!

• Met the performers, explained what we were there to do and agreed on the concepts, process and timing and they were really happy to do this - they were funny, intelligent and interested in this “new” approach and ideas, something they had never seen or done before

• Found the locations we wanted, all great spots giving glimpses to how the village used to be and able to show the people to their best

• Prepared our equipment

• Guy starts running from out of nowhere, pushing and shoving, screaming that we cannot shoot at ANY (oh yes, he said “any” before he even knew of the spots we had chosen) of the spots we had chosen! Why? He claimed that ALL the spots were facing the sacred forest (they were not - almost half were facing an ivy covered fence with 3-4 trees behind and two homes and, I kid you not, three shared toilets, so not so mystical, not so sacred, and the others were facing the opposite direction, so by sheer definition, both cannot face the “sacred” forrest)

• When this was pointed out, he changed tack claiming the spots were on his land (or adjacent/facing/would include 3cm of view to his land) and we had not asked permission, but we could potentially be given permission for the low, low price of $500.  Of course, no deal.

• The chief’s assistant took us to the enclosed village vegetable garden where we were lucky enough to find 3-4 relatively good spots, but again, not really as good as the original ones

• we had to get the chief’s assistant to prevent the dozens of kids who were constantly trying to sneak in (but he could not stop the adults who not only sauntered in but chose to sit exactly where we were photographing

So, you can see how things can be.  I can offer loads of other examples, each with its own challenges, but I think you can see the common thread arising here: terrible locations (and by the way, you can see this in almost every single image and video that’s coming out of every photographer visiting in the Ivory Coast), unexpected curveballs.  But wait, there’s more.

Almost all of the challenges a photographer faces when visiting the Ivory Coast tribes can be traced back to the “toxic” conjunction I mentioned earlier: tour operators simply do not care about the serious photographic aspect of a visit and they do not want to “challenge” the conditions because chances are they will come across a near-infinite combination of problems which may require money, eating into their profit margins.  For the tribes, a tourist visit is not really anything more than a source of income and their deep mystical beliefs offer them a really good way to avoid having to provide a more refined (dare I say “better” or “more authentic”?) experience to their visitors - think minimum effort, maximum payout kind of thing.

And I get that - I really do.  I mean, think about it: tribe does not need to prepare and maintain a nice location (even though, from what I learned, sometimes, in the high season, they may get 2 groups of visitors a day!) because, frankly, no visitor (and I did ask!) has even complained about the trash and the location and everything else - in fact, people were really surprised when I brought this up: “garbage? that’s not garbage!” or “what’s wrong with the cement walls?” and even “but you cannot see the wires, they are high up”.  At the same time, the many tour operators (and I met four of them and we discussed this extensively) do not need or want to consider this because, well, in a group of tourists/visitors, how many will actually look to take serious photos?  Few if any - for most, videos with their phones and snapshots are more than enough and for that, you don’t need to bother about anything… Heck, even in the various “photo tours” which are running these days, they are nothing more than tourist groups with big cameras - let’s not kid ourselves!

They sacrificed and replaced their sacred places, houses and huts with large modern cement buildings without thinking of how their old traditions would fit, ending up shoehorning them into the present and somewhere along the line, a lot of the mysticism - to the external observer - was lost forever.  Can it be regained?  In theory yes, but until tourists start demanding more and tour operators wake up to the potential, I very much doubt it.

As for me, well, I travelled to the Ivory Coast at low season (to avoid tourist crowds) as part of a larger scouting trip for an upcoming project and had worked for months with a local fixer in an attempt to preempt and prevent issues such as these - after all, I was travelling there with lights, modifiers and needed both time and interesting locations to shoot, especially since I had not been able to find ANY other similar photos.  I conveyed to my guide that I not going to be someone sitting on a plastic chair shooting at 100 frames per second praying one of the shots would work OR someone happy to grab a few frames either before or after the performance, hoping to get a portrait or something (and then spend hours in Photoshop hoping to turn it into a photo).

I wanted something more, much more and eventually we build an itinerary which would allow us to make this happen.  And yet, with ALL the preparation, with all the preemptive negotiations etc, we still ran into “problems” - small and large - in every single visit.  In retrospect, I should have expected it: none of the tribes I visited had ever been involved in a shoot with lights, soft boxes, smoke generators etc.  It was, for them, as magical as their rituals were for me!  During two sessions I even had guides from other companies, both running “photo tours” telling me that they’ve never seen anything like this and the experience, for everyone involved, was really peaceful, collaborative and very creative and the people loved every minute - especially when they saw the images at the back of the camera!

If you are a photographer considering visiting the Ivory Coast I truly encourage you to do so - there’s just SO much to see.  But if you want to truly take great pictures, here are my critical pieces of advice:

• Try and avoid a “photo tour”.  These tours pack anything from 6 to 10 hapless photo enthusiasts looking to augment their “portfolios” with “amazing” shots into a minibus for 10-12 days, ferrying them as a group from one tribe to another, unloading them, allowing them a few minutes to shoot pre-prepared “portraits”, sit them down to watch a performance in crappy environments, then bundle them again into the minibus for a rinse-and-repeat.  And you get to pay exorbitant amounts of money to fund the “expert” photographer who is “guiding” the group.  So, choose a small and reputable company, tell them what you’re looking for - and be precise - and 99% of the time you’ll end up with a custom tour which will be much cheaper than most of the “photo tours” out there.

• Prepare.  A lot.  Research the tribes (it’s not easy - please do not think you can do this in one afternoon, you cannot!), research the locations, look at distances, get inspiration and ideas from the hundreds of itineraries out there, but come up with your requirements and do not allow yourself to be shoehorned into a pre-made itinerary if you feel ANY aspect does not give you what you want, what you need.

• Communicate to the operator/fixer shortlist exactly what you want.  In all the detail you’ve been able to find and be specific.  If you want 1hr to take portraits of 10 tribe members, say that.  If you need 2hrs, say that - do not be afraid.  Lack of detail will mean (I guarantee you!) your guide will make assumptions and plans you may not be happy with.  This will be a back-and-forth bargaining phase and the operator who is not willing to accommodate you is not the right one for you.  Ask them if they have experience working with photographers - NOT photo tours, actual photographers.

• Previsualise what you want to get out of a visit.  This will make your visit more productive, easier and better for both you and the people you will be photographing.  If you’re planning on doing complex shots, spend the extra time to think of the details, to prepare alternatives and be ready to be extremely flexible.  If you prepare you’ll be able to leverage ideas quickly and avoid the stress which will almost certainly come.

• The Ivory Coast can be very sunny and very hot and humid during the high season (Oct to Feb), so try and avoid those times.  Apart from adding a solid 20-35% premium on prices, it will leave you battling blazing sunlight.  Instead stick with mid-July to end of August, with its glorious heavy cloud cover (and all the amazing soft light it creates), the lower temperatures and prices.

• For those of you thinking of taking a light, I would totally encourage you to do so.  If you travel in the off season, you don’t even need a super powerful one and you can create amazing shots really easily.

• If you’re wondering whether you should look to photograph your subjects before or after a performance, try Google-ing the performance and see if something is there to help you gauge what’s the best approach.  If you cannot, ask your local guide - do not be afraid to call them and have a frank and open conversation with them, ask ALL the questions you have, from timings all the way to describing the whole performance and process.

• Be “careful” of performances.  Most performances are now done pretty much on autopilot, aiming for 30’-40’ and frankly, all this time is clearly not really needed.  A 15’ performance is more than enough, it does not take much from the performers and still imparts the awe you expect.  You do not need to join the dancers - this is a tourist thing and they do it for tourists - if you do not want to.  You don’t need to see the same dance from each of the 6-7 men/women involved - 1-3 will be more than enough, please trust me on this.  Save the time and performer energy for your shots, but please, be sensitive and respectful.

But even when you’ve done all of the above perfectly, chances are things will derail to varying extends when you’re on the ground.  When that happens:

• be firm but flexible.  If something does not work for you, communicate that to your local guide in a calm manner but be firm and specific.  It’s their job to facilitate what you need and you need to be specific.  Be prepared to be flexible and look for alternatives (of course, to be able to do this, you need to be prepared, so again, consider how important preparation is)

• be prepared to make sacrifices.  Sometimes the world conspires against you and what you had in mind simply cannot be done for a myriad reasons (rain and mud, the occasional crazy/greedy person, how the entrails in the animal which was sacrificed earlier that day/week presented themselves and so on).  Whatever happens will happen.  But also spend some time in the evening with your guide to do a post-mortem and prepare for the next day.

If you want to read my advice on each tribe, please read here.