James Barnor named recipient of Sony World Photography Awards 2027 honour

Ghanaian photographer James Barnor has been named recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award at the 2027 Sony World Photography Awards.

The announcement marks the 20th edition of the awards, which celebrate photographers from around the world and recognise their contributions to the medium.

Recognised as Ghana’s first photojournalist, Barnor documented the country’s journey to independence in 1957 and later established its first colour photography laboratory. His work bridges continents and cultures, capturing Black communities in Accra and London during decades of profound transformation.

Barnor is best known for his remarkable portraits, taken from the 1950s to the 1970s, celebrating the beauty, style and glamour of Black social life. From his renowned Ever Young studio to the streets of downtown Accra and central London, he captured the identities of his subjects, creating a visual archive of their daily lives.

A retrospective of more than 50 works by Barnor will go on display at London’s Somerset House in April 2027, as part of a special presentation at the flagship Sony World Photography Awards exhibition.

Following his journey from Accra to London, his studies in colour photography and his return to Ghana, the retrospective will bring together photographic prints and ephemera from across his career, highlighting moments that defined his practice.

Born in 1929, Barnor trained under his cousin, portrait photographer J. P. D. Dodoo. In 1950, he became the first staff photographer at Ghana’s newly launched Daily Graphic, giving voice and representation to Ghanaians during a period of rapid social change.

As a photojournalist, he documented this historic period through the eyes of those who lived it, capturing everything from rallies and street parades to Kwame Nkrumah’s declaration of independence. In 1953, he opened the Ever Young studio in Accra’s Jamestown district, where he photographed shop assistants, students and traffic officers alongside judges and political figures, capturing a society in the act of defining itself.

Barnor moved to the UK in 1959 to deepen his technical knowledge of photography. He studied at Medway College of Art in Kent before working as a colour printer at Colour Processing Laboratories, one of Britain’s leading colour laboratories.

During this period, he also worked for Drum, the influential Black South African lifestyle magazine known for its anti-apartheid reporting. His portraits of Black models and celebrities appeared on its covers and in its fashion pages.

These images became part of a broader visual language of the African continent and its diaspora, serving as vital reference points for readers and inspiring photographers and artists for decades.

Following training with Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium and Germany, Barnor returned to Ghana about a decade later as the company’s technical representative. He established the country’s first colour processing laboratory, introducing colour photography to new audiences while continuing to work as a photographer and journalist.

His work was instrumental in shaping Ghana’s photographic tradition and paving the way for aspiring photographers across the region.

In the early 1990s, Barnor settled back in London, where he lives today. His work has since been the subject of numerous exhibitions and publications.

These include a touring retrospective curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, which was shown at the Serpentine in London in 2021, MASI Lugano in Switzerland in 2022, and the Detroit Institute of Arts in the United States in 2023.

James Barnor: Stories, Pictures from the Archive (1947-1987), curated by Matthieu Humery, opened at LUMA Arles in France in 2022. The exhibition was accompanied by the launch of the James Barnor Prize, dedicated to African photographers.

In October 2023, James Barnor, Studio of Life opened at FOMU Antwerp in Belgium. Coinciding with the photographer’s 95th birthday, the James Barnor 95 festival was held in Accra and Tamale in May 2024, featuring a month-long programme.

In 2025, his work featured in the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in the United States. In 2026, Barnor’s work was shown as part of Ibrahim Mahama’s exhibition Le Temps des Récoltes at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in France.

Commenting on receiving the award, 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. Wherever I went, I tried to learn so that I could share what I had learned. Today, that matters more to me than ever. Up-and-coming photographers now have every chance to go even further, and I hope this exhibition will inspire them to stay curious, to tell their own stories, and to pass on what they know.’

The Outstanding Contribution to Photography award recognises individuals behind some of the most groundbreaking photographic work of recent times. Barnor joins a distinguished list of previous recipients, including Martin Parr (2017), Graciela Iturbide (2021), Edward Burtynsky (2022), Sebastião Salgado (2024), Susan Meiselas (2025) and Joel Meyerowitz (2026).

Barnor will receive the award at the annual gala ceremony in London on 15 April 2027, during which the overall winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2027 will also be announced.

Born in Ghana in 1929, James Barnor opened his renowned Ever Young studio in Accra, where he documented a nation at the moment of its independence.

He was one of the first photojournalists to work with The Daily Graphic, a newspaper published in Ghana by London’s Daily Mirror Group.

In 1959, two years after Ghana’s independence, Barnor moved to London to deepen his technical knowledge of photography. He discovered colour photography at Medway College of Art, and his pictures were published on the front page of Drum, an important magazine founded in South Africa in 1951 and a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement.

He captured the spirit of Swinging London and the experiences of the African diaspora in the British capital. In the late 1960s, he was recruited by Agfa-Gevaert and returned to Ghana to establish the country’s first colour laboratory.

He remained in Ghana for the next 20 years, working at his new Studio X23 as a freelance photographer and for state agencies in Accra.

Today, Barnor lives in the United Kingdom and devotes much of his time to his work and passing on his knowledge. His photographs are held in institutional collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and Photo Elysée.