The other day I was doing a trawl through the Internet and going over some old ground so to speak. In this search the South African photographer David Goldblatt’s name came up. On reading over the piece I had found, a few things came to mind and this set me off thinking.
David’s name seems to be synonymous with apartheid South Africa and the social documentary photography that a number of us were doing there through that period.
I say “us” because, in part I was doing much the same thing albeit from a somewhat different perspective.
In my search, dug a little further and came across a site featuring his biography. While reading the piece my attention was grabbed by what he had to say about his own work and, here I quote: “Gradually I have come to realise that my concern with values has become a major preoccupation. If you had asked me about my motivations during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, I wouldn’t have expressed it this way. It is only now, looking back, that I see that this concern with values has been my most persistent thread. The reason this is so clear to me now, so long after the event, has to do with the end of apartheid”.
With this, I had to shake my head. “At last, some sense”, I quietly thought to myself. “And this, after all these years”, I thought again. Much of what David had to say here came through as a validation and some vindication to me.
I’m not to sure about the “has to do with the end of apartheid”. I’d say it goes a little further back than that. His ‘On the Mines’ – a collaboration the Noble prize winning author Nadine Gordimer – and his ‘Some Afrikaners Photographed’ were published just after I had finished school – this going back to the early 1970′s.
In a sense, Goldblatt was a strong local influence in the development of my own “interest” in photography. Had to have a toss up between the word “interest” and “career” – so, let’s just go with “interest” for the time being.
In many ways and for many an aspiring photographer at the time, David Goldblatt was something of a “stumbling block” or “sitting stone” for anyone choosing to go into photography at the time. Meaning to say that, while he was a towering icon of sorts, he was also something of a polarizing influence in the scheme of things. A sort of, “with us or against us” thing – this with specific reference to the socio-political climate prevailing in South Africa at the time.
I would venture to say the “visual cues” by which the rest of the world came to view social conditions that prevailed in South Africa during the “apartheid era” were heavily influenced by David. And, by “influenced”, I don’t necessarily mean what he was doing personally with his own work but rather by through the work of other photographers he was mentoring at the time – either directly and through his involvement with the photographer’s gallery at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg or indirectly via his own work in one form or another.
As a young photographer trying to make his way in the community and the world, I found David to everywhere. If his books were not to be found on the bookshelves, then his work was on display in the galleries or he was there on the TV or his works in the newspapers of the day or may be one would see him at work on the street. He was always there – a sort of bastion of the day.
In all things photographic, let’s just say, there was little moved that past David. And if your work was endorsed by him, one usually moved on to bigger and better things. If not, well then, you didn’t really rate.
Other than photography, I got to know David in other ways. Given the space and way of life in that part of the world, the outdoors always beckoned. I was something of a serious cyclist – like cycling some 250 kilometers a week. A popular cycling route was riding out from Jo’burg’s inner suburbs and out to Bryanston and back – a 20 kilometer ride at the time. Something nice to do just before breakfast.
On this ride there was nice double hill going up through Bryanston on Bryanston Drive – one of those hills with a bend in it and then a dip so you couldn’t see the top until you were over the top.
On my earlier excursions out that way I used to be popped to the top by this elderly fellow. I didn’t realise then that this “elderly guy” was David Goldblatt. Well, when you’re decked out in cycling gear, you don’t always recognise the entity in that gear.
It was only later when I started cycling with Mike McCann – a renown newspaper photographer in his own right – that I found out who this person was. At the time Mike McCann and I were working together in-house for a well known PR company.
With one thing and another Mike, who himself was an avid cyclist, found out that I was cycling on a regular basis. We talked about routes and discovered we were doing much the same rides. As things happen, we met up and did the same ride.
Other than photography and learning how to use Leica cameras, Mike also taught me a lot about cycling. Well, let me put it this way, about the art of cycling.
On one of our early morning rides we met up with David Goldblatt and there we were formally introduced. As time progressed, our group rides became something of a regular event. Sometimes we would also meet up on Sundays and go out for extended rides. These long rides would eventually finish off at David’s house in Orange Grove where would have breakfast. It was there that I met the rest of his family.
As we got on and my cycling improved, I was able to pip David on that hill. Not sure if this was the right thing to do? Certainly didn’t go anywhere to improving my relationship with David – this from a photographic point of view.
If anything, that relationship was rather fractured. I grew up in a different sort of Africa from David and most of my peers. In the first years of my life, other than for some of my parent’s friends, I didn’t know or grow up with any white people – growing up as I did in the rural districts of Tanganyika (later to become Tanzania). After my first four years there we then moved to Harare (then known as Salisbury) in Zimbabwe where I started my schooling.
In those formative years my life then was perhaps very different from that of my peers growing up in South Africa where, I’m sure, they were made aware of divisions, lines and the mechanics of apartheid and the whole idea of separation and separateness seemed to be already entrenched and this at an early age in their development. I mean and this regard, what did I know about all of this?
In many ways Goldblatt, his followers and I were largely at counter-point when it came to documenting life in South Africa over that period. Being 24 years older than me, I guess David had a more specific and better developed agenda than anything I had when it came to dealing with the issues of the day at that time – his were formed while mine where still forming. While he went out to document, I went out to explore.
In many respects may be we were both “concerned with values” but from very different perspectives. Quite often it was said that my social documentary images were just too pretty and too safe – whatever that meant?
In part I was more interested in the celebration of life. Yes, I was surrounded inequities and inequalities. My mother employed a black domestic helper who lived in something of a spare room at the bottom of the garden. But then, while I was at school, this seemed “normal” in that, this is the way it was.
And, if I went to a place like the post office, there was a door for white people and one for black people. On the buses, the domestic helpers sat at the back of the bus where we could sit anywhere. That was then.
Later and while making a living as a photographer, I found and later sort out gaps in the system – this to go out and do my own thing. Documenting music soon became my thing – seeking out its expression in clubs and dives and later going into the townships where most of it was happening.
At the time, one had to get a permit to go into the townships. This came across as something of an anathema to me – getting some sort of notification to go into a place where people were living otherwise. Didn’t make sense to me and I didn’t bother.
In travelling through these areas – as in row upon row of box houses, long roads and the piles of muck and squalor – started looking for and seeking out other elements to document at this time.
With one thing and another, had a brother-in-law who, as a doctor, was living and practising in a rural district in the country. This provided another opportunity to explore and document what was going on in the country. Through these and other contacts, started documenting rural development and aid projects in various parts of the country
In between and in the mid-80′s there was the violence. This was part and parcel of the documentary process and I was there as was David and many of those that he had mentored along the way.
Times were strange. Those in support of the status quo seemed to be doing little to document the situation and seemed to prefer playing down the socio-political situation and sticking to the mundane everyday aspects of life at the time. On the other side, there where those who pandered to the news events of the day. And, without pushing point too far, let’s just say that some events were orchestrated to maximized the impact and the news value.
In between, I did what I did – did some news, did some social documentary photography and took to the road and did whatever there was to do there and what there was to discover on route.
From a particularly subjective point of view, I’ll concede that I found David’s remit as decidedly narrow. This from the point of view that his focus was very particular. This view and vision.
Where we were and where we are now
The other day I was doing a trawl through the Internet and going over some old ground so to speak. In this search the South African photographer David Goldblatt’s name came up. On reading over the piece I had found, a few things came to mind and this set me off thinking.
David’s name seems to be synonymous with apartheid South Africa and the social documentary photography that a number of us were doing there through that period.
I say “us” because, in part I was doing much the same thing albeit from a somewhat different perspective.
In my search, dug a little further and came across a site featuring his biography. While reading the piece my attention was grabbed by what he had to say about his own work and, here I quote: “Gradually I have come to realise that my concern with values has become a major preoccupation. If you had asked me about my motivations during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, I wouldn’t have expressed it this way. It is only now, looking back, that I see that this concern with values has been my most persistent thread. The reason this is so clear to me now, so long after the event, has to do with the end of apartheid”.
With this, I had to shake my head. “At last, some sense”, I quietly thought to myself. “And this, after all these years”, I thought again. Much of what David had to say here came through as a validation and some vindication to me.
I’m not to sure about the “has to do with the end of apartheid”. I’d say it goes a little further back than that. His ‘On the Mines’ – a collaboration the Noble prize winning author Nadine Gordimer – and his ‘Some Afrikaners Photographed’ were published just after I had finished school – this going back to the early 1970′s.
In a sense, Goldblatt was a strong local influence in the development of my own “interest” in photography. Had to have a toss up between the word “interest” and “career” – so, let’s just go with “interest” for the time being.
In many ways and for many an aspiring photographer at the time, David Goldblatt was something of a “stumbling block” or “sitting stone” for anyone choosing to go into photography at the time. Meaning to say that, while he was a towering icon of sorts, he was also something of a polarizing influence in the scheme of things. A sort of, “with us or against us” thing – this with specific reference to the socio-political climate prevailing in South Africa at the time.
I would venture to say the “visual cues” by which the rest of the world came to view social conditions that prevailed in South Africa during the “apartheid era” were heavily influenced by David. And, by “influenced”, I don’t necessarily mean what he was doing personally with his own work but rather by through the work of other photographers he was mentoring at the time – either directly and through his involvement with the photographer’s gallery at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg or indirectly via his own work in one form or another.
As a young photographer trying to make his way in the community and the world, I found David to everywhere. If his books were not to be found on the bookshelves, then his work was on display in the galleries or he was there on the TV or his works in the newspapers of the day or may be one would see him at work on the street. He was always there – a sort of bastion of the day.
In all things photographic, let’s just say, there was little moved that past David. And if your work was endorsed by him, one usually moved on to bigger and better things. If not, well then, you didn’t really rate.
Other than photography, I got to know David in other ways. Given the space and way of life in that part of the world, the outdoors always beckoned. I was something of a serious cyclist – like cycling some 250 kilometers a week. A popular cycling route was riding out from Jo’burg’s inner suburbs and out to Bryanston and back – a 20 kilometer ride at the time. Something nice to do just before breakfast.
On this ride there was nice double hill going up through Bryanston on Bryanston Drive – one of those hills with a bend in it and then a dip so you couldn’t see the top until you were over the top.
On my earlier excursions out that way I used to be popped to the top by this elderly fellow. I didn’t realise then that this “elderly guy” was David Goldblatt. Well, when you’re decked out in cycling gear, you don’t always recognise the entity in that gear.
It was only later when I started cycling with Mike McCann – a renown newspaper photographer in his own right – that I found out who this person was. At the time Mike McCann and I were working together in-house for a well known PR company.
With one thing and another Mike, who himself was an avid cyclist, found out that I was cycling on a regular basis. We talked about routes and discovered we were doing much the same rides. As things happen, we met up and did the same ride.
Other than photography and learning how to use Leica cameras, Mike also taught me a lot about cycling. Well, let me put it this way, about the art of cycling.
On one of our early morning rides we met up with David Goldblatt and there we were formally introduced. As time progressed, our group rides became something of a regular event. Sometimes we would also meet up on Sundays and go out for extended rides. These long rides would eventually finish off at David’s house in Orange Grove where would have breakfast. It was there that I met the rest of his family.
As we got on and my cycling improved, I was able to pip David on that hill. Not sure if this was the right thing to do? Certainly didn’t go anywhere to improving my relationship with David – this from a photographic point of view.
If anything, that relationship was rather fractured. I grew up in a different sort of Africa from David and most of my peers. In the first years of my life, other than for some of my parent’s friends, I didn’t know or grow up with any white people – growing up as I did in the rural districts of Tanganyika (later to become Tanzania). After my first four years there we then moved to Harare (then known as Salisbury) in Zimbabwe where I started my schooling.
In those formative years my life then was perhaps very different from that of my peers growing up in South Africa where, I’m sure, they were made aware of divisions, lines and the mechanics of apartheid and the whole idea of separation and separateness seemed to be already entrenched and this at an early age in their development. I mean and this regard, what did I know about all of this?
In many ways Goldblatt, his followers and I were largely at counter-point when it came to documenting life in South Africa over that period. Being 24 years older than me, I guess David had a more specific and better developed agenda than anything I had when it came to dealing with the issues of the day at that time – his were formed while mine where still forming. While he went out to document, I went out to explore.
In many respects may be we were both “concerned with values” but from very different perspectives. Quite often it was said that my social documentary images were just too pretty and too safe – whatever that meant?
In part I was more interested in the celebration of life. Yes, I was surrounded inequities and inequalities. My mother employed a black domestic helper who lived in something of a spare room at the bottom of the garden. But then, while I was at school, this seemed “normal” in that, this is the way it was.
And, if I went to a place like the post office, there was a door for white people and one for black people. On the buses, the domestic helpers sat at the back of the bus where we could sit anywhere. That was then.
Later and while making a living as a photographer, I found and later sort out gaps in the system – this to go out and do my own thing. Documenting music soon became my thing – seeking out its expression in clubs and dives and later going into the townships where most of it was happening.
At the time, one had to get a permit to go into the townships. This came across as something of an anathema to me – getting some sort of notification to go into a place where people were living otherwise. Didn’t make sense to me and I didn’t bother.
In travelling through these areas – as in row upon row of box houses, long roads and the piles of muck and squalor – started looking for and seeking out other elements to document at this time.
With one thing and another, had a brother-in-law who, as a doctor, was living and practising in a rural district in the country. This provided another opportunity to explore and document what was going on in the country. Through these and other contacts, started documenting rural development and aid projects in various parts of the country
In between and in the mid-80′s there was the violence. This was part and parcel of the documentary process and I was there as was David and many of those that he had mentored along the way.
Times were strange. Those in support of the status quo seemed to be doing little to document the situation and seemed to prefer playing down the socio-political situation and sticking to the mundane everyday aspects of life at the time. On the other side, there where those who pandered to the news events of the day. And, without pushing point too far, let’s just say that some events were orchestrated to maximized the impact and the news value.
In between, I did what I did – did some news, did some social documentary photography and took to the road and did whatever there was to do there and what there was to discover on route.
From a particularly subjective point of view, I’ll concede that I found David’s remit as decidedly narrow. This from the point of view that his focus was very particular. This view and vision.