20 LIFESTYLE
A PHOTOGRAPHIC
BY LIONEL FAULL
AUTHOR: Nigel Pavitt
K
enya has pro-
vided the subject
matter for a rich
seam of magnifi-
cent photographs
down the years. Pictorial
studies celebrating our
country’s wildlife or its
landscapes, its history or its
cultures grace the coffee ta-
bles in many family homes,
both here and overseas.
Nigel Pavitt is one of the
better-known authors of
this genre. His latest book,
Kenya: A Country in the
Making 1880-1940, has
combined many subjects
into a sweeping photo-
graphic tribute to the
rapidity with which Kenya
developed into a modern
nation, starting with British
attempts to abolish slavery
at the coast in the mid-
1870s.
A Country in the Mak-
ing is an epic undertaking
in which Pavitt and his
assistant, Robin Schalch,
spent two-and-a-half years
searching both in public
museums and archives, and
in private farmhouses and
attics for what amounted
to a haul of 35 000 photo-
graphs that visually docu-
ment Kenya’s early colonial
history.
The book is striking in
so many ways, not least
of all because within the
grand narrative of Kenya’s
modern development itself,
the individual photographs
tell their own stories. A
picture tells the story of a
thousand words, so the cli-
ché goes, and it is impossi-
ble to describe the richness
of 720 photographs in just
one review. To talk to the
author himself, however,
sheds a different kind of
light on the book.
As Pavitt says, “The
motivation was to keep for
posterity and future gen-
erations old photographs
that were rapidly disap-
pearing. Some of the pho-
tographs were in appalling
condition… Unfortunately
the younger generation
is not necessarily terribly
interested in the photo
albums of their fathers and
grandfathers. There was
certainly one photograph
album that we managed
to recover from a dustbin.
As the older generation
die off, often these family
albums are cast away or
put in places where damp
LEADERS: Sir Arthur Hardinge, Commissioner for East Africa, with Lenana, Laibon of the Maasai in Ngong in 1898.
and the elements of time
destroy them.”
Pavitt pre-selected
about 2,700 photographs
because, as he says, “we
didn’t know exactly what
we were going to use”. He
was able to capture the im-
ages without ever having to
remove the originals from
peoples’ homes, thanks to
a high-resolution scan-
ner. Then he would use
Photoshop, a computer
software programme, to
restore the images to their
former glory. “There are all
sorts of tricks that help you
to bring a photograph back
to life. You can improve
clarity, hide the dust and
scratches, and invert nega-
tives on the few photos
that were glass plates,”
Pavitt says. He then made a
final selection of 720 imag-
es, organised into decades,
which comprise the book.
The other 75 percent of the
images were restored, but
remain unused.
By the end of the project,
Pavitt had speed-read a
great number of books,
made notes, and collected
two files of background
material for captions, much
of which he also never
used. “The challenge was
to try and put substance –
names, places, dates – to
some of the pictures that
KENYA’S
are interesting, but without
some sort of a lead or cap-
tion, you could hardly use
the picture. It wasn’t just
collecting and restoring.
There are one or two pho-
tographs I wanted to put
in, but I drew a blank, and
the best thing is then not to
use that picture,” he says.
Seventy-two percent of
the images in A Country
in the Making come from
family photo albums and
are therefore previously
unpublished. Not only
has Pavitt produced an
astonishing collection of
historic black-and-white
photographs, he has also
performed a public service
by restoring thousands
more images and unearth-
ing the stories behind them.
“Some people were
asking, ‘Why hasn’t this
been done in the past?’ The
answer is it wasn’t possible
in the past because one can
only do it now with the
technology of computers
and software programmes
to restore these pictures.
Some of them took two
or three hours to restore,”
Pavitt says.
Pavitt, slaving away, with
his scanner and his laptop
may be 21st Century in
some respects, but his ef-
forts are reminiscent of the
original explorers, mission-
aries, soldiers and farm-
ers who laid the building
blocks of modern Kenya
through sheer force of will
and hard work, a century
or so ago.
“I think there were
pretty remarkable achieve-
ments in a relatively short
space of time. There was a
lot of experimenting. A lot
of people lost money, as
well as made money. Ag-
riculture really improved
hugely in 40 years. There
was a lot that happened.
I think it’s incredible how
quickly it did happen.
Remember there was one
World War in that time
that set the country back,”
Pavitt says.
He does acknowledge,
however, that the colo-
nialists were not perfect:
“Whether there was
sufficient progress in that
period of time to improve
education for Africans,
maybe healthcare, I don’t
know. Probably more
could have been done.
“Quite honestly, I think
there was a lot positive
and a lot negative [about
colonialism]. The more you
read, the more you think, ‘I
don’t like the look of that.’
But then you are looking
back on history with the
benefit of hindsight and it’s
always easy to look back
NAIROBI STAR
and say how terrible it was,
it should never have been
this way. But if you were
looking at it 70 or 80 years
ago, your view would be
different,” Pavitt says.
The book’s seeming pro-
British bias has not sat well
with some reviewers but, as
Pavitt argues, “One must
remember who had the
cameras and who took the
photos … I tried to avoid
taking sides on politics, on
settlement, on colonialism.
This book is not about
those subjects. And I’ve
said that right at the begin-
ning of the book. I have
tried to capture [the era] as
far as I can, and that’s the
best I can do. I’m pleased
with it, and it seems most
other people are pleased
with it.”
Unlike the earliest British
arrivals in Kenya, Pavitt is
a relative newcomer. He
was posted out here as a
National Service Officer
with the King’s African
Rifles (KAR) in 1955 and
stayed on with the Kenya
Army post-independence.
He then went into the
wine and spirit trade, and
became the Director of
Kenya Wines and Liq-
uors (KWAL). It was only
towards the end of his
colourful career (in 1989
when he took early retire-
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
ment) that Pavitt was able
to focus on his boyhood
interest in photography.
Pavitt has no plans for a
follow-up book with pho-
tographs of Kenya post-
1940 onwards, because,
as he says, “You start with
a World War, you then go
into the Emergency, and
that would be quite dif-
ficult to portray photo-
graphically in a balanced
way.”
Nearly all the photo-
graphs in A Country in
the Making were taken by
amateurs, which belies the
impression one gets that
collection could have been
produced by the world’s
finest photographers. “I
suppose, to a certain ex-
tent, I selected them with a
photographer’s eye,” Pavitt
says.
Pavitt expresses a great
deal of admiration for
these early amateurs who
took their photographs un-
der difficult circumstances:
“There were no facilities
and they were probably
doing their own developing
and printing. Count Teleki,
on his journey to Lake Ru-
dolf [now Lake Turkana]
with von Höhnel [in 1891],
took a lot of photographs
using glass plates, and I
think they all – bar one or
two – were ruined. Some
through breakage by being
strapped on the backs of
donkeys who then rolled
in the dust, some in loads
that were discarded when
porters died and others by
rain and heat. It must have
been so sad to have taken
a huge number of pictures
and come back with virtu-
ally nothing,” says Pavitt.
Then comes a touching
admission: “I used to take
black-and-white photo-
graphs myself and I gave
that up rather a long time
ago. Looking at this col-
lection, I almost think it is
worth going back to basics
and going back to black-
and-white again. Photog-
raphy is all about light, but
black-and-white photog-
raphy is even more about
light than colour photog-
raphy. There are some
photographs in this book
that I would have loved to
have taken myself.”
*Kenya: A Country in
the Making 1880-1940 is
available in most book-
shops for Sh2,900.