The Ghanaian photographer James Barnor—born in Accra, Ghana, in 1929—is widely acknowledged as his country’s first full-time photographer. In the early 1950s, young Barnor established his renowned Ever Young studio and started documenting a nation on the cusp of independence. In 1959, his studies took him to London, where he worked on assignment for the South African magazine Drum, and helped bring images of Black women into British magazines. In the 1970s, Barnor returned to his home country and developed its first color-processing lab. In this major survey, Barnor’s first in France, he has re-examined his archive of 30,000 negatives and chosen his favorites. The photographer is 93 years old and wisdom speaks in his prints. —Elena Clavarino