James Barnor: Born on 6 June 1929 in Accra, Gold Coast (present day Ghana).
At the age of 17, Barnor was teaching basket weaving at a missionary school and the headmaster gave him a camera "to play around with––it was a Kodak Brownie 127, made of plastic".
In 1947, Barnor started an apprenticeship with his cousin J. P. Dodoo, a well-known portrait photographer for two years.
However, Barnor who wanted to be a policeman applied for a police photographer and was accepted, but he couldn't start the Police training because his uncle offered him his camera he used for photography.
After the apprenticeship in 1950, aged 21 Barnor set up his own freelance photographic studio called Ever Young Graphic Studio at Jamestown, a suburb of Accra, Ghana.
He painted the signboard himself––a rented small dark room with no electricity, he therefore used the daylight for shots.
Furthermore, he had to walk to a communal tap at the end of the road to fetch water for developing since there was no running in the facility.
Employed by the Daily Graphic newspaper when it was established in Ghana in 1950 by Cecil King of the London Daily Mirror Group making him (James Barnor) Ghana's first professional photo Journalist.
In December 1959 he traveled to England to develop his skills, working at Colour Processing Laboratories Ltd, Edenbridge, Kent, UK.
Barnor started attending evening and other part-time classes before Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board awarded him a scholarship to study full-time at Medway College of Art in Rochester, Kent, UK, and graduated in 1961.
Hence, he stayed in the UK and continued working as a photographer and technician.
After a decade in England Barnor returned to Ghana where he set up West Africa's first colour processing studio.
He was the official African representative for Sick-Hagemeyer via Agfa-Gevaert (at the time the leading company for imaging technology), and was also given work by the American embassy and Ghanaian government agencies under the auspices of President J. J. Rawlings (Ghana).
Barnor's photographs are represented in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate and Government Art Collection in Britain, as well as in numerous international private collections.
From 24 April to 24 June 2007 the fist exhibition in honour of James Barnor took place at the Black Cultural Archives (BCA), London, UK, entitled Mr Barnor's Independence Diaries, curated by Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, as part of BCA's Ghana Jubilee Season.
In 2011, Barnor was honoured with a GUBA (Ghana-UK Based Achievement) special "Lifetime Achievement" award, on receiving it, he revealed that it was the first award he had ever been given.
In 2015, James Barnor: Ever Young, the first monograph of his work, was published (Clémentine de la Féronnière / Autograph ABP, ISBN 9782954226644) alongside his Paris exhibition.
In October 2016, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of Ghana, James Barnor was awarded the Order of the Volta, conferred by President John Dramani Mahama (Ghana) at the National Honours and Awards Ceremony held at Accra International Conference Centre, Ghana.