Hamidou Maiga is a Malian studio portrait photographer. Born in Bobodioulasso, Burkina Faso, he began photographing in Timbuktu in the 1950s and in 1973 opened a studio in Bamako. In his earlier work, he arranged his sitters outdoors, in front of a simple cloth backdrop. Later, he used artificial lighting to photograph sitters in front of elaborate painted backgrounds inside his studio. As in th work of his better-known compatriots Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe, Maiga's portraits show members of a society in transition, facing the camera with confidence and style, fashionably dressed and posed with props such as cigarettes, a radio, or a guitar.