In the 20th century, South Africa was under the rule of white minority who introduced the apartheid rule. This was a form of colonial rule that separated access of social amenities through a separate system based on race. Africans were not allowed to go to certain areas, use certain bus stations, or even work in certain places. It was an era of segregation that saw South Africans oppressed and mistreated by the minority-made government. However, it was during this period that South Africans started demanding for equal treatment and the end of oppression. The 1950’s to the 1980s were marked by continued social unrest that saw many South Africans lose their lives, others arrested, and some badly injured.
It was during this period that the rise of documentary photography came as alternative and effective way of outlining the truth of the horrors of apartheid to the South African people. Photography became a crucial tool for reaching out to international sympathisers through photojournalism. It was a century dominated by the documentary genre as the primary tool for outlining socio-political ill facing South Africans. The camera became the primary tool of representation and a platform for providing visual evidence for truth depiction of the actual horrors that were taking place in South Africa.
Documentary photography was presented as objectivity tool for providing empirical evidence and truth. It was a period where the use of photography to outline the social ills that came with apartheid. However, the 1990s was marked by tremendous improvements in the struggle against apartheid and the emergence of a liberated Africa. The active role of photography in exposing the “truth” of the horrors of apartheid became redundant as apartheid was already removed. A crisis loomed and post-apartheid photography started exploring other fictional uses combined with cultural aspects in relation to South Africa. The rise of photography as fictional art came with technical experiments in digital photography, colour, and composite work. This marked the decline of historical documentary whose primary purpose was driven by the objectivity of truth, to a modernized categorization of photography as an ’art’ with limited truth and increased fictionalization.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Photography has been a useful tool used for a long time in the propagation of history from one generation to the other. However, in South Africa, documentary photography was the main tool in outlining the South African visual culture and in capturing the atrocities and suffering that came with the apartheid error. The documentary genre dominated the South African photography, an aspect that enrooted from the 19th
century Modernists (Saayman-Hattingh 2011). During those times, the colonialists heavily relied on the use of camera as a major precision tool of representation in terms of presenting visual clarity of events and as an exhibit tool in telling the truth. It was during the apartheid era that the positivists’ notions were incorporated in capturing the atrocities that came with apartheid via the use of documentary photography (Newbury 2009).
South African is a country that has been going through massive social political transformations, an aspect that has been largely articulated by the use of scholarly literature largely produced during the first decade of democracy in Africa. However, photography was a persuasive force during the apartheid era and it clearly demonstrated that history can be preserved in documenting the different happenings that take place today for the sake of future generations (Tomaselli 2013). Secondly, it is also a tool of communication and self expression that was largely used to see to it that the social ills that the colonized Africans faced, as well as the superiority that the colonial masters held over their subjects was clearly outlined for either respective recipients of the intended messages (Saayman-Hattingh 2011).
The use of documentary photography was catalysed by the need to tell the world the atrocities that were taking place in South Africa during the apartheid era. It largely contributed to the exposing of social-ills that South Africans faced and it became a crucial tool in solicitation for support from the Liberation Movement both locally and abroad. As a result, the South African history has over the years relied heavily on the usage of the documentary photography as the main weapon of struggle (Newbury 2005). According to Krantz (2008), after the release of Nelson Mandera in the 1990s, a liberated South Africa started taking shape and at this time, the use of documentary photography became quite redundant in exposing apartheid practices. It was during this period that photographers found themselves in a compromising situation that left them in a ‘crisis’ as the main subject of their photography had been removed and the purpose of the struggle had been achieved.
Today, documentary photography has changed tremendously as photography has drifted from a ‘quasi-objective’ and ‘truth’ paradigm to a more fluid form of art and poetic expression used to explore the current cultural practices of the South African people, as well as acting as a visual representation of contemporary issues that South Africans go through during the post apartheid era (Glick 2018). The primary objective of documentary photography was to facilitate the process of exposing the truth of the atrocities South Africans were facing during the apartheid era with the aim of seeking assistance from liberation movements in South Africa, and international sympathisers (Mupotsa 2015).
This thesis is designed to explore the use of documentary photography in two main contexts; the first one will be based on how documentary photography became a useful tool in exposing the “truth” of social ills of the colonial era towards South Africans, as well as the struggles and depths that photographers went to ensure that the truth was exposed to the outside world. Secondly, it will explore the arrival of postmodernism in South Africa and the theoretical base of postmodern art in photography and the way photographers after finding themselves in a ‘crisis’ after the apartheid’s demise, resulted to the use of photography as a cultural tool that outlined the aspects of race, gender, historical processes, class, and identity.
Research Objectives
The research study aims at exploring the following aspects:
Outline the contemporary use of documentary photography as an alternative form of socio-political activism which was largely used by South African photographers as the primary tool of exposing the “truth” related to the social and political ills that were perpetrated by the South African government which was composed of minority white regime.
Provide a historical analysis of how documentary photography contributed to the process of eradication of apartheid and gaining of freedom for South Africans
Outline the struggles that photographers as primary providers of visual evidence to the outside world faced during the apartheid struggles
Explore the changes associated with photography as a “truth” medium of communication to its transition to modern ‘art’ photography which is driven by technical fiction in post apartheid exploration of photography.
Scope and Significance of the Study
This study revolves around a historical analysis of one of the worst period of history that saw South Africans go through oppression of all manner. There were social ills that ranged from arrests, beatings, rapes, massacres, segregation laws, and torture among other aspects. The research study largely explores the aspect of documentary photography and closely related it the historical atrocities as a tool that proved to be the most influential in fighting for end of apartheid and demand for freedom (Thomas 2018). This research will revolve around proving that documentary photography was a reliable tool that gained its popularity from the visual evidence it used in outlining the truth of the apartheid rule to the outside world. It will go ahead to compare the use aspect of objective truth in the exhibited in the apartheid photography to the evolved adoption of art photography in recreation of undocumented history using fictional approaches, and the use of art in outlining the South African culture. The significance of this research is to prove that photography was an important aspect in outlining South African history, and in championing for the end of apartheid rule; it is therefore still an important post-apartheid tool in recreation history through artistic approaches.
Research Questions
In a bid to attain the outlined objectives, the research study will aim at answering a set of questions that will guide the objectivity of documentary photography and its role in the apartheid era. This research article will aim at answering;
What is documentary photography?
Why did the struggle against apartheid result to the use of documentary photography as a tool for “truth” based evidence?
What is the contribution of Afrapix agency to facilitation of photojournalism as a tool for capturing the sympathy of international audience?
What are the struggles that documentary photographers went through during the apartheid era?
Why did documentary photography change in post-apartheid era from a tool “truth” to a fictitious technical element for cultural and artistic propagation purposes?
Sources
The exploration of documentary photography as a tool of visual evidence based “truth” will be largely evaluated in this article. The facilitation of that exploration will be based on the use of qualitative analysis of scholarly journals, reports, and other literature works by prominent historians who have explored the history of South Africa in relation to the role that photography played in its liberation from apartheid. The presented research will explore literatures that outlined the role of documentary photography in South Africa since apartheid regime to the post-apartheid era. The use of scholarly journals, books, and reports has been largely attributed to the need for verifiable and reliable research for the purposes of providing quality historical analysis.
CHAPTER 2
Documentary Photography in South Africa
South African history is marred by social and political struggles just like most African countries. Its struggle is also much like that of the United State’s fight against racism and quest for freedom and equal rights by African Americans. In the same way, the 1950s in South Africa was a period that saw the country’s natives face racial segregation and physical torture and brutalities as they tried to fight for their freedom through activism and other means (Thomas, 2018). It was during this period that political photographers who were willing to risk it all and capture the social ills and political scenarios that presented themselves during that era started the use of documentary photography (Tomaselli 2013).
Photography became a large part of visual capturing of the ‘Struggle’, a practice that is currently known as documentary photography. The aim of starting the use of documentary photography was largely to sensitize the world and make it known that South Africans were being treated inhumanely and the world could do so little because the truth of the claims had no evidence (Saayman-Hattingh 2011). Newbury (2005) outlines that documentary photography was aimed at exposing the injustices perpetrated by the apartheid government towards South Africans and it thus became a major tool of resistance that would eventually capture the attention of the liberation movement and see to it that South African gained its independence.
However, as outlined by Newbury (2009), as apartheid was dismantled in the 1990s, the focus on documentary photography started shifting from a political and social justice initiative to an increasingly more fluid and creative form of art that was more fictional. Haney (2010) affirms that the pressures from international art in photography saw photographers in post apartheid venture into contemporary use of photography as an art and a tool for exposing South African Cultural practices and a form of expressing creativity for commercial and art-based gains. Graziano (2004) affirms that a thick line lies between the documentary photography used during the apartheid era and the one that was adopted in the post apartheid period.
Initially, the capturing of the struggles using documentary photography was genuine and held ‘raw’ truth told by the photos taken with the purpose of ensuring that South Africa was liberated (Coetzee and Nuttall 1998). However, what is presented in post apartheid contemporary South African photography is the use of photography as an art and a cultural expression aimed at demonstrating how photography can become a useful tool in expressing how humanity relates with its environments (Horta 2011). Modernization has come to expose the fact that photography is a flexible tool and it has always been a form of art which is being largely explored in South Africa today as a result of the external pressures from the western world (Josephy 2001).
However, the post-apartheid photography has had multiple purposes but limited truth in comparison to the use of documentary photography largely appreciated during the apartheid era and one that became a useful tool in the propagation of South African journey on a transition from an apartheid colony to a free inter-racial state. Post-apartheid documentary photography has been presented to have limited truth and vast use a contemporary art tool (Newbury 2009). As outlined by Horta (2011), the exploration between the two forms of art that marked South African modern and pre-modern history are thus open to scrutiny, deconstruction, and even criticism on the basis of purpose and the level of truth that they carry towards the welfare of South African social, political, and economic aspects.
This thesis will put emphasis on exploration and criticism of the documentary photography, colonialist, and modernist photography and the way it has reflected the apartheid, post-apartheid, and contemporary modern issues that South Africa has faced and those that it is facing today (Graziano 2004). The word “document” has been largely used to mean the real-life capturing of different photographs during the apartheid and post-apartheid eras in a bid to tell a story, expose the social ills that took place, and let the photographs act as the legal proof against the perpetrators or in proving that such acts actually took place. Empiricism has played crucial role in promoting the view of photography as a “truthful document” and thus the power to prioritize the truth as well as present the idea of proof (Josephy 2001).
In exploring what photography and documentation entails and the way it came to be used as a tool of truth and storytelling, the word ‘document’ in this case is outlined as officialdom or a fact, per say non-fiction representation (Clark and Worger 2016). On the other hand, ‘photograph’ has been used to represent an event or object that was captured in real-life happenings. Documentary photography is thus a process of communication, or a system that facilitates communicative activity with the aim of providing proof and telling the truth about historical and real life happenings that actually took place and are taking place respectively (Klopper and Godby 2004).
The role of photographers in the apartheid era has been largely aligned with historical preservation of the truth, and the objective presentation of truth with aim of proving that South Africans were undergoing undue suffering in a period when most African countries were already liberated from the turmoil of the colonial oppression (Newbury 2005). The atrocities being perpetrated by the colonizers in South African could not have reached the ears of the world had visual proof not been provided. It was as a result of heroic daring exhibited by the documentary photographers of the apartheid era that real concerns on the freedom of South Africans began to reach the ears of the Liberation movements across the world (Newbury 2009).
The Role Documentary Photography during Apartheid
The apartheid era was one that may have experiences clear in the minds of people who are still alive today and those who survived the horrors of social segregation and physical torture perpetrated by colonialists. It is such people born in the early and mid 1900s that can clearly tell of the sacrifice that many people made during the struggle, some losing their lives in the process (Tomaselli 2013). However, to reinforce such ideas and to verify the truth of the stories of apartheid told to the current generation, the use of the documented photographs taken decades ago play crucial roles. Documentary photography has played important role in the preservation of South Africa’s history and in the remembrance of events that took place, and the sacrifice that different people made during such hard times (Horta 2011).
Symbolically, the entrance of light through the lens is a depiction of transfer of reality from the abstract world to a tangible form. In South Africa, that very reality as expressed in form of documentary photography used during the apartheid time as a tool to denounce the apartheid regime, stimulate political change, and counter state propaganda in their quest to hide the truth and turn it into something that would help them propagate segregation and oppression (Graziano 2004). The formation of the apartheid state came to play as long as the 1940s whereby overly racist politics and oppression saw the rise of daring and dedicated photographers like Eli Weinberg, Peter Magubane, and Alf khumalo (Krantz 2008).
However, the effectiveness of the use of documentary photography wobbled due the firmly established colonial systems that saw their work start taking effect over three decades later in the 1980s. Documentary photography rose with the surge of the 1980s activism that motivate such photographers to use photography as evidence and proof of how brutal and inhumane the apartheid regime was (Clark and Worger 2016). As a result, such daring photographers as Mxolise Mayo, Paul Weinberg, Biddy Partridge, Omar Badsha, and Leslie Lawson formed the Afrapix Collective, a multiracial photography agency, in 1981; the motive of this to initiate anti-apartheid campaign through documentary photography (Klopper and Godby 2004).
In his statement to outlined the importance of the use of photography for a common cause despite the racial diversity that existed in the team, he outlined that the team shared a common vision on the need to use photography as an alternative weapon to violence, in activism against apartheid rule (Bensusan, 2006). The fraternity of Afrapix photographers soon grew as more people joined and by the mid 1980s, it had become the leading face of social political activism against apartheid. Photographers were able to capture church activities, riots, boycotts, arrests, brutalities, strikes, and even street murders during police confrontations with Africans (Tomaselli 2013).
As outlined by Edward Said, he defined culture as a concept and strategy of fighting against obliteration and extinction. With respect to this definition, photography gained popularity in preserving the way of life of South Africans by capturing their cultural heritage, as well as a via capturing images of the struggle which depicted the fight against obliteration. The rise of photography came amidst a period full of censorship laws and repressive violence in the 1980s (Saayman-Hattingh 2011). According to Horta (2011), South Africans today owe their gratitude to the voice that documentary photography played in promoting democratization of social and political photography in South Africa. Photographers had to go through a lot of struggles, attend different events, and even explore various landscapes to come up with a process of rendering evidence based reports backed by photographs documented during their exploration.
In this thesis, I regard the apartheid documentary photographers as equal forefront strugglers for freedom as their work was the one that spoke the loudest in reaching the message to the outside world. Horta (2011) outlines that photographers also faced atrocities and some were either banned from photography, tortured, their tools of work destroyed, and a few lost their lives for taking too much revealing evidence. Documentary photography played an important role in exposing repression, injustices, and the inhumanity that South Africans faced as they struggled in quest for freedom and mitigation of segregation laws.
An analytical overview of photography during the apartheid era shows the commitment and the risks taken by photographers as they made photographic captures and the way the use of photography as means of communication led to the discourse of disempowerment through an interpolation of the political actions taken during those times and the way they led to the downfall of apartheid (Palmer & Thomson Gale (Firm), 2006). Documentary photography has also shaped the social knowledge by using cultural photographs to show the world the South African culture and make an outline that Africans are not savages as colonist used to depict as a justification for their use of harsh rule over Africans (Newbury 2005).
In a bid to outline how effective the use of documentary photography was in outlining the struggle against apartheid, a close look at the photography works of David Goldblatt. Apparently, as most photographers used their documentaries to engage in active political propaganda, Goldblatt concentrated his photography on subtler version of activism which entailed documentation of social structures, gender, race, and color and linked them to a socially segregated society and the way the aspect of segregation shaped the factor he documented. He used photography to popularize the aspect of South African cultural values, as well as exploring the aspects of identity and notions of place (Saayman-Hattingh 2011).
His photography outlined the aspect of a racially divided South African society that was marred by increased gender obliteration in the political arena and the apartheid sidesteps that led to a volatile society that was strongly opposed to segregation. This version of photography did much to reveal the way the colonial apartheid played active roles in separating people based on race and the way cultural identity played important roles in keeping South Africans United. However, his subtle approach did little to expose the violence, oppression, and inhumane treatments that came with apartheid. The works of Goldblatt were important in propagating the social and cultural aspects exhibited by both the apartheid perpetrators and the victims of the social-political system that was in place (Newbury 2009).
An analytical evaluation of such apartheid era photographers as Goldblatt is meant to outline the close mesh and interlink that exists between documentary photography and the social, political, and historical events that took place in South Africa. The documentation of such photographs that relate to Soweto Uprising, the Sharpeville massacre, and other political events that took place in the 1980’s are being used by researchers and historians to explore the sociology of apartheid (Tomaselli 2013). It is such photographs that were distributed globally in instigating a liberation movement in Africa and other parts of the world with quest to see South Africa free from the bondage of colonization. Photographs taken during the apartheid have also been largely used to express democracy, freedom, diversity, culture, and injustices done during the period and the way these memories have shaped the socio-cultural life of the current generations in South Africa today (Klopper and Godby 2004).
As the use of documentary photography became more imminent and photographers started commenting on volatile socio-political situations in South Africa in the 1970s and ‘80s; similarly, in the United States, African-Americans were already using photography as a tool for creating awareness and fighting against racial discrimination and economic disparity. It was also largely used in championing for Civil rights (Haney 2010). Around the same time, when Britain was going through the worst race-motivated strikes and riots in 1950s, South African black photographers were also motivated to fill the pages of the Drum Magazine with anti-apartheid messages and photographs. Therefore, the anti-racial movements run simultaneously in Britain, America, and South America. This created an international audience that became concerned and sympathetic to the violations of human rights that South Africans faced (Krantz 2008).
In 1976, the coverage of the Soweto Uprising was the one that stimulated the resurgence of an alternative press since the ANC had been banned in 1960 and forced underground. This alternative press became active and it received great assistance from South African photographers who supplied it with images of atrocities and adversity towards South Americans. These images led to a growing number of publications that sparked increased resistance movements against the white supremacy regime. Photography played an active role in sensitizing the public about what was happening to them and creating identity that would forge a communication channel that communities could use in focusing on creation of an alliance that promoted social change.
According to Saayman-Hattingh (2011), South African photographers were also motivated to document apartheid scenes of oppression and struggles as their images started getting international demand as International press started publishing the South African struggle for the International audience that was starting to consider the need for addressing international injustices. According to Klopper and Godby ( 2004), the documentary and photojournalistic tradition was already taking shape in South Africa. The demand for apartheid photographs was on the rise as the world audience became more sympathetic to the problems the South Africans and other people facing racially profiled aggression were facing.
The aspect of conditions being conducive locally and internationally, made the support of such documentary photography companies such as Afrapix get more support. This made South African Documentary photography become more popular in the 1980s and the early 1990s as the message of social injustices had reached international concerns and there was pressure for the South African colonial government to grant South Africa its freedom and abolish the apartheid socio-political system (Goodman & Weinberg,1999).
CHAPTER 3
Images of Struggle and Defiance
Photographic images were the biggest messengers in outlining the social and political ills the South Africans were facing. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, the photographs taken during the apartheid era were worth much more. They highlighted the suffering, struggles, oppression, injustices, detentions, poverty, and even the cries that helpless Africans wanted to reach the international world (Goldberg, 1991). The mass shootings and killings, mass relocation of people from their lands, random pass raids, economic exploitations, the black servitude of white people in their luxurious homes, and the parliamentary promulgations were all images caught by the camera during the apartheid to show the distinction between the African suffering and the dominance of the white minority superiority (Wells, 2015).
The documentary photography dimension could not be ignored as it told the predominant narrative of the plights of South Africans. The lens was the lethal weapon that started subtly but ended up being take very seriously by the colonial rule as it threatened the survival of the apartheid rule which favoured the white segregation dominance over the Africans. The Afrapix photography, which was the main agency spearheading the implementation of documentary photography had the purpose of spreading three messages, freedom, struggle, and apartheid social ills (Palmer & Thomson Gale (Firm), 2006).
Figure 1. Memerial service for Dabi Sooko: Comrades from Lamontville (Jeeva Rajgopaul)
The photograph in Fig. 1 was taken by photographer Rajgopaul in 1981 during the memorial service for one of the anti-apartheid South Africans who fell under the apartheid brutality by the white policemen. This is one expression of dehumanization and oppression that South Africans faced. Such images as these which depicted marches, rallies, forced removals, meetings, funerals, and intensified struggles were secretly taken by the photographers as the primary tool for social-political activism (Gibson,2015).
Fig. 2 The “Natal War” 1987, comrade youth funeral: Cedric Nunn
The photograph in fig. 2 was taken by Nunn in 1987 shows the extent of the atrocities that the white rule unleashed on South Africans. This image brought uproar not only in South African but also in the international boundaries where the advocates for liberation spearheaded fight for independence for all African countries. The anti-apartheid photographers were able to capture and narrate beyond the basic news and recordings, and expose the actual killings that were taking place in South Africa (Goodman & Weinberg, 1999).
However, despite such killings the South African spirit un quest for the abolition of apartheid was not quelled. Mofokeng is one prominent apartheid photographer who captured a series of images that not only showed the oppression of South Africans, but also their struggles and the social life they led in a socially stratified country (Goodman & Weinberg, 1999). In one image, he was able to capture the prayer and church activities that South Africans held in commuting trains. The prayers were held from Soweto to Johannesburg; this was a depiction of the spirituality of South Africans during the height of the political struggle.
Fig. 3 “The Train Church”, 1986: Santu Mofokeng
In depiction of the level of poverty that the apartheid regime had left among the South Africans, Don Edkins was able to capture a distinct image of a woman and her child. It was also an exploration of the migrant labour and socio-economic injustices that South Africans faced during the struggle (Wells, 2015).
Fig. 5 “The Gold Widow”: Don Edkins, 1988
Apparently, after the apartheid regime realized that documentary photography was causing uproar in South Africa and it was instigating the international bodies to impose economic sanctions on the South African government, photography started being regulated and censorship was put in place. Images of Nelson Mandela could not be published, however, the secretly documented photographs by Afrapix revived the struggle despite the apartheid censorship (Edwards, 1992).
Fig. 6 “Student march for the funeral of COSAS member”, 1981: Omar Badsha
The everyday documentary photography also advocated for human autonomy and individualism. By exposing the challenges and atrocities such as the one photographed in Fig. 6 by Omar Badsha, a visually evidenced presentation of oppression was outlined. It is a depiction of the level at which South Africans were victimized and humiliated by the white minority rule under apartheid system (Goldberg, 1991).
On the other hand, the life lived by the apartheid perpetrators was also captured by the apartheid documentary photographers to show the contrast between the livelihood of South Africans and that of their colonial masters. Photographer Paul Weinberg was able to capture the serene livelihood with zero conflict that the wives and children of the colonial masters enjoyed in South Africa while the Africans live in shacks and poor neighbourhoods (Mofokeng et al., 2016).
Fig. 7 “Apartheid Removals in Johannesberg”, 1982: Paul Weinberg
CHAPTER 4
Camera: The perfect Anti-Apartheid Weapon
The focus of this of thesis has been to explore and outline the role that documentary photography played in revolutionizing the socio-political era towards the mitigation of segregation rules, and
