I enjoyed these images because they lack excessive composition and artistry. The images, combined, seem present a true document (as much as it is possible to be) of this part of the world. The scenes stand before us more or less as they are and not we would want them to be.

Kerry is an American of African descent, an artist and professor, who has published widely, received countless fellowships and awards and exhibited his works in far to many places to begin listing here. He is "documentary-style" photographer whose work addresses issues of African American cultural identity and community experience. These images were all taken in Dakar, Senegal and are a selection drawn from an ongoing project of visual and oral research whose ultimate goal is to "use photographs and essays to contextualize African urban life and to problematize the presentation of Africa as a desolate region devoid of art, culture, history". A very original and perceptive series using rich sepia for atmospheric mood and, for selected images, a panoramic view.

"Makasutu" or "Mecca in the forest" is a model of ecotourism set in the bush of the tiny West African republic of The Gambia. All the portraits have been made within a two mile radius of "Makasutu", concentrating on the workers and their families.

Julien is a French photographer based in Paris and shows a subtle talent for composition and mood. Here we have Malawi, now, presented in a way in which his subjects themselves might imagine themselves, they seem to say, "Here I am, this is me!"

I found these curious photos on the web and asked the owner of the site if I could use them. I received an e-mail which said voluminously, "OK". Well the site has about 80 photos and very little information, I picked a selection. The deciding factors were either their curiosity, mystery or the beauty. Interestingly the large majority of images are of women - there is one particular and very mysterious image of a woman posed among three others whose hands are held open as though presenting her as...what...supreme beauty, probably something to do with marriage? Take a look.

South Africa, nicknamed the rainbow nation (There are 11 official languages in South Africa), began a new period of its history in April 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela and the end of the system of the apartheid. The photographer Denis Chapoullié presents an important series of portraits, 5 or so years later, which viewed together amount to a small insightful essay and leaving us with a last memorial look at Robben island.

"When I arrived (from war torn Berlin) in South Africa in 1950 from Germany I found two societies running in parallel with each other without any communication whatsoever." Jürgen Schadeberg

Jurgen Schadeberg was one of the few white photographers who documented black life, capturing on film the Rise of the Freedom Movement, Apartheid Repression and the vibrancy of township life and culture. He was responsible during his association with Drum Magazine for creating a vibrant photographic department and for training a number of talented and successful black photographers. His classic images show the two sides of the black and white coin, but also, importantly, he has preserved a record of a vibrant black society that the Verwoerdian ideology had successfully destroyed.

A panorama of photographic work in post-colonial Mozambique, taken from a selection of images from 15 photographers, all committed to a socio-critical point of view, who have captured day-to-day life in a country as yet little known to Europeans.

A book presenting all the photographers is available directly from the publisher by clicking the web site accompanying each picture.

In the photographers own words: "My journeys have been idiosyncratic, often purposeless, not so much to commit journalism as to travel for its own sake. Perhaps the more successful images themselves reflect this; perhaps a pattern can be discerned from their parts. I can describe moments, or trace a journey, by the images I am left with. How I came to be in such and such a place seems banal, often forgotten."

One can imagine being influenced by codes or formulae for good photography: don't chop at the neck or the knees, no light from behind etc. With practice one's resulting images may then flaunt good composition, great lighting, awesome action. But try being 'anti' good practice, try making a bad composition, with bad lighting and then make this consistent with your style, and, interesting. Actually, this anti-trend is so common, these days, that it is no longer anti...we have so much, blur for the sake of blur, extreme slanting horizons, images of outrageously mundane and meaningless objects, yet, little of this spirit of photography has struck me as successful. Well, then I came across the truly amazing images of Bernard Descamps