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Alphonso Lisk-Carew: Imaging Sierra Leone through His Lens

2015; UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center; Volume: 48; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1162/afar_a_00235

1937-2108

Julie Crooks,

Geographies of human-animal interactions

In the above review of Bishop E.G. Ingham's book Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years, published in an 1894 edition of the Sierra Leone Weekly News (SLWN), the anonymous writer expressed his frustration with Ingham's unflattering choice of photographs. He argued that the images depicted Freetown in a less-than-favorable light. The reviewer's preoccupation with the shifting ways in which Sierra Leone, and Freetown in particular, had been represented is generative of a larger discourse of surveillance and imaging of the region. In 1787, the earlier settlement of Granville Town was conceived as perfect for the repatriation of “poor” blacks back to Africa that were deemed undesirable in the larger British society.By the mid-nineteenth century, the colony had expanded and made a major contribution to the liberation and advancement of enslaved black Atlantic people with subsequent immigration, repatriation, and deportation schemes. The largest influx into Sierra Leone were the “recaptive” or “liberated Africans” group who were liberated from illegal slave ships following the passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 in Britain and its subsequent blockade.1 In May 1807, alongside the initial deployment of British ships, a vice-admiralty court was created and given the jurisdiction to deal with slave ships captured by the navy. During their sixty years in the mission of prohibiting the illegal slave trade, the squadron captured over 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 slaves (Walvin 1994). Once the ships were seized, a large number of heterogeneous African groups were settled in the colony. Freetown became a “heterotopian”2 site and a place of otherness (Foucault 1986). As it developed as a British colony, Freetown was often portrayed with reference to racialized tropes of disease, chaos, immorality, and disorder in travelers’ accounts, newspaper reports, and photographs (Phillips 2002). The compelling career of Sierra Leonean photographer Alphonso Lisk-Carew offers a counternarrative to the many unfavorable representations of Freetown. Lisk-Carew offered a range of images that presented the colony and its inhabitants in relation to the complex power dynamics of the colonial regime from 1903 to the closing of his studio in the mid-1950s.Alphonso Sylvester Lisk-Carew was born on September 8, 1883,3 at 3 East Brook Lane, Freetown. The area where he was born was known as Overbridge,4 a predominantly Creole enclave located in the northeastern section of the city. At approximately the turn of the century, the Lisk-Carews moved from the smaller house at 3 East Brook Lane to a larger, three-story home at 20 East Brook Street. This might have been a temporary move, as it seems that the original house at 3 East Brook Lane was retained by the family, added on to, and a larger house constructed. Mounted photographs by Lisk-Carew were stamped on the front: 3 East Brook Lane & Corner of Gloucester Street and Westmoreland.5 The family was part of a typical complex network of social and economic relationships rooted in friendships, ritual brotherhood, old school links, and fraternal societies such as the Freemasons. Another important aspect of the family was the “cousinhood” that is maintained by frequent, extensive, and expensive family “ceremonials” (Cohen 1981:62).By the late nineteenth century, around the time of Lisk-Carew's birth, the urban center of Freetown consisted of an amalgamation of several ethnically and faith-based neighborhoods. While the early settlers took up a large portion of the city center, indigenous groups (mainly non-Creoles) were pushed to the margins of the city. This spatial dispersal reflected distinctions based not only on ethnicity but also on “class, status, and privilege” (Cohen 1981). Understanding the cartography of Freetown and its environs is essential for examining Lisk-Carew's extensive photographic coverage of the city's cultural groups and the spaces they inhabited, as well as his lifelong documentation of urbanization.Lisk-Carew's education began with his entrance to primary school at the Government Model School. He then attended the Methodist Boys’ High School from around 1896.6 The school's curriculum, which included the classics, equipped him with the basics of a much-coveted Western-style education. In the nineteenth century, education was highly valued among black settlers as it was seen as crucial to entrepreneurship and self-employment or a career with the colonial administration.While photography was not listed as a key occupation in the early census reports, local photographers were viewed as highly skilled members of the community. Considerable reference was made to photography and photographers in editorials, articles, and advertisements in Sierra Leone newspapers from the mid-nineteenth century and into the early twentieth. There are numerous examples in the Freetown press whereby the individual photographers covering particular events—society weddings, private parties, high-profile government affairs—were often included in such reporting for an added measure of prestige. African photographers had been active since the 1850s and were respected as self-employed professionals (Viditz-Ward 1985).Lisk-Carew began his career as a photographer while still in secondary school, travelling to regions along the “leeward coast” (SLWN 1912). Upon his return to Freetown, he apprenticed with W.S. Johnston for a period of two years (between 1901 and 1903).7 Johnston was an established photographer who settled in Freetown, with a studio first on Kissy Street in 1893, then Garrison Street in the same year, before settling in Howe Street in 1897 (SLWN 1912). Johnston was described by Freetown observers as a “master in the art of Photography, a native of the Gold Coast, but who has practically made Sierra Leone his home” (SLWN 1912).Lisk-Carew established his photography business at his residence at East Brook Lane in 1903. Most of his early work was taken with an 8 × 10-inch view camera.8 His descendants agree that he must have been the sole operator and proprietor of the East Brook Lane studio. In an example of his early work, from around 1903–1905, he appealed to an elite African client concerned with the display of social status by making certain aesthetic choices to depict such visual cues. The badly damaged and deteriorating albumen print cabinet card (Fig. 1), portions of which have been eaten away, portrays a group of four smartly dressed, unidentified Creoles or members of the African elite. Two members of the group sit in a “jinrickshaw” while the puller stands in the foreground right of center of the composition. The image offers a compelling view into Sierra Leonean society.In September 1907, Lisk-Carew placed an advertisement in the SLWN, in which he thanked his clients for their patronage of his business (SLWN 1907b). It was the first year that he placed an advertisement in the SLWN. Lisk-Carew was also keen to acknowledge the African community by stating that, alongside his extensive patronage by colonial officials, he “also fully appreciates the recognition of his own people which he is determined to secure in a greater degree” (SLWN 1907b). In exploiting newspaper advertisements as a means to bring more attention to his business, Lisk-Carew would also include some of his more high-profile commissions as evidence of his success.Lisk-Carew's early commissions by various divisions of the colonial regime reflect his ties to the local administration and his early understanding of the types of images that would be appealing to both local and overseas audiences. Extant images by Lisk-Carew from 1903 to 1907 encompass a range of subjects, including local Freetown sitters in their homes. There are also examples of studio portraits featuring African clients that can be dated from this period, based on the modes of dress as well as the painted backdrops. One photograph taken around 1903–1905 depicts an unidentified Creole woman elegantly dressed in an elaborate gown (Fig. 2). Her jewelry, though understated, testifies to her elite status. The young client wears a somber but dignified expression as she leans upon an ornate pedestal. Barely discernible and folded neatly under her hands is a newspaper. She may have been educated at one of the elite mission schools that catered to cosmopolitan Creole groups or at a European institution, such as the African Training Institute at Colwyn Bay in North Wales.9 The formality and careful composition of the image suggest that it was taken to commemorate a special milestone or achievement. Street scenes, social events, and scenic vistas of Freetown, including its harbor and bustling marketplaces, were also part of Lisk-Carew's early oeuvre.Lisk-Carew's studio photographs were based on clearly defined social and economic relationships between himself and his African clients. The contractual agreements between Lisk-Carew and European visitors or employees of local European establishments were also concerned with a fashioning of the European colonial body. Photographs in the form of official images or personal mementos allowed representatives of the regime to assert both their presence and their authority in Sierra Leone.In an example from 1904, Lisk-Carew displayed his technical expertise in the handling of a large group shot (Fig. 3). The official image features Governor Sir Charles Anthony King Harman (seated in the front row, sixth from the left) with an expatriate community at a garden party at Government House (SLWN 1904). The photograph was taken on the eve of the completion of his four-year term as governor of Sierra Leone. Lisk-Carew crafted an image that showcased both his early skills as a photographer and the large community of colonials and expatriates who made an effort to maintain their close social and cultural ties in Freetown. The assembled men and women dressed in their finery claimed their identities as agents of British imperialism. They participated in social practices, such as garden and tea parties, which evoked a distant homeland, but were quite removed from any interaction with the local African communities. The photograph symbolized for those back home both the exotic nature of their lives and the ways in which they had adapted. Lisk-Carew's commissioned image is symbolic of the pretensions of authority amid growing racial tensions.Lisk-Carew's early and ongoing association with members of the European colonial sector are exemplary of his own immersion into a world whose experiences and accomplishments in the name of empire he was often paid to capture. His commissioned portraits depict the range of professionals who shaped their communities, such as civil servants, high-ranking officials, businessmen, and army officers.During the early years of Lisk-Carew's career, Creoles in the civil service and the professional fields met with increasing discrimination. The settlement of a segregated (European-only) hill station area in 1904, under the guise of medical and sanitary concerns, proved disastrous to European-Creole relations. Few Africans were invited to join social events in the mountain enclave, which fuelled their resentment. A deepening racial divide set into the fabric of Freetonian society, so that by 1908, a writer in the Sierra Leone Guardian observed with bitterness that, “Segregation is so well carried out in the Colony today; we observed it in the Church, in the matter of special seats, in the graveyard wherein portions of land are in reserve, in the City, to wit, special Club Rooms, recreation grounds, amusements with music and dances and ‘At Homes’ to which no Native or black man is being invited” (Sierra Leone Guardian 1908).Examples of Lisk-Carew's diverse client base and his peripatetic movement around Freetown photographing local events and personalities are well documented in the newspapers of the time. Thus, in March 1907, Lisk-Carew was on hand to photograph the centenary celebrations of the abolition of the slave trade. The celebrations commenced with a church service at St. George's Cathedral, followed by a social gathering at Wilberforce Memorial Hall. Lisk-Carew was instructed to take photographs of the planning committee and of the decorated marble bust of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton located in the foyer of the cathedral (SLWN 1907a).By November 1909, a series of advertisements ran in the Saturday edition of the SLWN announcing Lisk-Carew's new and expanded studio and shop on a busy main thoroughfare at 30 Westmoreland Street at the corner of Gloucester Street (Fig. 4). The clever headlines read “Artistic Permanent” and “Specially Patronised by the Colonial Government” and were evidence of Lisk-Carew's marketing skills (SLWN 1909). As part of this marketing scheme, he made known that his decision to expand was motivated in part by “the earnest desire of his numerous customers for him to establish a depot in the centre of the City” (SLWN 1909). Thus he highlighted not only the success and popularity of his business, but also the eagerness of his loyal clients to see his studio expand beyond the confines of the residential East Brook Lane locale.The new studio, with its adjoining shop, was located strategically near to what is known as the Government Wharf, visible to clientele walking to and from the busy harbor. The shop carried a range of materials, including “fancy goods,” postcards, and photography supplies, and offered services such as the production of lantern slides, prints, copies, and enlargements (Macmillan 1920:267). Moreover, it was easily accessible for many travelers and visitors en route to the major hotels in the area: the City Hotel, located on Oxford Street, and the Grand Hotel, at the time located on Westmoreland, virtually across the street from his business. In a photo taken around 1912–1914, Lisk-Carew documented the location of the new studio (Fig. 5). He captured the bustling streets filled with local shoppers and military personnel walking by the business. As his earnings increased at the new location, he hired an assistant for the shop, traveled to the provinces by railway, and explored Freetown's communities, building up his already extensive catalogue of images.Despite this ideal location, Lisk-Carew faced heavy competition from both established and younger photographers operating in Sierra Leone. These included the Creole Nicol brothers; J.W. Paris, a Creole merchant who operated as a photographer from around 1904;10 and Jumbo Studio, a company without a permanent studio address that operated from approximately 1910 to the mid-1930s. European firms also contributed to the scene, including Pickering and Berthoud and Raphael Tuck and Sons.In Anglophone West Africa from 1898 onward, professional photographers began to offer a large assortment of picture postcards, which became a mainstay of their businesses (Geary and Webb 1998:163). Within Lisk-Carew's practice, such postcards launched a new focus in his work starting around 1905. They represented views of Sierra Leone with picturesque landscapes; buildings and landmarks; the colonial forces; European enterprise; the bustling streets of Freetown; and a range of local peoples in the ever-expanding regions. Lisk-Carew's postcard oeuvre also included a rare depiction of women belonging to the Bundu Women's Secret society that were based on earlier studio photographs.11 Lisk-Carew's postcards created an iconography of Sierra Leone and its people that resonated widely. Most notably, they offered a vision of the range of possibilities that constituted Sierra Leone. Given the copious nature of his postcard output, it is useful to view his approach in this genre as one that was continually adapted and refined to new concerns and conditions.In August 1905, the final branch of the Sierra Leone Government Railway was completed. Acting Governor Brigadier General Frank Graves (1904–1905) was interested in the use of photography to publicize projects in which he was directly involved or endorsed. Lisk-Carew was hired as the official photographer to document this great achievement.12 In this role as traveling photographer, he was part of the Governor's entourage and was on hand to photograph each terminal along the line. In one image, Graves is featured sitting at the engine of the cargo train after crossing the Moa Railway Bridge (Fig. 6). In the reporting of the momentous event, it was observed that once the train crossed the bridge, “His excellency the Governor next recrossed the Moa and then back to the centre of the bridge for photographs to be taken by Mr. Lisk-Carew in the Engine which had been detached from the other carriages” (SLWN 1905). Lisk-Carew's postcards provided a lucrative trade, an outlet for creative expression, and a portable document that could be used for the staging of specific visual narratives.Early participation in a range of modernist photographic practices seemingly gave Lisk-Carew free rein vis-à-vis subject matter. Thus, some of his picture postcards were instrumental in constructing and disseminating an image of Sierra Leone that symbolized “progress and enlightenment.” Many such examples feature various missionary schools in Freetown.13 The first secondary schools in Freetown were the CMS Grammar School (est. 1845) and the Annie Walsh Memorial School for girls (est. 1849). These were desired to promote education among the Creole population, and such postcards found a ready local market among former students of these establishments. In an intriguing postcard image of a photograph taken around 1905 (Fig. 7), Lisk-Carew provided a rare glimpse of the interior of the Annie Walsh School, where some of the students were gathered.14 He captured the commodious schoolroom and students at their desks engaged in schoolwork or being instructed. The scene was shot from an almost panoramic angle. The photograph enhanced the orderliness of the students in relation to their impeccable classroom and their teachers.Lisk-Carew produced the majority of his postcards of Freetown as a way of bolstering his business to travelers and visitors. This offered him some flexibility in approach and a range of potential sites and subject. It also anticipated his customer's preferences. However, many of Lisk-Carew's images offer engagement from the perspective of the pedestrian walking through the city, thus giving viewers the experience of “being there.” Lisk-Carew navigated the streets of Freetown as he photographed the city's unique character. By focusing on heavily populated major streets—as is the case in Regent Road on a Saturday (Fig. 8), from around 1905—and busy commercial hubs, he exposed the frenetic activity and dense human traffic of the city. Lisk-Carew shot from a medium range in order to capture the movement and details of local color. The depiction of such scenes piqued the interests of foreign consumers, who wanted to buy postcards in order to share their “exotic” experiences back home.In some respects, given his wide and varied coverage of Freetown's urban spaces, I view Lisk-Carew as a flâneur (Mießgang 2002:16–24) who used his camera as a tool through which he captured Freetown's bustling streets, marketplaces, sites of interest, and myriad individual inhabitants. The application of the concept of the flâneur to Lisk-Carew is also apt given the recollection of informants. Mrs. Pauline Holland-Campbell recalls, “My uncle never left the house without his camera … unless it was on a Sunday and he was headed to church.”15 Mrs. Bertmina Faulkner observed, “He really liked to roam the streets and was very knowledgeable of the lesser known areas … also many people knew him to be a photographer … and would ask him to snap them.”16In November 1910, the announcement that HRH the Duke of Connaught would travel to South Africa, with a stopover in Freetown, created a sense of anticipation in the city (SLWN 1910). While Sierra Leone had not been the beneficiary of frequent tours by the British royalty, the few visits fashioned a spectacle of loyalty and subjecthood by colonial officials and local citizens. The Duke of Connaught's visit to Freetown in 1910 offered a rare occasion where Sierra Leoneans and colonial personnel participated in such spectacle. According to newspaper accounts in 1912, Lisk-Carew had asked and been granted permission by G.B. Haddon Smith, Acting Governor from 1905 to 1911, to take photographs of the royal visit (SLWN 1912). Lisk-Carew's extensive documentation of the Connaught visit met with much enthusiasm. As the official photographer of the tour, Lisk-Carew produced images that were guaranteed widespread distribution and circulation. Overall, his style can be characterized as largely documentary in approach (Fig. 9). Often taken from mid-distance or further, his images evoked the appropriate deference reserved for the royals, while also creating a measure of access for viewers. The photographs present the royals in a manner whereby they are accessible, but without interference.By 1911, Lisk-Carew's business had expanded beyond his capabilities alone, so his younger brother Arthur joined the enterprise as a partner. Arthur's role was as administrator and shopkeeper. It was at this time that Lisk-Carew applied (as was the protocol) for a royal warrant. The warrant conferred the imprimatur of British royal patronage, an extremely useful validation for advertising and publicity purposes (such as the stamp acknowledging royal patronage) which assisted in generating new clientele. It was awarded to Lisk-Carew in May 1912, making his business one of the first in the region to secure such an honor (SLWN 1912). The stamped line “Patronized by H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught” or simply “By Royal Warrant,” accompanied by the arms of the Duke of Connaught, became the hallmark on all his subsequent photographic prints and postcards.In 1912 Lisk-Carew began an association with the radical Pan-African and Pan-Asian journal the African Times and Orient Review (ATOR). John Eldridge Taylor, a Sierra Leonean businessman and journalist who had been living in London since 1911, conceived the magazine. Taylor was a former client and early supporter of Lisk-Carew's work. ATOR's principle concern was to galvanize African and Asian peoples against European imperialism through art, politics, literature, and commerce. It is likely that Lisk-Carew's contacts in London, which may have included individuals involved with ATOR, encouraged him to travel there. According to ship records, on July 17, 1917, Lisk-Carew boarded the Liverpool bound ocean liner Abinsi at Freetown, aged thirty-three.17 Few traces of his two-year London sojourn remain. It is quite possible that Lisk-Carew went to Harrow, Middlesex, to visit Kodak Manufacturing, source new products, and keep abreast of changes in photographic technology. In an advertisement placed in SLWN from 1919 onward, he assures both would-be clients and amateur photographers seeking his guidance that he had received training in certain materials and camera technology at “the research and testing laboratories at Kodak Works, Harrow” (SLWN 1919). By travelling to London, Lisk-Carew was following in the footsteps of a much earlier generation of Sierra Leoneans who sought educational advancement in Britain.18 From 1900 to the 1960s, Sierra Leoneans in Britain were a small group, predominately consisting of students, expatriates, and short-term visitors.During his stay in London, Lisk-Carew quickly connected with a number of communities and individuals. With Ethel Patience Ross, he fathered a son. Anthony Ross Lisk-Carew was born on September 15, 1918, and died in London on May 5, 1991, at the age of seventy-three.19 What, then, can we make of Lisk-Carew's stay in Britain? Photographic styles and trends would certainly have influenced his practice. At the same time, his exposure to African and Caribbean intellectuals and activists in the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to ATOR, may have consolidated Lisk-Carew's politics around colonial reform and been instrumental in his interest in anticolonial activism on his return to Freetown. Finally, in economic terms, his stay in Britain enabled Lisk-Carew to explore prospects with commercial interests that could bring new opportunities and merchandise to his flourishing business enterprises, including those related to photography and others he felt would be marketable back home. The lack of written documentation, however, provokes more questions than answers.Alongside his prolific and extensive documentation of Freetown and its environs, Lisk-Carew was also interested in the excitement generated by new cinema screenings. He was fully cognizant of the international appeal of cinema as a modern entertainment experience. In 1920 he organized film performances and shows at Wilberforce Hall, naming his enterprise the Freetown Cinema Theatrical Company.Every week, Lisk-Carew presented a roster of films, including Charlie Chaplin slapstick comedies, which at the time had international appeal. In a large advertisement, Lisk-Carew announced that the Freetown Cinema Theatrical Company would be showing Chaplin's The Masquerader (1914) with the headline, “If it is laughter you want come and see Charlie” (SLWN 1920). Admission prices ranged from one to three shillings and could be purchased in advance at Lisk-Carew's store. Lisk-Carew secured a loyal repeat clientele. His profitable film venture became a permanent fixture in Freetown through to the mid-1930s.In 1938, Lisk-Carew joined the West African Youth League (WAYL). The league was founded by the Creole Marxist trade unionist I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson (Denzer and Spitzer 1973). Wallace-Johnson travelled to Freetown from the Gold Coast on May 4, 1938, for a short visit and to give a series of lectures at Wilberforce Memorial Hall that he hoped would build a mass antiimperialist movement across class and “ethnic” lines in Sierra Leone (Kilson 1970). On May 12, 1938, the WAYL's Sierra Leone branch was inaugurated. Wallace-Johnson attracted and received the support of mostly working-class Creoles, or the “sub-elite” (Kilson 1970), and those politically isolated in the provinces. The inclusion of all Sierra Leoneans across class and ethnic lines seemed to appeal to Lisk-Carew. As Lisk-Carew stated in his fiery inaugural speech, “It makes us happy to realise that you have all come forward to work in the interest for the amelioration of the conditions of your country in particular, and your race in general” (SLWN 1938a). The colonial regime branded the WAYL a Communist organization, with Wallace-Johnson as a subversive ringleader, ignoring the diverse range of political positioning held by its membership.Despite Lisk-Carew's attraction to the WAYL, his political affiliations and the ongoing needs of his business intersected. Lisk-Carew's positioning within the WAYL did not escape the gaze of the authorities, who described him as a “half-rogue.”21 Lisk-Carew, who had enjoyed decades of commissioned work from the colonial state, saw his contracts dwindle. The anecdotal evidence is strong that he received fewer business opportunities from subsequent administrations following the departure of Governor Arnold Hodson (1931–1934). Such vulnerability was perhaps directly related to his involvement in this nationalist movement. In 1939, at the outbreak of World War II, the British summarily quashed the movement with the imprisonment of Wallace-Johnson for a term of four years. Many members resigned or switched their allegiances, and the government's continual harassment of its remaining members hindered the sustainability of the movement.Despite fewer contracts, Lisk-Carew did continue to count the State among his clients. Lisk-Carew's participation in wartime initiatives included working with the colonial regime to produce a series of propaganda postcards with messages that were aimed at mobilizing local support for the British cause (Fig. 10). It is difficult to measure Lisk-Carew's commitment to the war effort given his previous attachment to the WAYL and the group's nationalist leanings, but it once again marks the peculiarly ambiguous situation in which he found himself. On the one hand, he was a nationalist whose political organizing had been quashed; on the other, he continued to draw and receive patronage from an oppressive regime. One could also argue that he was also putting the needs of his business first by satisfying public demand for postcards, which conveyed the war effort to both local buyers and soldiers. West African nationalists noted the inherent contradictions in supporting a war where the objective was to secure individual rights and freedom, when the right to self-determination was denied under British colonial rule (Ibhawoh 2007). While Lisk-Carew may have seen his images as an extension of a wider and continued movement for democracy in Sierra Leone, he also took advantage of a lucrative commercial opportunity.Lisk-Carew had a prosperous postwar career and was known not only for his photographic achievement, but also, as the years went by, for his innovations in other enterprises. He imported the first motorbike to Sierra Leone, and he bought the first car in the Lisk-Carew family. He also put on “grand dances,” a popular entertainment at both private parties and community events. In doing so, he was following in the footsteps of late-nineteenth-century civic organizations such as the Young Men's Literary Association, the Musical Society, and the Progressive Society.22 The grand dances combined many forms of entertainment into a single, lavish event that might include a card tournament known as a whist drive, a dance, and a stage production accompanied by local musicians, all taking place at Wilberforce Memorial Hall.23 These gala events, offering something for everyone, enjoyed great popularity among all strata of Freetown society. They also proved a profitable economic venture for Lisk-Carew.The late 1940s saw a decline of the postcard industry, and by the mid-1950s, the late colonial period, only a few local photographers were granted government contracts to cover civic events and official state business. Because of these changes in the photography market, Lisk-Carew began to devote more time to his studio photography.24 In failing health, and with no one to take over the business, Lisk-Carew closed his studio around 1958–1959. He passed away on July 7, 1969. In 1970, to commemorate and honor Lisk-Carew's key role and contribution to the development of photography in Sierra Leone, the Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College mounted a retrospective exhibition of his work. Revering Lisk-Carew's legacy, Edward Blyden III noted that “his energetic life and work will long be remembered and the treasures of his collection will help us to remember our nation's history” (Blyden 1970).Alphonso Lisk-Carew's fifty-year career was complex, multidimensional, and indicative of the local African contexts in which his business thrived. His extant prints and postcards demonstrate a life that was dedicated to photographing the diversity of local personalities, cityscapes, cultural practices, and natural resources, while negotiating the exigencies of the colonial regime. The melding of his photographic artistry, political ideologies, and intimate relationship with the regime reveal an uneasy and intricate set of circumstances through which he was forced to navigate. Yet through his lens, Lisk-Carew bore witness to the development of Sierra Leone under colonial rule. In so doing, he was one among many early Sierra Leonean photographers who had a hand in shaping the ways in which a nation saw itself. His images disrupt the unfavorable depictions of Sierra Leone as a dystopian “white man's grave” by creating photographs that force a rethinking and reexamination of the limited range of representations of Freetown.