Taking innovation in his stride, Barnor moved to London in 1959 to develop his practice. He returned to Ghana a decade later to establish the first color photo-processing laboratory for Sick-Hagemeyer and a place of his own, Studio X23, in Accra.
With an expansive oeuvre amassed over 70years, Barnor's archives unearthed stories told through negatives. It was an intimate process working meticulously and looking through his collection was breathtaking.
Ever the vivid story teller, Barnor was trusting enough of my interrogations to recollect decades-old details. This is how we know one of his many muses, captured in the elegant silhouette portrait of 1971, is Margaret Obiri Yeboah. It is also how we understand the broader political context for the National Liberation Movement in Kumasi, 1956, to the historical gem of Kwame Nkrumah with Komla Agbeli Gbedemah at Osu castle in 1958