Since I am enthralled by the Malian photographer Malick Sidibé, when I came across these images, I thought they could be no other than Sidibé's artistry. Oh, how wrong I was! The man behind these images goes by the name of Samuel Fosso.

Fosso was born in Cameroon in 1962. When we think about the age of self-photography through narcissism (the many "Photos of Me" or "Just Me" Facebook albums) of today's generation, I guess you could say Fosso would fit right in to that. In the late 1970s, at the age of 13, a local photographer gave him the gift of a camera -- and so it began. Fosso began to photograph himself, and there is something so utterly cool about his art. His disposition all became part of a story that alludes to a sense of an absorbed self-awareness that comes across in complete confidence. He plays with the idea of reality and identity -- a reminder to everyone that the person as well as the photograph is fluid and malleable.