J.A. Green

Jonathan Adagogo Green (J. A. Green, 1873–1905) was one of the earliest Nigerian studio photographers and is widely regarded as Nigeria’s first indigenous professional photographer. Born in Ayama (Peterside), Bonny, into an Ibani Ijo trading family, he was educated in Lagos and possibly Sierra Leone, trained in photography in Sierra Leone, and had established his own studio in Bonny by 1891.

Over about 14 years of work, before his early death at age 32, Green produced portraits of chiefs, colonial officers, and European merchants, as well as scenes of daily life, ritual, commerce, and architecture across Bonny, Opobo, New Calabar, Warri, and the wider Niger Delta. His photographs captured both Ibani Ijo society and the colonial world around it, making them a vital visual record of southern Nigeria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some were also circulated as postcards.

Today, his photographs are preserved in major collections, including the British Museum, and remain an important historical archive of the Niger Delta.