The Roadmaker

£40/$50 www www.rrbphotobooks.com

Ghanaian photographer James Barnor spent the years 1959 to 1969 in London, a time when colour photography was mainly the preserve of advertising and disparaged as an artform. Barnor took lessons in this emerging medium and set up Accra’s first colour photography studio, X23, on his return to Ghana in 1969. Acknowledged as a master of colour, this retrospective of Barnor’s work showcases many of the progressions that played out during his career, and which are referenced in the title of the book – a road that links different points of a journey. Seen through its colour and blackand-white photos, TheRoadmaker is a important chronicle of changing times – of nascent post-colonial Ghana and the modernity that swept through postwar Britain in the 1960s.

BEST FOR History buffs and fans of early colour photography will love this collection.