For four months we shared and evaluated on a weekly basis the most popular post done on our FB page according to Facebook’s statistics. It has been a nice ride, that led to insights that translated into blogposts that we intend to be revisited and added to as time progresses. But this weekly formula has been milked out it seems. It is no longer surprising which will be the most popular post, and themes are starting to be repetitive, which of course takes down motivation on this side. In this closing blog post in the HIPUganda Weekly series I just want to mention an extraordinary album on the page. It is devoted to one person, and none of the photographs in the album were encountered physically (by HIPUganda).
The person responsible for the album and all the attention it got is Guest Editor Tim Timm. I have been wondering if it is him, appearing so proudly in one of the photographs with Princess Baga(a)ya of To(o)ro, who is the one person the album is devoted to. [OOOPS, so here’s the thing with the Mzungu who is not enough aware of current affairs. Was just informed that this man is not our guest admin at all, but Erias Lukwago. Apologies to both!]
Bagaya is not just a member of Ugandan royalty but led and leads an extraordinary life, thanks to her looks and to her versatile professional life that ranged from diplomat and politician to model and style icon.
The photographs in Tim Timm’s ‘Elizabeth Bagaya of Toro’ album have more likes than any other. The Princess and her looks get rediscovered over and over again and lead to waves of new page and picture likes.
Below you find the two most popular photographs in the album. The princess in her full glory, as ‘True African Beauty’, and second ‘Princess Elizabeth Bagaya greeting Idi Amin in the 1970s’.
We are very happy that so many of the followers of the Facebook Page like coming across photographs of the Princess, and are thankful to Tim Tim also for sharing his collection with us. At the same time the collection also diverts from some of the things we hope to achieve, which is a transparency in the sources of photographs and an emphasis on photographs who are physically part of collections in Uganda. Even though it seems very likely that many of the photographs in the album can be found somewhere in the country, we have not (yet) seen them. We did come across photographs of the Princess though and shared some of those in the long comment thread of the album.
The blog feature of this page is now going to find a new use once again. We will start dossiers in which various of the topics we have encountered while working with photographs will be discussed. And we will more actively present and discuss or off line activities here. Meaning the things we do out there in the real world, making books and exhibitions, and their spin off activities such as workshop(s) and discussions.
See you there, and/or here.
Oh! One more thing, if you, like Tim Tim, have a collection of photographs concerning and/or in Uganda, digital or physical, and you would like to share it with and on HIPUganda, please feel free to contact us through info@HIPUganda.org
