“A little further to the left, higher up, the arm further from the body, yes, that way we can see it better! » ― We still believe we can hear the photographer's instructions in the pose of the man who, one day in July 1970, went to the Malick studio, in the Bagadadji district of Bamako, the capital of Mali, to be photographed. Dressed in an immaculate shirt and pants, this man of around thirty conspicuously presents to the camera a dark bottle, without cap or label. She appears to be the real subject of the shot; for her, the man, well dressed, agrees to take a stilted, almost artificial posture, his left foot placed on a small platform, in a slightly curved pose. It seems as if the bottle, with the bands of clear reflections of the flash light, stares at the observer in the same way that the man's serious gaze stares at him. What might the photographer have been thinking as he triggered the shutter of his camera and what was his counterpart's motivation in allowing the portrait to be taken in this posture and with this accessory?