SEYDOU KEITA

"At the beginning I photographed my family. Some attitudes worked, some others not. I really had a bad start : people moved and I probably trembled myself. When printing, they all looked like skeletons. You see : I was really undertrained. I was asking my client the money for the print that I was doing at Pierre Garnier's or at Mountaga's lab. He taught me how to print. If the print didn't come out well, I was into problems; clients were very angry, but they were the ones that moved! (...)

I was working just as well with natural light as with artificial light.Some customers would prefer "night photographs" because they were paler, but I preferred natural light. They really liked my photographs because they were really sharp and also because they appreciated their set up. All that I know is: my pictures were really good.
When I look at them today, they have not changed a bit, they didn't even change in color. I always worked with the same camera until 1977 and I kept all the negatives: they are all here: customers could reorder! None ever complained, otherwise they would have not returned."

Seydou Keita, Mali