Michel Papami Kameni was born around 1936 in Bana Bafang in western Cameroon. In 1947, an uncle, a former soldier engaged in the French colonial army during the Second World War, was passing through and decided to take him to Yaoundé to complete his education.

His uncle, having learned photography from French soldiers and exercised in the army, continues this activity in the streets of the Cameroonian capital.
He enrolled young Michel in school, gave him his first camera and encouraged him to become a photographer. From 1950 he taught him the basics of shooting, development and printing. The street is the only studio available at the time, there were no projectors in Cameroon yet. “The studio was on the street, everything was done in natural light”.

His uncle fell ill with tuberculosis in the following months and Michel took care of the shooting work, taking over every day after leaving school. Identity portraits on red curtain with press frame on the road.
At the time the only photographers trained in Cameroon are French. A few months later the uncle patient dies and his widow decided to return to his unit Michel. In 1954, he succeeded in proving himself before the prefect of Yaoundé and was commissioned to travel through the north of the country and Chad in order to produce portraits of the population. France that year undertakes the establishment of identity papers in its colonies.

He produced thousands of images until the country’s independence in 1960 and the unrest generated. At that time established in Ngaoundéré (North Cameroon), he arrived at the beginning of 1963 in Douala and with a French photographer, Mr Chevalier, learned 6 months the work of studio photographer, lighting and development in the room.

And on September 23, 1963, he opened his first studio in the Briqueterie district in Yaoundé, which he occupied for four years before moving to Studio Kameni, still in operation, opposite the previous one.

The mid-1960s marked the beginning of souvenir photography. The field of photographic practice is widening. Customers no longer come just for photos of IDs but look for nyanga’s photos (bragging). It is the beginning of the era of personal images. Of those that we send to friends, relatives, who find themselves hanging on the walls. Always the same 9×14 print, but the most delighted customers can order enlargements.

This is the time when Papami begins to think in pose and composition. We finally leave the restricted field of the identity portrait.
In the studio, open every day of the year, it’s the excitement. It is always full. The clients are city dwellers or provincials traveling discovering the shots in artificial light.

And the Briqueterie is a bustling district of Yaoundé, a major gathering place for migrants from surrounding countries. We find in Papami’s films as many Muslims in traditional clothes as Christians going to worship.

But his work quickly went beyond the walls of the studio and he often went on a commissioned report armed with his Rolleiflex, to the village for induction ceremonies in traditional chiefdoms or during frenzied surprise parties in Yaoundé. More surprisingly, he was frequently called during mourning by families wishing for a last performance of a deceased loved one.

The archives route is punctuated by numerous self-portraits. “A good cook has no chance of making a sauce without tasting it! I tested a lot on myself before succeeding on clients ”.

For Papami, the studio’s best period lasted from its opening until the mid-1980s. SLR cameras began to flood the market. It is the moment of the ‘crossroads photographers’ who work in the street. People are delighted to have their image taken next to monuments. But the next decade was even worse, with customers only coming for photos of paperwork. Papami gradually lost the use of his eyes in the early 2000s. He was aware of the impact that the arrival and then the heyday of digital had on studios like his.

But he trumpets: “My best memory is just the present. It’s seeing my studio still open. Despite the disease, it still exists. Over the years, some have opened studios in the neighborhood. But all have closed. I’m always open. “