These days, it’s so easy to see pictures of Africa. Just consult the web for a brief moment, and you’ll be flush with photos of Serengeti sunsets, lions, huts and hippos. Considerably harder to find, however, are the kind of images local photographer John Rolland creates. His current show at Gallery 86, “South of the Sahara: Portrait of Africa,” presents the place in the way he saw it for years — one person at a time.

This colorful collection, which Rolland shot while volunteering with his family on a ship that brought much-needed surgeries to far reaches of the world, gives a human face to Africa. Rolland believes that perspective is often in short supply.

His hope is “to give people little bit more of an appreciation about the people and who they are,” he said.

He stressed that what many ...