Many of the portraits are of groups:
young bucks wearing shirts opened to the waist pay homage to the gangster chic of Eddie Constantine, the French B - movie star of the day; elegantly dressed Senegalese women outdo each other in their displays of sparkling teeth; uniformed men from the armed forces exude a dangerous grace, their coiled - up martial menace recalling August Sander's portraits of the Wehrmacht and members of the German SS.