Mama Casset

In 1920, at a very young age, Mama Casset (born in 1908 in Sant-Louis, Senegal) was introduced to photography by a friend of his father, the french photographer Oscar Lataque. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the same era as Mama Casset, several photographers from Saint-Louis, such Meissa Gueye or MixGuaye were competing talents, all trying to portray this bourgeoisie which the beautuful signares were part of and which can be found in Mama Casset´s images of Dakar.

They pose according to Mama´s directions: each one of them has an innate and calculated grace which manifests itself in the tilt of the head or the way the smyle, the assured authority of a dominant woman or the seductive powers of a femme fatale, yet always with perfect dignity. There is such trust and complicity betwen the photographer and his "subjet".