Documenting the Poetic: 10 Leading Photographers from South Africa

In a country struggling to shape its identity in the wake of recent history, photographers from South Africa have employed their chosen medium to explore an ever-changing cultural climate that is, in the words of photographer Graeme Williams, ‘like a complex social experiment.’ As a result, some of the most renowned photographers working today hail from South Africa; here, we round up ten of the leading names.

David Goldblatt (b1930)

Saturday morning at the Hypermarket: Semi-final of the Miss Lovely Legs Competition, 28 June 1980 From the series In Boksburg | © David Goldblatt / Goodman Gallery

Perhaps the most famous South African photographer working today, David Goldblatt is known worldwide for the images he captured of the country’s Apartheid era, both as a photojournalist, and for his own personal body of work. Stark, black-and-white images provide an unflinching yet poignant view of this period of South African history, and raise profound questions about inherent social structures and ideologies: from a ‘Lovely Legs’ beauty contest (Saturday Morning at the Hypermarket, Miss Lovely Legs Competition, 1980); to the chilling Lawrence Matjee after assault and detention by the Security Police (1985), in which Matjee stares out bleakly from the image, forcing the viewer to acknowledge the truth of Apartheid for the black population. South Africa remains Goldblatt’s subject today, and since the early 2000s he has begun to use colour photography, too; a muted palette that remains high in contrast, creating complex compositions that are as lyrical as they are harrowing.

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