Dressed in a loose boubou, a white smock (forokoni), and a black fez, this wonderful giant known to everyone in Bamako is proud of his lovely daughter.

Fashionable wristwatches, telephones, and radios. Elegant European and African clothing. Confidence in the ability to capture people in the most flattering poses. Self-taught photographer Seydou Keïta offered all of this to the thousands of sitters who came to his studio in Bamako, Mali, during the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, as photographer and subject collaborated on portraits that project dignity and modernity.