When Burkinabé photographer Ibrahim Sanlé Sory opened his studio in 1960, he named it Volta Photo in celebration of Upper Volta (now called Burkina Faso), which won its independence from France that same year. The photograph shows the excitement and energy of the country’s first decades. Sory often depicted the exuberant youth culture in Bobo-Dioulasso, the nation’s second largest city and its artistic and cultural center. This stylish young man posed in Sory’s studio in front of a painted backdrop of an Air Volta plane. He was one of many who selected that particular backdrop. The title—I am going to take off—suggests a leap into the future, with an Air Volta plane announcing a newly independent nation as a global hub.