PHOTOGRAPHY: Africa in focus
Exhibitions turn lens on the continent, past and present
Priya Ramrakha was a Kenyan-born photojournalist who did some of his most prolific work in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s, at the height of the continent’s independence struggles. Born into an activist journalistic family, Ramrakha was one of the first African photojournalists employed by such prestigious titles as Time and Life magazines. Among the influential figures he photographed were Kenyan trade unionist and independence activist Tom Mboya; Jomo Kenyatta, independent Kenya’s first head of state; and Nigerian politician Odumegwu Ojukwu. He also photographed a number of US politicians and civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, John F Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Richard Nixon, and even the British royal family. While covering the Nigerian civil war with CBS correspondent Morley Safer in 1968, Ramrakha was killed by Biafran soldiers in an ambush near Owerri. Recently, a series of his unpublished photographs was uncovered. This forms the backb...
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