Editorial collection
African Pictures photos
African Pictures is an editorial photo archive documenting daily life, vernacular architecture and traditional craft across the African continent. Its strengths lie in rural and village communities in West Africa, North Africa and southern Africa, with recurring subjects including painted mud walls and decorative motifs, domestic interiors and family compounds, women's work such as fetching water, food preparation and carrying loads, farming and livestock, markets and textiles, schooling, ceremonies and funerals, and portraits of people in traditional dress. Townships, roads, museums and settlement views broaden the geographic and social range, and images span both colour and sepia treatments, generally made at eye level. Picture editors and publishers can draw on the collection for features on African culture, heritage and art, development and rural livelihoods, travel and anthropology titles, educational publishing and exhibition or book projects. The images are available to license on Fast Media.
Search all of African PicturesLarge water containers are used by women for fetching, carrying, and storing water. Rural community of Beni Frassen, in the plains between the Rif and Middle Atlas mountains, Morocco
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Women fetching water for washing clothes in their rural village
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2011-09-19
Portrait of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi wearing traditional attire
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2010-09-24
A funeral in rural village in Lesotho
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2010-08-30
Ghanaian children carrying Kente cloth at a market in Bonwire-Ashanti
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
An Ndebele woman applies body paint to a model in front of a wall painted in geometric patterns
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2006-11-12
A painting of a rhinoceros and geometric pattern
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Photo of the facade of a dilapidated residential building
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2011-09-19
Ndebele children, wearing beaded jewellery, aprons and headbands, pose in front of a painted wall
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
A chicken motif by Martha Mtsweni Ndala of Wolwegat farm in the Verena district, subtly divides colourful symmetrical designs. The Ndala family has been living on this farm for three generations. No member of the family has had any school education, and neither of the daughters, aged twenty-four…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
The main living area of a typical U-shaped dwelling. Corridors at either end of the room lead to separate walled-in, open courtyards at the back of the house. The door on the left leads to subdivided sleeping quarters
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Looking for gold
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2011-09-19
An Ndebele woman and child, wearing traditional attire, painting a wall in graphic geometric patterns
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
A field of cultivated crops in Burkina Faso
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2006-04-05
Wall detail with bold criss-cross pattern painted with vegetable dyes by Avokbun Awelinga, a Kusasi from Tilli, Ghana
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
It is the younger women who carry enormous loads on their backs - which they will do until they attain the status of owning a mule. As each winter passes in these snow-covered High Atlas Mountains, women will have to walk farther and farther in search of firewood. Over the centuries the mountains…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
An Indian woman poses in front of artwork inside the Gandhi museum in Durban
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2011-09-19
Children wearing handiras, typical of the Ait Brahim tribe, trail their parents on the way to a ceremony in the remote village of Sountate in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
A group of men sitting on couches in a lounge
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2011-09-19
After an exhaustive search through thirty-six Soninke villages along the Senegal river, only ruins remain to bear witness to a once prolific and unique painted relief tradition. Ouaounde, Senegal
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Pedestrians and vehicles on a misty morning in Soweto
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2011-09-19
Hennou Mohe and Hennou Bassou of the Ait Haddidou tribe return to their village of Moutazili near Imilchil, Morocco, carrying bundles of sagebrush and thuriferous juniper for firewood
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2006-03-03
Ndebele children, dressed in traditional beaded attire, play with models of Ndebele thatched homes. Behind them, a painted mural can be seen
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Silla Camara applies fo khoule - a paste of ground white limestone and water - to the mud wall, tagaye, of her house. Traditionally, only red earth, fo doumbe, black, fo bine, and white were used. In more recent years, the younger generation of women have added washing blue, boula; yellow, makka;…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Details from the original home of Ramdane Hales and his family in Ait Mesbah. These extraordinary storage vessels with painted motifs in relief are the work of Ramdane's mother when she was first married. Behind these blue ikoufane is a loft for sleeping and a door that leads to an additional…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
A child dressed in school uniform poses at the entrance of a building painted in geometric patterns
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Sokhane Camara proudly looks into her home which was painted by in-laws Bonco and Tare Camara. Buanch, Mauritania
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Solid and fortress-like, this back view of the Aneriba family compound is decorated with bold V-shaped patterns, a somewhat simplified version of the tana motif derived from local fabrics. The walls are coated with resin from the dawa-dawa tree to protect the surface from the rains. Sirigu, Ghana
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Letty Ngoma painting the prefabricated market stalls in Waterval B, KwaNdebele. These stalls were built under the supervision of the KwaNdebele government as part of its program to encourage traditional mural painting
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 1903-12-31
A Basotho medicine man dressed in traditional attire
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2010-08-30
After the walls have been restored with a mixture of mud and dung, white chalk signifying purity is rubbed on to smooth the surface and add highlight. The Kassena women then use coal tar mixed with sand and boiling water to paint their traditional patterns. The tar is absorbed into the mud surface…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Anna Kabin with her granddaughter Sbongile of Ramokgeletsane, KwaNdebele, preparing the Ndebele staple diet of maize meal and sour milk. The cooking hut is roofed with corrugated iron sheeting; the only outlet for smoke is a tiny window. Above a low mud bench running the length of the room is a…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 1903-12-31
The village settlement of Mathula Stand in the Nebo district
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 1903-12-31
Details from two Nankani compounds, one in Sirigu, Ghana, the other in Guenon-Tipó, Burkina Faso. The triangular broken calabash pattern sets off the window and notched tree trunk ladder
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Dades Valley, Morocco
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
A panel of schematic representations of the Igbo peoples daily life, including a yam beetle with uli motifs on its back and, in the triangle above, a double gong, ogene. A series of narrow vertical panels to the right bear abstract patterns derived from (left to right) a ritual cloth, akwa-nka;…
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
poses with Zinhle and a dog in front of an Ndebele home painted in geometric patterns
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
A door off a courtyard leads into sleeping quarters of a troglodyte family in Matmata, Tunisia
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
An Ndebele child, wearing beaded jewellery, poses in front of a painted wall
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2017-02-06
Loading livestock to transport them via ferry across the Niger River
Margaret Courtney-Clarke · 2006-04-05
How press photo licensing works →