Ghanaian photography legend James Barnor has been named the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award at the 2027 Sony World Photography Awards. The World Photography Organisation announced on Thursday, 5 November, that the 97-year-old will receive the honour at the awards ceremony in London on 15 April 2027.
The award comes with a special retrospective. More than 50 of Barnor’s images, alongside archival material, will be shown at Somerset House in London from 16 April to 3 May 2027 as part of the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition. He joins a list of past recipients that includes Joel Meyerowitz, Susan Meiselas and Sebastião Salgado.
In a statement released by the organisers, Barnor said: “I am honoured to receive this award. I was lucky to be born and brought up in a family of photographers, and I took full advantage of it to absorb as much as I could. When I opened my studio in Accra, I never imagined that my work would take me so far: through Ghana’s independence, to London and back again. My camera became my companion, and I have never regretted it.”
He added that he hopes the exhibition will inspire up-and-coming photographers “to stay curious, to tell their own stories, and to pass on what they know.”
Born in 1929, Barnor learned the craft from his cousin, J. P. D. Dodoo. As reported by Graphic Online, he became the first staff photographer at the Daily Graphic at the age of 21, covering political rallies, street parades and Ghana’s road to independence in 1957. His Ever Young studio in Jamestown, Accra, became a famous home for portraits of a nation in transition.
In 1959 he moved to Britain, where he discovered colour photography at Medway College of Art and shot for Drum magazine, capturing the African diaspora and Black models and celebrities in Swinging London. After training with Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium and Germany, he returned to Ghana in 1970 and helped set up the country’s first commercial colour-processing laboratory.
Graphic Online notes that Barnor is the 20th person to receive the title. His photographs have been exhibited at venues including London’s Serpentine Gallery and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and are held in collections such as Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. For many in Ghana’s creative community, the honour is a fitting tribute to a man whose camera documented the country’s birth and the style of a generation.
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