Photography and filming in Ghana

Why you ask before you photograph anyone

The first rule of photography in Ghana is that you ask a person before you photograph them, and you accept no as an answer. This is not a legal requirement in most public settings; it is a social one, and it is taken far more seriously here than most visitors expect.

The reason runs deeper than privacy. Photographs of Ghanaians and of Ghanaian life have been taken by outsiders for a very long time, and taken in a particular way — poverty framed as picturesque, people as scenery, no name attached and nothing given back. People here are conscious of that history even when they would not put it in those words. A lens raised without a word repeats it.

What asking looks like in practice is short. You greet, you say good morning or its equivalent, you have a brief exchange about nothing much, and then you gesture at the camera and ask. That whole sequence takes under a minute and the answer is yes far more often than not.

What you get in return is a better photograph. A person who has agreed to be photographed stands differently, looks at you, and sometimes arranges themselves, their shop or their child. A stolen frame of someone's back is rarely the picture you wanted anyway.

A refusal deserves the same grace as an acceptance. Say thank you and put the camera down. Arguing about your right to photograph in a public place is socially disastrous.

Places where photography is genuinely prohibited

There is a list of subjects in Ghana that you should not photograph under any circumstances, and the consequences for doing so range from a hostile conversation to detention and a wiped memory card. Treat it as absolute.

Military installations and personnel. Police stations, police officers and checkpoints. The presidency at Jubilee House and its surroundings. The ports at Tema and Takoradi. Border posts, including Aflao, Elubo and Paga. Some government ministries and the immigration offices. Airports beyond the public terminal areas, and never the apron or security screening.

The rule extends further than the building itself. A wide street scene that happens to include a police post can become a problem if an officer sees the camera and decides it has.

What to do if you are challenged is simple and unglamorous. Stop immediately, apologise, explain that you are a visitor and did not know, and offer to delete the image in front of the officer. Almost every one of these situations resolves there. Escalating, refusing to hand the camera over, or insisting on your rights turns a five-minute nuisance into an afternoon.

Bridges, dams and major infrastructure sit in a grey area. Akosombo dam has areas where photography is restricted and areas where it is not, so ask a member of staff rather than guess.

Photographing in markets

Markets are the hardest place in Ghana to photograph well and the easiest place to cause offence, because you are standing in somebody's workplace pointing a camera at their livelihood. Makola, Kejetia and Kaneshie all require a different approach from a street.

The approach that works is commerce. Buy something first. A trader you have just bought fabric or tomatoes from is a person you have a relationship with, however brief, and asking to photograph her stall after that transaction is an entirely different request from asking cold. Frequently she will offer before you ask.

Expect some sellers to say no flatly, and expect a few to ask for money. Both are reasonable positions. If money is requested, either agree a small amount and pay it without resentment, or decline and move on. What you should not do is take the picture anyway and walk off, because market traders know each other and word travels down the lane faster than you do.

The practical difficulty is that markets are dark, crowded and in constant motion. Lanes between stalls are roofed with tarpaulin and corrugated sheet, so the light drops several stops the moment you step in from the sun. Head porters move fast and need room. Standing still in a narrow lane to compose a shot blocks the working of the place and people will tell you so.

A smaller camera or a phone attracts less attention and less resistance than a large body with a long lens, which reads as professional and raises the question of what the pictures are for. Our guide to Ghanaian markets and shopping covers how the markets are laid out, which helps you plan where to be and when.

Filming and photography at the castles

Personal photography is permitted at Cape Coast Castle, Elmina Castle and the other forts under the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, and the important question is not whether you may but how you should.

The sites are managed by the GMMB, and arrangements for cameras, tripods and any commercial shoot are set by them. Rules about video, professional equipment and drones vary between sites and change over time, so confirm current requirements with the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board or the specific site office before you arrive with a bag of kit.

Inside, the tour runs with a guide and moves through the courtyards, the governor's quarters, the church built above the male dungeon, and then down into the dungeons themselves. The dungeons are the part that requires thought. They are dark, low, airless, and they are understood by very many visitors — particularly those on heritage journeys — as burial ground. Wreaths are laid there.

The right instinct in the dungeons is to put the camera down. Not because of a rule, but because you will be standing among people having the most serious moment of their trip, and a flash going off in that space is a violent intrusion. If you do photograph, do it without flash, briefly, and be aware of who is in the room.

The Door of No Return draws the most cameras, and there is a queue of people wanting a photograph in the opening. Wait your turn, take your frame, and move. Our full guide to Cape Coast and Elmina castles covers what the visit involves and how to plan the day around it.

Chiefs, shrines, durbars and festivals

At any traditional gathering, permission to photograph comes from the authority present, not from the individuals in front of your lens, and obtaining it properly is both the courteous route and the only reliable one.

A chief at a durbar is not approached directly by a visitor. There is an okyeame, a linguist or spokesperson, through whom communication with the chief passes, and that is the person to speak to. A guide, a local host or the festival organisers will identify them. Ask through them, wait for the answer, and follow whatever conditions come with it.

Photographing a chief without permission is a genuine offence in the traditional sense and can bring a public rebuke or a demand for a customary apology, which may include a pacification item. This is not theatre. It is how authority works in a Ghanaian traditional setting and it is worth respecting on its own terms.

Shrines are stricter still. Many are simply closed to photography, and some are closed to visitors altogether, or closed on particular days, or closed to women or to people wearing certain colours. The priest or caretaker sets the terms. Take the answer given without negotiating, and do not photograph objects, rooms or symbols you have been told not to.

Festivals are more open, and the big ones — Homowo, Aboakyir, Hogbetsotso, the Akwasidae cycle in Kumasi — involve processions and public celebration where cameras are common and expected. Even there, individual performers, particularly those in a ritual role rather than an entertainment one, may not wish to be photographed. Watch what local photographers do and follow them.

Funerals and family occasions

Ghanaian funerals are large, public, photographed events, and yet a visitor with a camera at one still needs an invitation and the family's permission. The apparent contradiction confuses people, so it is worth explaining.

A funeral here is a major social occasion that can run over a weekend, with hundreds of guests in black and red or in black and white, a canopy, a band or DJ, printed programmes and a professional photographer working the whole event. Photography is clearly not taboo.

What is not acceptable is a stranger photographing the family, the body if it is lying in state, or the mourners, without having been received as a guest. If you are attending because you were invited, ask your host whether pictures are welcome and what is off limits. The body lying in state is the point where people most often get it wrong.

Weddings, outdoorings, naming ceremonies and church services follow the same logic. Invited guests photograph freely; passers-by do not. In a church, the service is generally being filmed anyway, and the polite move is to ask an usher before you start.

The one thing that will not be forgiven is photographing grief for its own sake. A widow at the moment of collapse is not a photograph, and a person who takes it will be told so in front of everyone.

Drone rules and what they actually involve

Flying a drone in Ghana requires registration of the aircraft and authorisation to operate from the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, and doing it without those is an offence, not a paperwork oversight. Drones have been seized at Kotoka on arrival from travellers who assumed otherwise.

The regulatory shape is that unmanned aircraft are treated as aircraft. That means registration of the device, a permit for the operator, and separate authorisation for particular flights, with restrictions around airports, military areas, government installations and crowds. Rules for visitors bringing a drone into the country temporarily, including what happens at customs, are set by the GCAA and by Customs, and they do change.

The practical advice is to start the process well before your flight rather than at the airport. Contact the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority directly, describe exactly what you intend to fly and where, and get the answer in writing. Any fee, timeline or documentation list you read secondhand may be out of date, so take it from them.

Even with paperwork in order, think about where you fly. A drone over a village will draw a crowd and a lot of questions, and a drone over a beach, a shrine, a funeral or a festival without the organisers' agreement will cause the same offence as a camera pushed into a face, amplified by the noise.

The coastline, the forts from the sea, the Volta and the forest canopy are all spectacular from the air, which is exactly why people want to do this. It is achievable. It is not spontaneous.

Commercial filming, documentaries and content for hire

Any filming intended for commercial release, broadcast or distribution in Ghana falls under the National Film Authority, which licenses film production, and you should arrange that before you arrive rather than after you are challenged on location.

The line between personal and commercial is where people get caught. A holiday video posted to a personal account is personal. A shoot with a crew, lighting, a client, a brand or a paid commission is commercial, and so is a documentary, whatever its budget. Travel creators working under contract sit on the commercial side of the line whether or not it feels that way.

Site-level permissions are separate from the national licence. Filming at the castles and forts is agreed with the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. Filming in a national park or reserve is agreed with the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission. Filming in a traditional area involves the traditional authority. Each of these is its own conversation and each takes time.

Fixers exist and are worth their cost on anything beyond a small shoot. A local production fixer knows which office to approach, how long a response takes, who the linguist is in a given town, and what to do when a permission that was agreed verbally is questioned by someone on the day.

Budget time rather than optimism. Permissions in Ghana are obtainable and the people who grant them are reasonable, but the process moves at the pace of an office rather than of a shooting schedule, and starting six weeks out is not excessive.

When people ask for money for a photograph

Being asked for money after or before a photograph is common in Ghana, especially in places with regular tourist traffic, and the honest way to handle it is to decide your position in advance and apply it calmly.

The request is not unreasonable. Somebody is giving you their image, their time and often their working space, and in a place where photographers turn up daily, they have watched a lot of people take pictures away and give nothing back. A drummer at a festival or a woman carrying a load at a well-known viewpoint is in a different position from a shopkeeper you have been chatting to for ten minutes.

Three workable responses. Agree a small amount beforehand and pay it. Decline politely and walk away without the photograph. Or offer something other than cash — buying from the stall, showing the person the picture on the screen, or sending it to them by WhatsApp afterwards, which people genuinely value and which costs you nothing.

That last one is the most underused. Ask for a number, send the photograph that evening, and you have made an exchange rather than a transaction. Do it if you say you will; a promised photograph that never arrives is worse than no promise.

What to avoid is paying wildly above local scale to smooth over discomfort. It raises the price for everyone behind you and turns an ordinary courtesy into a market. Modest and matter-of-fact is the tone that travels well, the same as with tipping generally, and the broader conventions are covered in our piece on etiquette and language in Ghana.

Light, heat, dust and keeping equipment alive

Ghana is close to the equator, so the useful light is at the ends of the day and the middle is brutal — hard overhead sun, deep shadow under any brim, and skin that blows out or blocks up depending on how you meter. Plan around it rather than fighting it.

Sunrise is around six and sunset around six throughout the year, with little seasonal variation, and the first and last two hours are where the photographs are. Mid-morning and mid-afternoon are for interiors, markets under cover, and forest, where the canopy does the work for you.

Harmattan changes the picture from roughly December to February. The dry, dust-laden wind off the Sahara reaches southern Ghana and puts a haze in the air that flattens distance, softens contrast and turns the sun into a pale disc you can look at. Landscapes suffer. Portraits often improve, because the light becomes enormous and soft.

Humidity on the coast is the equipment risk. Lenses fog when you step from an air-conditioned car into the heat, and the fix is patience — leave the bag closed for ten minutes so the kit warms up gradually rather than wiping the glass every thirty seconds. Silica gel in the bag is worth carrying. Salt air at Busua, Cape Coast and Ada is corrosive, so wipe everything down at the end of a beach day.

Dust is the other problem, particularly on northern roads and in harmattan. Change lenses as rarely as you can, and do it inside the vehicle with the windows up rather than at the roadside. Carry more battery capacity than you think you need, because power cuts mean you cannot always count on charging overnight.

Subjects that reward the effort

The photographs that come back from Ghana looking like nobody else's are usually the ones where the photographer stayed somewhere long enough to be unremarkable. That is the whole technique, and it beats any equipment decision.

Jamestown in Accra is the obvious example. The lighthouse, the harbour below it, the boxing gyms, the boats coming in — it is photographed constantly, and the difference between a tourist frame and a good one is whether you spent twenty minutes there or three hours. Local guides operate in Jamestown and going with one opens doors that stay shut otherwise.

The fishing beaches along the coast at Elmina, Cape Coast, Winneba and Axim give you colour, movement and work in progress at dawn, when the boats land and the catch is sorted on the sand. Arrive early, stay out of the way of the hauling lines, and buy fish.

Kente weaving at Bonwire and Adanwomase near Kumasi, the adinkra stamping at Ntonso, the coffin workshops at Teshie, the pottery villages and the mud architecture of the Upper East around Sirigu are all places where craft is being done rather than performed, which shows in the frame.

Landscape gets less attention than it deserves. The Volta escarpment around Amedzofe, the stilt village at Nzulezo in the west, the forest canopy at Kakum at first light, and the flat savannah light around Mole at the end of the dry season are all worth a specific journey.

How we help photographers get the shot

Most of what stands between a photographer and a good day in Ghana is access and timing, and that is where a local team helps. We put you at Cape Coast for the boats at dawn rather than at ten, arrange the introduction to whoever can actually give permission in a town, and send a driver who understands that a stop is not always about arriving somewhere.

Our tours run with a licensed guide and are built around what you want to shoot; see the range on our tours page. Quotes are itemised and come from one named trip manager.

Questions people ask