Pierre Verger was a photographer, ethnographer, anthropologist, historian, botanist, and one of the pioneering researchers of Afro-Brazilian religion and culture. In 1946, prior to settling permanently in Salvador, Verger traveled extensively across Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia, working as a freelance photojournalist for several magazines and newspapers. On arriving in Bahia, he devoted himself to an investigation of the ties between African and African-American culture, and quickly established a wide circle of friends-writers, artists, anthropologists, artisans, capoeira masters, and participants in candomblé rituals.

In 1948, Verger met Dona Senhora, a senior priestess of the Yoruba Oshun cult, who made him an emissary to Africa. In 1953, in Ketou, Dahomey (now Benin), Verger was fully initiated into the Yoruba religion and received the name Fatumbí. His first study on Yoruba cults, Dieux d'Afrique (African Gods, 1954), featured photographs and texts that trace parallels between ceremonies in West Africa and Brazil. Though lacking academic training, in 1966 Verger received a doctorate in African Studies from the Sorbonne in Paris for his research on the slave trade and commercial relations between the Gulf of Benin and Bahia. Indeed, the intimacy and spontaneity of his photographs, as well as the affectionate and often erotic tone in his depictions of his subjects, reflect his lifelong commitment to African and African-American culture and his relinquishment of European roots.

Although he had originally started to write as a requirement of the Institut Français d'Afrique Noire (French Institute for Black Africa, or IFAN), which awarded him several scholarships, Verger "believed that encouraging a reflection on Yoruba religion might help to inspire a less prejudiced vision of African religions and ultimately lead to a more enlightened encounter and exchange between cultures." By the late 1970s, though Verger had abandoned photography, he continued to make research trips to Africa while leading a modest life in the outskirts of Salvador.

- Kiki Mazzucchelli