Shooting Black and White

Transcription

Shooting
Black and White
Culture, Race and Identity
in Photojournalism
Jessica Steigerwald
Shooting Black and White
Culture, Race and Identity in Photojournalism
Jessica Steigerwald
Text © Jessica Steigerwald, 2011
University College Dublin
Clinton Institute for American Studies
Master of Arts: Media and International Conflict
Cover images:
Top: Black Panther Party members line up at a Free Huey
rally in DeFremery Park. Oakland, California, July 28, 1968.
- Stephen Shames
Bottom: Two children in Thokoza on the East Rand flee from
an advancing band of armed men moving down Khumalo Street.
South Africa, August 1990.
- Ken Oosterbroek
Introduction:
Regarding the Empathy of the Photojournalist
Around the time that photojournalist Gordon Parks was covering the civil rights struggle in the United
States, Peter Magubane had been photographing the violence in apartheid South Africa for many years.
And when documentary photojournalist Stephen Shames was finishing up an involved project on child
poverty in America, Ken Oosterbroek was out daily covering the political turmoil leading up to South
Africa's 1994 election. Each of these photographers was working in their home country; they were not
traveling to foreign lands to photograph war or document injustice. Additionally, all of their
photojournalistic bodies of work explore meanings of and issues surrounding culture, race and
identity – of which politics is inevitably entangled.
Clearly, when a photojournalist travels overseas, the environment and culture in which they will
be shooting is not their own; they are a stranger, an outsider, and – in order for their photographs to
accurately and truthfully portray their subjects and events – the photographer must make every effort to
learn about and understand the culture in which they are working. However, even when photographing
in one's home country, a photographer can still be an outsider – this is particularly true when working
in and around issues of race and identity. Still, labels of “insider” and “outsider” are not always so easy
to place on a photographer.
Gordon Parks was a black American who was determined to fight racism with a camera in a
segregated United States. Peter Magubane is a black South African of Zulu descent who would stop at
nothing to tell the truth about apartheid South Africa with his images. It is easy to call these two
“insiders” – photographers working in their own culture. Stephen Shames is a white photographer who
would often appear to be an “outsider;” yet, no matter the situation or his subject, he becomes an
“insider.” And Ken Oosterbroek, who was a white South African, can easily be placed in the “outsider”
category; yet he was one of the most dedicated and committed photojournalists in his country at the
time.
Although not always clear, these distinctions are not irrelevant. It is important to understand
how and why a photographer or journalist chooses and reports on their subjects and the aspects of their
life that go into their work. These details can have a great deal of impact on a journalistic product.
And it is in such details that the ethical issue of objectivity comes into play. As is made clear
throughout the rest of these pages, there is no such thing as objectivity in journalism. And since
objectivity does not exist in journalism, plenty of space is left for empathy. “Empathy can help
journalists deepen their understanding, allowing them to observe not only what their subjects do but
also why they do it. This kind of understanding can foster compassion and respect for others, more
sophisticated understanding of a situation, and more appropriate and productive attitudes and
responses.”Furthermore, empathy also facilitates trust, allows for deepened insight; and it is not
possible without respect for human dignity. 1 And empathy is certainly one thing that Parks, Magubane,
Shames and Oosterbroek have in common.
1 Elizabeth Fakazis, “How Close Is Too Close?: When Journalists Become Their Sources,” in Desperately Seeking Ethics:
A Guide to Media Conduct (Lanham, Maryland and Oxford: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003), 46-47.
Gordon Parks:
A “Brother” Working for a “Honky Magazine”
The title of this section refers to a conversation that Gordon Parks had with Donald Cox, a field
marshal for the Black Panther Party, at the party headquarters in Berkeley, California when “aflame
with racial unrest, the turbulent year 1969 was burning furiously.” 1 In 1969, Parks had been both
photographing and occasionally writing for Life, or “that honky magazine” as Cox designated it, for
over two decades. As America's “black revolution” was steadily building in the 1960s, Life wanted,
and indeed needed, to cover it and its spokesmen – Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam (whose members
are known as Black Muslims), as well as the Black Panthers and its vocal party members. However,
“infiltration into their volatile camps by a white publication that was held suspect seemed impossible.
Whatever attempts the magazine had made had fallen flat,” wrote Parks. 2 Where the magazine's initial
efforts to cover such stories had failed, Parks was able to successfully – and with brilliant passion,
talent and insight – photograph and write numerous stories on black subjects otherwise unattainable.
Yet being a black photojournalist in white America was not without
extreme difficulties. In addition to regularly being victim to discrimination
and racist attacks, Parks was also “frequently characterized by black
militants as a man willing to work for the oppression.” He was “the sole
black photographer on Life's masthead in the 1960s.” The magazine, with
its white staff and predominantly white readership, “often assigned Mr.
Parks to subjects that would have been difficult or impossible for a white
photojournalist to carry out.”3 Racial difficulties aside, this situation
Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Algiers, 1970
was beneficial for all parties involved. Parks would never be out of work; the magazine got the stories
it sought; the white audience gained new perspective; and, as Parks wrote, “they [black militants]
wanted to be heard, and I was in a position to accommodate them through the pages of a prestigious
magazine.”4
Gordon Parks and Life magazine certainly accommodated them; in-depth stories on Malcolm X
and the Nation of Islam in 19635 and the Black Panther Party and exiled Eldridge Cleaver in 1970, 6
among others, were given generous space on the pages of Life. Although Parks was able to gain access
to these groups and their prominent figures in part because he was black, their trust still had to be
earned. Indeed it was. “Success among whites never made Parks lose touch with black reality,” said
Malcolm X,7 who eventually became so close to Parks that he would ask the photographer to be his
daughter Qubilah's godfather.8
Issues such as access and getting close to one's subjects inevitably raise ethical questions in the
field of communications. As Parks noted, “it seems reasonable that at the time, Life's editors would
question my ability to report objectively about black militancy. I was black and my sentiments lay in
the heart of black fury sweeping the country.” 9 Parks asserted that he strove to remain “an objective
reporter with a subjective heart.” 10 Yet most students and practitioners of journalism will uphold the
notion that there is no such thing as an objective reporter. Furthermore, during the civil rights struggle,
reporters and photographers all over the country – of all races and ethnicities – willfully discarded
objectivity in the fight for equal rights for all citizens. Moneta Sleet, Jr. was one of these
photographers; he said:
In certain situations, I don't make a point of saying that I'm objective. When I was photographing the civil
rights struggle, I photographed from a black point of view. My attitude during that whole period was that
there was no question that what they were fighting for was right. There was no debating the rightness of
the cause. I made no attempt to be objective. Every photographer, black or white, brings with himself or
herself training, background, environment, and attitude. 11
Parks, who repeatedly referred to the camera, as well as the pen, as his “weapons to fight off
oppressions,”12 empathetically utilized his training, background, environment and attitude in his work –
particularly in his photographs portraying black subjects and struggles.
“Anger at social inequity was at the root of many
of Mr. Parks's best photographic stories …”13 This anger
was personal as well as general; its origin point was
Parks's hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas, and its
validation occurred in every American city and state. In
1912, the year Gordon Parks was born, Fort Scott was
“racially segregated, and discrimination pervaded …
Fort Scott was the kind of place where white children
taunted black children in the streets. It was a
community where young black men lived with
Ethel Shariff, daughter of Elijah Muhammad, Chicago, 1963
the constant fear of being beaten or shot.” 14 Parks frequently credited his mother and father, Sarah and
Jackson, for helping him endure widespread racism; “the love of this family eased the burden of being
black,” he said.15 Although family love and personal values certainly helped Parks while growing up,
these things alone could not eliminate the bigotry that pervaded in every American city where Parks
would live or work; yet he vowed to not let racism destroy him. “Still suffering the cruelties of my past,
I wanted a voice to help me escape it. In 1938 a camera I bought for $7.50 would become that voice,”
he wrote.16
Gordon Parks never completed high school and spent years working various, low-paying, and
sometimes degrading jobs; “in those days I never thought about success. I thought about survival,” he
said.17 The inspiration to purchase a camera and begin photographing came to Parks during his time at
one such job. He wrote:
I was working as a waiter on the North Coast Limited, a transcontinental train running between St. Paul,
Chicago, and Seattle. In a magazine left on the train I found pictures taken by photographers of the FSA,
or Farm Security Administration, a government agency set up by President Roosevelt … The subjects:
dispossessed migrant workers … The photographers' names stuck in my mind … The stark, tragic images
urged me on …18
Parks made money by photographing fashion in Chicago; but his consciousness and enterprise led him
to the city's south side “where poverty ensnared the huge black
population.”19 The body of photographs that resulted from a
year in Chicago's south side awarded Parks a Julius Rosenwald
Fellowship, which he served at the FSA in Washington, D.C.
under Roy Styker starting in 1942.20
Parks's time at the FSA and in the nation's capital was
pivotal both personally and professionally. He was the first –
and only – black photographer to work for the organization; yet
white southern congressmen and many other government
“American Gothic,” Ella Watson, Washington, D.C., 1942
employees were unhappy with Stryker for a black man's addition to the staff. 21 Furthermore, as Parks
wrote, “in this radiant, historic place, racism was rampant. White restaurants shooed me to the back
door. White theaters refused me. The tone of white clerks at Julius Garfinckel's department store riled
me … Washington had turned ugly.”22 Stryker was
the person responsible for sending Parks to these
white establishments that denied blacks service; he
needed Parks to experience what he was to fight in
D.C. Stryker advised Parks that in order to produce
superior work he had to get to the source of bigotry,
talk to other black people, learn about their lives, and
learn the power of photojournalism by looking at a
myriad of images – starting with the picture files at the FSA. 23
A woman and her dog, Harlem, New York, May 1943
Stryker told Parks, “the camera is only able to expose the true face of America by showing those people
who have suffered at the hands of others. Your images will have an emotional impact only if you, the
photographer, bring your own feelings to your pictures.”24
Parks heeded this advice and put enormous effort, as well as his own feelings and experiences,
into the images that truly launched his extraordinary career. Parks never lost his appreciation for what
he gained at the FSA:
Despite the racial pressures, what I had learned within the year outdistanced the bigotry I encountered,
and the experience had proved to be so important to my training as a documentary journalist – far more
important than those technical aspects involving the use of a camera. I had been forced to take a hard
look backward at black history; to realize the burdens of those who had lived through it. Now, I was
much better prepared to face up to that history yet to be made. 25
Using his new training, Parks made what would become his most famous image, “American Gothic,”
of Ella Watson, a black charwoman who worked in the FSA building. After seeing the photograph two
days later, Stryker shook his head and said to Parks, “well, you're catching on, but that picture could get
us all fired.”26 Ella Watson “became perhaps his most important subject;” and today her image is an
“icon of American culture.” 27 Parks continued to photograph Watson and her family, making their story
his second sustained photographic essay.28 He wrote:
Photographing bigotry was, as Stryker had warned, very difficult … The evil of its effect however, was
discernible in the black faces of the oppressed and their blighted neighborhood lying within the shadows
of the Capitol. It was in those shadows that the charwoman lived, and I followed her through them – to
her dark house, her storefront church; to her small happinesses and daily frustrations. 29
In addition to Ella Watson's story, Parks photographed daily black – and occasionally white – life, work
and strife in Washington D.C. and other parts of the country. The photographs that Parks took during
his time at the FSA “capture the dignity of black Americans” and offer “faces that display a wide range
of feelings and the humanity of his subjects.” 30
Yet this can be said about all of Parks's photojournalistic work, not just of his FSA imagery.
When the FSA was abolished in 1943 the photography department, still under the direction of Stryker,
was absorbed into the Office of War Information (OWI). “Stryker had set high standards for FSA
photographers: He expected them not only to get involved with their subjects but to have empathy for
the people whose lives they were documenting.” 31 Stryker saw
these qualities in Parks and offered him one of the few available
OWI staff photographer positions. For the next two years Parks
took on a variety of assignments for the OWI, including making
photographs of thirteen successful black Americans which were
published with accompanying text in the book Thirteen Against
the Odds, as well as covering the training of the Air Force's 332nd
Pursuit Squadron, an all-black fighter group.32 Parks spent several
Pilots gambling in ready room, Michigan, 1943
months with the pilots; “he not only flew with them but ate,
bunked, and played cards with them … Parks had been accepted as one of the group.” 33 Parks was to
accompany the group overseas as a war correspondent but was told his papers were not in order when it
was time to depart. A press writer at the OWI told Parks the true reason for his denial to ship out; he
said to Parks, “my friend, there's some politicians who resist giving the Negro pilots publicity. That's
your real problem.”34
This certainly would not be the last time Parks would experience discrimination in his
professional life, but he would not let it hinder his growing success. After his time at the OWI, Parks
began to look for fashion work in New York. He was denied work by the magazine Harper's Bazaar
because, at the time, the Hearst corporation forbid hiring blacks. With the help of photographer
Edward Steichen, Parks was hired at Vogue and worked with the publication for many years.35 When
Parks began working for Life he continued to make absolutely stunning fashion photographs; yet as he
put it, “documentary urgings were still gnawing at me, still waiting for fulfillment.” 36
In addition to being hired at Life to photograph
fashion, Parks was also hired to cover a story on a notorious
Harlem gang called the Midtowners which was led by a
sixteen-year-old boy nicknamed Red Jackson.37 “Red's
perilous existence was a far cry from the perfumed houses of
high fashion,” Parks wrote.38 Parks spent months with the
gang, accompanied them wherever they went, and even came
to like Red. The Harlem gang essay featuring the nowfamous portrait of Red Jackson, was published in 1948 and
brought Parks recognition with a new audience. The story,
Red Jackson, Harlem, New York, 1948
like many of Parks's early photo essays for Life, was “a revelation for many of the magazine's
predominantly white readers and a confirmation for Mr. Parks of the camera's power to shape public
discussion.”39 “Most of the gang photos Parks shot of the Midtowners took on such an importance
because of Parks's ability to capture incredible insight and depth into the everyday living and ways of
survival for these gang members … something which had rarely, if ever, been portrayed in the
American media at the time.” 40 Photographer St. Clair Bourne said of Parks, “he educated white people
about the black experience … when Gordon came along there was a great deal of ignorance about the
real experience of black people.” 41
Bringing revelatory photo stories on black experiences into the homes and minds of white
readers via Life was but one of Gordon Parks's many diverse contributions to American media and to
the overall understanding of racial and social issues in the United States. Through Life Parks also
showed white readers segregation in the south, crime in Chicago, poverty in New York (and Rio de
Janiero, Brazil), the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr., and a plethora of other serious – and some more
lighthearted – insightful and informational stories. Additionally, Parks worked in Paris for Life for two
years; never stopped writing both fiction and nonfiction, as well as poetry and music; became
Hollywood's first black director and made many films; helped found Essence magazine; created a large
body of nude and abstract photographs, a number of magnificent celebrity and artist portraits; and he
painted. Parks won innumerable awards and was the recipient of over 40 honorary doctorates before
his death in 2006.42 “As a photographer Mr. Parks combined a
devotion to documentary realism with a knack for making his
own feelings self-evident;” furthermore, “no matter what
medium he chose for his self-expression, he sought to
challenge stereotypes while still communicating to a large
audience.”43 “He leaves a legacy that is luminous for its
prodigious creativity and contributions to American culture, for
at no time during his inspiring odyssey did Parks lose sight of
our shared humanity.”44
Mrs. Jefferson, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1949
Notes
1 Gordon Parks, Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective (New York: Bulfinch Press, 1997), 259-260.
2 Ibid., 240.
3 Andy Grundberg, “Gordon Parks, a Master of the Camera, Dies at 93,” The New York Times, March 8, 2006, sec. Arts,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/arts/design/08parks.html.
4 Parks, Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective, 242.
5 Gordon Parks, “Black Muslim’s Cry Grows Louder,” LIFE, May 31, 1963, http://books.google.com.
6 Gordon Parks, “Black Panthers: the hard edge of confrontation,” LIFE, February 6, 1970, http://books.google.com.
7 Skip Berry, Gordon Parks, Black Americans of Achievement (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991), 87.
9 Ibid., 240.
10 Berry, Gordon Parks, 86.
11 Howard Chapnick, Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press,
1994), 106.
13 Grundberg, “Gordon Parks, a Master of the Camera, Dies at 93.”
15 Ibid., 22.
19 Ibid., 30.
20 Ibid., 30.
23 Ibid., 32.
25 The Library of Congress, Fields of Vision: The Photographs of Gordon Parks, Fields of Vision (London and
Washington, D.C.: Giles in association with the Library of Congress, 2011), xiii.
27 Philip Brookman, “Unlocked Doors: Gordon Parks at the Crossroads,” in Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective (New York:
Bulfinch Press, 1997), 348.
28 Ibid., 349.
29 Gordon Parks, Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 84.
30 Charles Johnson, “Gordon Parks (Introduction),” in Fields of Vision: The Photographs of Gordon Parks, Fields of
Vision (London and Washington, D.C.: Giles in association with the Library of Congress, 2011), xi.
32 Ibid., 72.
33 Ibid., 73.
35 Ibid., 76.
36 Ibid., 80.
37 Gordon Parks, “Harlem Gang Leader,” LIFE, November 1, 1948, http://books.google.com.
38 Parks, Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective., 80.
40 Photo District News, “PDN & Kodak Professional Present Legends Online: Gordon Parks,” Legends Online, 2000,
http://pdngallery.com/legends/parks/intro_set.shtml.
41 Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, “‘Life’ Photographer And ‘Shaft’ Director Broke Color Barriers,” The Washington Post,
March 8, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701708.html.
42 Parks, Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective; Berry, Gordon Parks.
44 Johnson, “Gordon Parks (Introduction),” xiii.
Stephen Shames:
A White Black Panther and an “Undercover Nigger”
Photojournalist Stephen Shames has an undeniable knack for fitting in with and being accepted by any
and all of his photographic subjects – a skill that many photojournalists find daunting and difficult.
This indispensable ability to fit in, combined with years – not weeks or months – of time spent with his
subjects, allows Shames to produce bodies of photographs that go far beyond surface appearances to
present an insider's view into his subjects' lives. Initially one would not think that a white photographer
would so easily be able to become a member of the Black Panther
Party; part of a homeless family living out of their car; a resident of
a dangerous neighborhood in the Bronx; or a father figure to
children in Uganda, but Shames has been accepted as an insider
into all of these circumstances – and many more. This explains
why several former Black Panthers got up at a talk Shames was
giving at the University of California, Berkeley a few years ago
and said, “Steve, we always considered you a member of the
party,” not just a photographer.1 It also explains why a black
Poncho – Bathgate, “Bronx Boys”
teenager in the Bronx said to Shames, “I know what you are, you're
an undercover nigger.” Shames considered this to be a great compliment and said, “I think he was
telling me he saw me as sympathetic.” 2
Shames was only twenty years old when he began photographing the Black Panther Party in
1967 as a student at University of California, Berkeley. He was actively involved in the anti-Vietnam
War movement or, as he put it, “I was a revolutionary back then.” 3 After making his first image of
Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton on April 15 at the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam,
Shames knew he wanted to work with the two. “There was something about them that attracted me.
They exuded charisma and positive power … I went and talked to Bobby Seale. We hit it off. He
became a father figure to me. I think he thought I had talent as a photographer so he worked with me.
The Panthers were very media conscious and knew the value of photos,” said Shames. 4 Recognizing
Bobby Seale as being his “mentor” and “surrogate dad,” Shames also credits Seale with teaching him
“black.”5 Shames became close with many members of the Black Panthers and because of this was
granted unusual access for a photographer to the party. In addition, Shames supplied photographs for
the party's weekly newspaper and taught photography to some of the party members. 6 Both Shames
and Seale knew the power of photography; “his photographs were key in capturing the peoples'
imagination and further raising their awareness of the party and their consciousness of the issues at
stake. Effectively communicating our message was essential,” said Seale. 7
Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children Program, Chicago, 1970
However, the Black Panther Party was frequently misrepresented in the media and often
misunderstood by the public. As Seale wrote, “our message was not always understood by mainstream
America – this was especially true of our decision to arm ourselves … To the media, the very idea that
we had guns was reprehensible, but in fact, the guns were dead legal …” 8 Furthermore, “over the years
the media continually distorted facts, saying that we had instigated shootouts with the police when in
fact, as we now know from Freedom of Information Act documents, the FBI worked with police
departments to plan attacks on Black Panther Party offices.”9 The Black Panther Party was an
organization advocating change with legitimate social and political goals, and was devoted to
grassroots community organizing; yet it was the members' emphasis on the right to defend themselves
from any vicious racist attack that was misconstrued to the point of turning the victims into the
perpetrators. “These photographs [by Shames] reveal that the Panthers' peoples' revolution was not
about violence but about the need to deliver political, economic, and social justice – to empower people
via progressive legislation and policies that made sense,” wrote Seale. 10
From the years 1967 to 1973 – the height of the Black Panther Party movement, “Stephen
Shames had unprecedented access to the organization and captured not only its public face – street
demonstrations, protests, and militant armed posturing – but also
unscripted behind the scenes moments, from private Party meetings held
in its headquarters to Bobby Seale at work on his mayoral campaign in
Oakland … His remarkable insider status enabled him to create an
uncommonly nuanced portrait of this dynamic social movement, during
one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history.”11 Despite Shames's
intimate portrait of the movement and its members, his images were not
regularly available to a mass audience at the time of their production.
Huey Newton at his home in Berkeley, 1970
His work was published in underground newspapers and he was a stringer for a few larger news outlets,
but the whole body of work was not published in book form until 2006. Shames had signed a contract
for publication of a book in the 1970s, but Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, golfed with the
chairman of the publishing house and prevented the book from being published; “I chose to try other
publishers, but Nixon [and his administration] had gotten to them all, scared them all. It took another
35 years for the book to come out,” said Shames.12
Today these images are most certainly viewed differently from at the time they were produced,
yet Shames's book, The Black Panthers, is just as insightful, educational and moving as it would have
been if published forty years ago. “Although today the Black Panther Party remains entrenched as a
potent symbol in our popular culture … its historic legacy remains controversial, shrouded by
falsehoods and misconceptions within the mainstream public. On the one hand, the party is seen as a
revolutionary organization dedicated to the liberation of oppressed
people. Yet a competing view depicts the group as an antiwhite,
ultraleftist, misogynist organization of gun-toting hoodlums.” 13
Shames's photographs directly challenge every misconception
about the Black Panthers and his book is an invaluable resource on
the party.
“The Panthers portrayed their image of strength through
photographs … Bobby and the other leaders felt my photographs
captured the essence of their message. They were willing to let
me do my honest photojournalism and realized that the images
David Hilliard embraces his wife Pat, Berkeley, 1970
would speak for themselves,” said Shames. The Black Panthers came to trust Gordon Parks because he
was a black photographer who wanted to tell the party's story in a prominent magazine; the Panthers
came to trust Stephen Shames because of his personality and character, as well as the countless hours
(which turned into years) spent with the members – regardless of his white skin. “[Being white] was
never an issue. The Panthers wanted to end racism. They believed in the words of Martin Luther King,
in 'judging a person by content of their character, not by the color of their skin.' They saw me as a
comrade, a person who wanted to end injustice like they did,” said Shames. 14
Just as the Black Panthers trusted Shames based on his individuality, his other subjects did not
judge him based on his race. Again, this is because of the amount of time Shames spends with his
subjects and the great effort he makes to understand his subjects and become part of their lives. On
photographing subjects of other races or from different backgrounds, he said:
I don't think people care who you are or where you come from if they like you, if they think you come as
a friend who is trying to who is trying to learn from their life. I try to understand the point of view of
those I photograph. I embrace the lives of those I photograph. I learn from them. I listen to the music, read
novels, listen to people talk, try to understand how they make sense of the world. I come as a traveler but
not as a tourist. The tourist stays in his cultural bubble, sleeps in a hotel, eats American food, then gets on
the tourist bus to ‘see’ things. The traveler experiences life. He eats the local food, stays with people,
hangs out. I think good photographers do that and that is why we never have problems fitting into
different places. 15
While Shames does not feel that his race has a direct influence on his work, he does feel that his
childhood has an impact. “I came from an abusive family and felt like an orphan. The black
community is used to abuse. People I met in the ghetto welcomed and nurtured orphans like me.
Because they welcomed me, I feel a part of that community. I feel at home,” Shames said. 16
Three on Bed – Bathgate, “Bronx Boys”
From 1977 to 2000, Shames photographed a group of boys coming of age in a tough
neighborhood in the Bronx. The resulting book, Bronx Boys, has recently been published as an ebook
by FotoEvidence Press.17 “These young men allowed Shames extraordinary access into their lives on
the street and in their homes … He captures the brutality of the times – the fights, the shootings, the
arrests, the drug deals – but also revelatory moments of love and tenderness.” 18 Publisher Svetlana
Bachevanova said, “I wanted to publish Bronx Boys because the work respects the dignity of these
young people, struggling to find meaning, love and community in the most difficult circumstances.
Bronx Boys provides a remarkably intimate story of young people that is touching, tragic, but also
hopeful.”19
Although started as an assignment for Look in 1977, the Bronx project became very personal for
Shames and he decided to continue photographing even when the magazine “died” mid-assignment. “I
stayed [in the Bronx] with this because it was so much more than journalism. It was not just a story. It
was a chance to photograph from the heart,” said Shames. 20 Because Shames was comfortable in the
boys' neighborhood and got to know his subjects, they were comfortable in front of his lens. “I have
always been an outsider, but I do not feel like an outsider. The people in the Bronx made me feel like
an insider,” he said.21 Moreover, the Bronx project was
autobiographical for Shames: “the kids I was photographing were
on an emotional plane similar to the one I lived on when I was a
teenager. Their raw world of violence, rejection, love, hope and
redemption was mine.”22
Both The Black Panthers and Bronx Boys were published
many years after their images were made, but this does not hinder
their revelatory power. One project that earned Shames
recognition and a published book (1991) closer to the time of its
production was his many-year project on child poverty in
America.23
Eleanor, 14, with Livita, 8 months, Chicago, 1985
Throughout the years of his child poverty project, Shames lived and ate with the people he photographed.
Living under the same substandard conditions allowed him to develop a closer rapport with them, to be
part of their lives, to share their pain, and to develop a greater understanding of them, which is reflected in
his photographs. Subjective participatory photojournalism may be colored by the photographer's
involvement, but it also makes for greater insights and deeper revelations by the photojournalist. 24
This project, Outside the Dream, included children of many races and backgrounds in both urban and
rural settings resulting in a “far-ranging condemnation of the corrosive effects that poverty can have on
children.”25 “The greatest strength of Outside the Dream is its bracing tone of moral outrage at the
effects that poverty can have on children. In trying to promote social change by arousing public
opinion, Mr. Shames follows in the honored tradition of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine.” 26
Shames stresses that over the course of his career he has not lost trust in the power of
photography to effect social change. “What I have learned in 40-plus years as a photographer is that
photography can capture people's attention and open their hearts,
but you need a good plan and a movement if you want to make
the world a better place,” said Shames. 27 In addition to his
extensive photographic projects, all of which can at least partially
be viewed on his website,28 Shames has founded L.E.A.D.
Uganda, which locates AIDS orphans, former child soldiers, and
children living in refugee camps, sends them to leading schools
and colleges and teaches them leadership and entrepreneurial
skills. Stephen Shames sees all of his work as a healing process
Sarah, an AIDS orphan, on her first day of first grade
which has always been related to fatherhood and family for him.
He notes that documenting the Black Panther Party was possible because Bobby Seale was like a father
to him and, “later, when I started shooting the Bronx Boys, and child poverty, street kids, and later
Ugandan AIDS orphans and child soldiers, I became a father to some of these kids,” he said. 29
Notes
1 Stephen Shames, The Black Panthers (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2006), 8.
2 Svetlana Bachevanova, “FotoWitness: Stephen Shames Interview,” FotoEvidence, 2011,
http://fotoevidence.com/interview-stephen-shames.
3 Sara Rosen, “STEPHEN SHAMES: The Black Panthers,” Miss Rosen, May 25, 2010,
http://missrosen.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/stephen-shames-the-black-panthers/.
4 Ibid.
5 Shames, The Black Panthers, 8; Rosen, “STEPHEN SHAMES: The Black Panthers.”
6 Bobby Seale, “Foreword,” in The Black Panthers (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2006), 12.
7 Ibid., 12.
8 Ibid., 12.
9 Ibid., 12.
10 Ibid., 13.
11 Rosen, “STEPHEN SHAMES: The Black Panthers.”
12 Ibid.
13 Charles E. Jones, “Recovering the Legacy of the Black Panther Party Through the Photographs of Stephen Shames,” in
The Black Panthers (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2006), 141.
14 Rosen, “STEPHEN SHAMES: The Black Panthers.”
15 Bachevanova, “FotoWitness: Stephen Shames Interview.”
16 Ibid.
17 Stephen Shames, Bronx Boys, ebook. (New York: FotoEvidence, 2011), http://www.fotoevidence.com/bronx-boys.
18 artdaily.org, “Fotoevidence Announces Publication of Bronx Boys Photographs by Stephen Shames,” artdaily.org,
August 11, 2011, http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=49079.
19 Ibid.
20 Claire O’Neill, “A Lens On Life For Boys In The Bronx,” The Picture Show: NPR, August 4, 2011,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/08/04/138897501/a-lens-on-life-for-boys-in-the-bronx.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Stephen Shames, Outside The Dream: Child Poverty in America (New York: Aperture Foundation, 1991).
24 Chapnick, Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism, 24-25.
25 Charles Hagen, “Review/Photography; Poverty Among America’s Children,” The New York Times, July 30, 1993, sec.
Arts, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/30/arts/review-photography-poverty-among-america-s-children.html?src=pm.
26 Ibid.
27 Bachevanova, “FotoWitness: Stephen Shames Interview.”
28 Stephen Shames, “Stephen Shames”, 2009, http://www.stephenshames.com/.
29 O’Neill, “A Lens On Life For Boys In The Bronx.”
Peter Magubane:
Nothing Will Stop This “Stubborn Zulu” From Telling the Truth
When black photojournalist Peter Magubane stated that nothing would stop him from telling the truth
about apartheid South Africa, he meant nothing; and he kept his word. In the more than half a century
Magubane has been photographing, he has not abandoned his home despite segregation, discrimination,
police brutality, multiple injuries, countless arrests, 586 days of solitary confinement, and being banned
from photographing for five years. “It would not have paid me had I left
my country. I think I have gained more, because I have helped liberate my
country with my pictures. It was more important to work in my country, to
get as much material out of the country for the world to see, than to work in
other parts of the world,” he said.1 During apartheid, South African
authorities made myriad attempts to silence Magubane and eliminate his
pictures, a task they successfully accomplished against many other
photojournalists.2 Still, Peter Magubane would not be silenced – his
Weeping girl, 1976
indomitable efforts and defiant images have become known and celebrated worldwide as a paramount
component in the struggle against apartheid.
“As a black and brave photojournalist, Peter Magubane was an intolerable thorn in the side for a
system where racism is law. In South Africa, this was an oxymoron that the government did not
approve of. As Magubane said, 'It wasn't easy in the Apartheid years, but I'm a stubborn Zulu – no one
gets between me and my camera. You had to think fast and be fast to survive in those days.'” 3
Magubane began his career as a photojournalist at Drum magazine in 1954 (after working there as a
driver and “tea-boy”) and continued his work in South Africa with established media outlets, such as
the Rand Daily Mail. His photographs were also published worldwide, including in Life, Time, and
many other prominent publications. However, Magubane – a professional working for established
publications – was refused a press card because he was black. “No black person in that magazine
[Drum] had a press card, because the commissioner of the police signed the press card, and, therefore,
you had to be very good to be able to get a press card. Well, I was one of the bad boys …” he said. 4
Working without a press card often brought Magubane great trouble with the authorities,
including many arrests. This certainly did not keep him from photographing and he became very good
at outwitting the police; he recounts times when he concealed his camera in a loaf of bread and a carton
of milk, and when he used his light meter to pretend to communicate with his editor to avoid trouble
with a group of police officers.5 However, if his tricks failed, he was ready for the consequences. “I
was prepared to face the music. I did not use any pseudonyms. I used my own name under my
pictures, and I had exhibitions all over the world. I wasn't afraid to speak out,” Magubane said. 6
Anger Begins to Rise in Soweto, June 1976
Peter Magubane was born in 1932 just outside of Johannesburg; he and his family, like all black
South Africans, were personally affected and their lives were interrupted as the laws of apartheid were
enacted and began to shape the country. Magubane gave up school with the dream of working as a
photographer for Drum; “in those days Drum was very good … it was the only magazine then in South
Africa exposing all the inhuman things done to blacks by white South Africans in the government,” he
said.7 While Drum was responsible for exposing a great deal about apartheid's injustice, it was not the
sole purpose of the magazine. Political events provided the key landmarks of the apartheid period yet
black culture and creativity flourished. Drum was created for an urban literate black (and liberal white)
audience with a focus on culture as well as social issues. It was a magazine about black society and for
a black audience; and although it was not founded or run by blacks, Drum employed many black
photographers and writers.8
Soweto, 1958
All South African photography, especially that in Drum, though having its own distinctive
characteristics, must be understood as part of an international photographic and journalistic scene. 9 As
Magubane remembers, “At the time, those years [the 1950s], journalism was unknown among the
blacks. Those among us who worked on Drum were fortunate because some of the people on the
magazine were whites from overseas who were prepared to teach us.” 10 Magubane also credits the
Family of Man exhibition, which traveled to Johannesburg in 1956, as a great influence on his work
and as motivation to become a better photographer. 11 Black South Africa remained open to global
cultural influences, especially during the early apartheid years, and photography was a significant
channel though which these influences arrived in the county – both directly, and indirectly as South
Africans absorbed the visual culture of the U.S. and Europe. 12 “Drum was one of the main publications
providing a vehicle for the expression of an international humanist style and philosophy of photography
in South African visual culture … Drum was crucial to the development of black photojournalism in
South Africa, providing a training ground, and connecting photographers such as Peter Magubane and
others to the international world of photojournalism.” 13
While creative possibility in South African photography still flourished in the 1950s, “the
Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960 brought it to an abrupt end, ushering in an increasingly hostile
climate for photographers” that would not end until the demise of apartheid. 14 The Sharpeville
Massacre, where police opened fire on a crowd killing more than sixty people, was hugely
consequential for apartheid South Africa as well as for Peter Magubane. Still a budding photojournalist
in 1960, Magubane was too shocked to make any useable images of the aftermath of the massacre.
After a harsh talking to from his editor, Magubane decided he would prove himself from then on.
“From that day I made up my mind that whenever I find myself in a situation like Sharpeville I shall
think of my pictures first before anything. I no longer get shocked; I am a feelingless beast while
taking photographs. It is only after I complete my assignment that I think of the dangers that
surrounded me, the tragedies that befell my people,” he said. 15
Magubane's photographs of the Sharpeville Massacre may have been unusable, but he took
many powerful images of the Sharpeville funerals which were published in the May issue of Drum and
appeared (uncredited) in Life.16 These are the images that would
truly launch his career and he would continue to regularly
produce quality work despite the difficulties faced by all black
photographers. Although blacks were denied press cards and
hassled by the police, they were depended on by many South
African publications to photograph in certain areas and get
Sharpeville Funeral, 1960
certain stories. Magubane's work with the Rand Daily Mail would start in 1965. “The Rand Daily
Mail is a liberal newspaper that for many years has employed black journalists even though some of the
white journalists resent the idea. Today [1978], with riots in the black township of Soweto, black
photographers are able to show their skills. The paper needs their pictures. And to some extent that
was true even back in the 1960s,” Magubane wrote.17 Ian Berry, another Drum photographer, also
noted that Magubane sometimes faced trouble from Xhosas as well as from the authorities because of
his Zulu background and that therefore it was sometimes easier for him to photograph stories in certain
black areas.18
While being black in apartheid South Africa was sometimes beneficial as a photographer, the
dangers far outweighed the advantages. Magubane experienced many difficult situations and setbacks
in his early career, “but it was in 1969 that disaster really befell me,” he wrote. 19 When taking clothing
and fruit to the imprisoned Winnie Mandela, wife of (also imprisoned) ANC leader Nelson Mandela,
Magubane was arrested and accused of plotting to help Winnie Mandela escape. He was detained in
June 1969 and not released until September 1970; within two weeks of his release, he was subjected to
a five-year ban.20 Without ever being convicted of a crime, Magubane lost seven years of his
photographic career, and his life. The Rand Daily Mail reemployed Magubane in 1975; “it was like
being back from the dead,” he said. 21
“A life smothered with a bullet in Soweto … August 1976; the headline says it all.”
The Soweto uprisings of June 1976 put South Africa into the harsh international spotlight yet
again. “By the 1970s nearly all the adult black politicians had been detained or jailed and their parties
outlawed. This may explain why the riots that broke out in Soweto in June included mostly children.
The South African government, with its police and troops and its version of the law, had succeeded in
shattering organized black opposition. Now, almost without any control or organization, black high
school students were acting out in their anger,” wrote Magubane, who photographed extensively in
Soweto, where he also lived for many years.22 Soweto was the site of terrible violence and it was
extremely difficult to work as a photographer there; “the police do not like to see people taking pictures
when they are shooting or charging with batons … assaulting the press was a way of intimidating them,
of trying to make them stop telling the truth.” 23 But, as Magubane said, nothing would stop him from
telling the truth. Magubane was committed to using his photography to fight apartheid from its
beginning until its end. “I would not be sorry if I died doing this. I would be dying for the cause. I
would be dying trying to liberate my country and myself,” he said. 24
Soweto, 1976
Magubane's work, the majority of which has been collected in a number of books, “provides a
visual history of apartheid and the movement against it” and, moreover, it “has helped expose South
Africa's humanitarian crimes to the West.” 25 “After Soweto, South Africa would never be the same: the
white government did not manage to regain control of the situation. The world saw Soweto in flames
and considered it one of the most glaring symbols of brutality. This was also due to the courage, the
eyes and the lens of Peter Magubane.”26 Still, Magubane credits the people of South Africa and his
community for making his work possible. “I must say I'm very grateful to the treatment that I've gotten
all these years from my community. Because without them, without their patience, I would not have
operated freely. They did understand the work that I was doing. They knew that it was not for me only,
even though I was being paid for doing that. It was for the sake of the country that I was doing this,”
he said.27
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela in Soweto after Mandela's release from prison, 1990
Magubane turned to documenting native South African culture and traditions, as well as
contemporary social issues, with the end of apartheid and the election of his friend, Nelson Mandela, as
president. These bodies of work, also produced into a number of books and exhibits, are a long way
from the harsh news imagery Magubane specialized in for so many years; but he feels that it is of equal
importance for South Africans to document. He said:
People need to know how we lived in the country for all these years to deal with things like the vanishing
tribes. That is important to document, not leave it to Europeans to come down to South Africa and
photograph this and have books made like they have done with other parts of Africa. It is important that
one deals with these subjects, especially the street children and the children working, so that the
government can do something about the plight of these children. 28
Peter Magubane has dedicated his life to using photography to address and help correct social and
political wrongs, from apartheid to child labor. And though he has suffered pain and loss for his efforts,
he says he has no hatred whatsoever: “Even though seven years of my photographic career was taken
away by the South African police and government, I will be able to make amends. Who am I to refuse
to accept people of all colors and embrace them so that we can live peacefully in our own country?” 29
Notes
1 Ken Light, Witness in Our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers (Washington and London: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 2000), 59.
2 Darren Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa (Pretoria, South Africa: Unisa Press, 2009).
3 Alessandra Mauro, My Brother’s Keeper: Documentary Photographers and Human Rights (Rome, Italy: Contrasto,
2007), 83.
4 Light, Witness in Our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers, 57.
5 Peter Magubane, Magubane’s South Africa (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978); Light, Witness in Our Time: Working
Lives of Documentary Photographers.
7 Magubane, Magubane’s South Africa, 2.
8 Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa.
9 Ibid., 6.
12 Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa, 6.
13 Ibid., 9.
14 Ibid., 9.
15 Magubane, Magubane’s South Africa; Light, Witness in Our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers.
16 Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa, 162; Peter Magubane, “South Africa Torn by
Fury,” Life, April 11, 1960, http://books.google.com.
18 Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa, 170.
20 Ibid.; Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa.
22 Ibid., 11.
23 Ibid., 12.
25 Ibid., 54.
26 Mauro, My Brother’s Keeper: Documentary Photographers and Human Rights, 85.
28 Ibid., 60-61.
29 Ibid., 61.
Ken Oosterbroek:
The Dedicated White South African Who “Got Whacked”
Fellow photojournalist Greg Marinovich admiringly refers to Ken Oosterbroek as “the ultimate
professional” in his memoir, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War.1 Oosterbroek was
one of the most dedicated, driven, and recognized photojournalists working in South Africa's violent
yet hopeful transitional years before the 1994 election that was to be
the true end to apartheid rule. However, Oosterbroek was killed
while on assignment in Thokoza, a South African township, on
April 18, 1994, just nine days before polling day. Although it has
never been confirmed, it is widely believed that he was killed by
A policeman in Thokoza, August 1993
a gunshot from a member of the National Peace-Keeping Force (NPKF) which was firing in response
to Inkatha sniper attacks in the township. 2 According to a newspaper article about the incident, in
which at least 19 people were killed and Marinovich was wounded, “Residents of Thokoza yesterday
felt that if the NPKF had never entered the township, the killings might have been avoided.” 3
Had this particular incident been avoided, Oosterbroek's death could have come at any other
time in his career. He risked his life every day working in the dangerous townships of South Africa.
“One of these days one of us is going to get whacked,” he said half-jokingly to his friends and
colleagues at a braai (barbeque). 4 But Ken Oosterbroek was serious about photography, about his work
and about himself; he was a talented photographer and a perfectionist with a driving commitment and
passion who, in his short career, helped South Africans and people around the world understand the
political realities of South Africa in the early 1990s. 5
Photographers such as Oosterbroek are often described as “crazy” for putting their lives on the
line to document war. “Except, of course, people like Ken Oosterbroek are not crazy; they say they are
driven, and here is a single consistency in his life: he wasn't content with merely witnessing his time,
he wanted to help define it.” 6 Oosterbroek was born in 1962 in Port Elizabeth and lived his entire life
in South Africa. His interest in photography began on a holiday to Cape Town with friends in 1979;
but it was the two years of compulsory national service in the South African army from 1980 to 1982
that “forged Ken Oosterbroek the news photographer – more specifically, the war zone photographer.” 7
Although strictly forbidden, he smuggled a camera to the border where he was stationed and recorded
his daily life in the army. These photographs include moments of fun, relaxation, boredom, and horror.
“Obviously these are not the photographs of a war photographer; they are the photographs of a soldier
vacillating between participation and testimony … However, if there is any sign of the future Ken
Oosterbroek in these images, it is in the constant search for the human moment.” 8 Oosterbroek wanted
to be a news photographer and he worked hard for a job. He began working for The Star in 1986; this
Johannesburg newspaper was “his ideal.”9
Kevin Carter aims his camera to take a picture of Ken Oosterbroek in Soweto, April 1993
It wouldn't be long before Oosterbroek began winning awards for his photography; and in 1991
he was appointed The Star's chief photographer. He was admired by his friends and colleagues, not just
for his photographs, but for his personality and dedication as well. “Aside from his photographic
brilliance it is his generosity and professionalism, particularly when it came to looking after his
colleagues, that were most discussed in the weeks after his death.” 10 Oosterbroek is also credited with
turning The Star's photography department around after his promotion. The Star's picture editor, Robin
Comley, said of Oosterbroek, “When he went out, I knew we had a page one picture. He was an
absolute perfectionist on the job … In addition, by the time I got there Ken had already brought a
professionalism and passion to the department that had never been seen before.” 11 Oosterbroek hired
João Silva to help photograph the political violence and he worked closely with friends Silva,
Marinovich and Kevin Carter. These four photographers together became known as “the Bang-Bang
Paparazzi” or “the Bang-Bang Club,” terms coined by a local magazine in 1992. 12 But the
photographers themselves did not like being referred to as “paparazzi,” nor did they adhere to club
rules; they worked in a group mainly for safety and camaraderie, not exclusivity. “There was never a
bang-bang club, actually. It was a magazine's smart story tag line. Among the people in South Africa
who covered the conflict was a group of still photographers who covered it with passion, zeal and
honesty. We slowly became friends,” said Marinovich. 13
Trains linking South Africa's townships with central Johannesburg
have frequently been targets for violent attacks, 1992
Political turbulence, violence and massacres did not scare Oosterbroek; he did not hesitate to
photograph the truth and he always put himself where he could most accurately tell the story.
Marinovich stated that, as chief photographer, Ken didn't have to be there; “He was there because he
knew it was important … He felt it was his duty to show what was happening. And he was aware of
the emotional and psychological impact of his pictures – and that he would get very strong pictures.” 14
You could say that his photographs from this period [1989-1994] came as close as any to documenting the
country's political and social life. You could say that Ken was photographing the end of an era. On the
one hand, just being a newspaper photographer at the time gave you this opportunity. On the other, you
had to want it. Ken, as chief photographer, could have avoided some of the darker aspects. But he didn't.
In many ways, personal ways, he couldn't. He was covering the story. It was also his story. 15
In fact, it was every South African's story; and the white photojournalists working in the 1990s owed a
great deal to the black photojournalists who came before them. Yet there were considerable differences
in the personal and working environments of black and white photographers in South Africa through all
the years of apartheid and leading up to the elections.
“We were all white, middle-class young men, but we went to those unfamiliar black townships
for widely differing reasons and with contrasting approaches,” wrote Marinovich. 16 Many years later,
in an interview, Marinovich explained how he sometimes felt like a voyeur, even when photographing
in his home country: “You're a visitor. You're not the people suffering …” 17 White South African
photojournalists were constantly caught in a contradictory situation. They were sometimes insiders,
working in their home country; but often they were outsiders, photographing the struggles of peoples'
lives that they could never experience firsthand. “There was
always a gulf that was difficult to cross,” wrote Marinovich; “the
cultural differences between a white boy from the suburbs and
someone brought up in a township were massive.”18 The key
Thokoza resident's home is ablaze, August 1993
difference between black and white South African photographers
is that “most white photographers lived life in two different realms. There was life in the enclaves of
white South Africa, and life in the townships where they went to catch the stories … [most] black
photographers never left the townships. This was the only life for most of them. Violence was not
something they visited; it defined the world for them.” 19
While white photographers often found it difficult to be an insider in their own country, they did
not have to deal with the same daily police brutality and press restrictions that black photographers
encountered. “Black photographers had the language and cultural skills
and contacts in black communities that allowed them greater insight and
access, unlike the whites, who hardly ever understood even one of the
nine major black languages. But the black photojournalists were much
more prone to harassment by the police – no white photographer was
ever detained for 18 months in solitary as Magubane had been,” wrote
Marinovich.20 He also noted that even “in the post-apartheid era that
followed Mandela's release, black journalists continued to have it
tougher than their white counterparts.” 21
Campaign for prisoners' rights, 1993
Dangerous working conditions for photographers and journalists – no matter their race – was of
great concern to Oosterbroek. “As a founding member of the PPG – the Press Photographers Group –
in the violent days of 1992 through 1994 he tried to impress on the political parties the need to give the
press the freedom to do their job. Specifically, he meant they should not be shot at.” 22 The killing of a
young photographer, Abdul Sharif, earlier in the year prompted Oosterbroek to speak out about the
dangers routinely faced by photojournalists. On the night he won his third Ilford Photo Press Award, he
called for “continued press freedom to allow us to do our job in covering the tragic, monumental events
taking place in South Africa today.” 23 Oosterbroek was killed four days later.
“Another victim lies dead on the tracks, thrown from a fast-moving train on the Soweto-Johannesburg line, 1992”
Ken Oosterbroek, like all war photographers, knew that injury or death was a possibility in his
profession. In a journal entry from 1988, Oosterbroek wrote, “I hope I die with the best fucking news
pic of all time on my neg – it wouldn't really be worth it otherwise.” 24 “It is an entry such as this that
gives you pause to consider the irony of Ken's death: knowing that he did not have the best fucking
news pic of all time on his neg, and that the older Ken knew no deaths were worth the candle, his own
on that day least of all.” 25 Oosterbroek was planning to leave The Star after South Africa's elections
and wanted to “shoot big-time.” 26 Of course, his plans were not realized; but Ken Oosterbroek's life
and death would not go unrecorded and would certainly not be forgotten.
João Silva, who was with Oosterbroek and Marinovich when the two were shot (Kevin Carter
left early that day), photographed the entire event, including Oosterbroek's death. On his decision to
photograph his friend's death, he said:
I knew that it had to be recorded, and that Ken himself would not have wanted his death to go unrecorded.
After all, he gave up his life for this kind of work. There is a saying: a death unrecorded is a death
forgotten … You don't do any of these things for fun. We are fulfilling an important part of a crazy
situation, informing the world. It has been very hard to get over Ken's death. 27
“João had taken those pictures because it was what he had learned to do and what he knew Ken would
have wanted him to do,” wrote Marinovich. 28 Les Bush, a photographer and friend of Oosterbroek's
said, “Some people were shocked at the pictures of his body. But remember, right until Ken's camera
banged on the ground he had his finger on the button. He would have expected to be photographed.” 29
“An officer with the NPKF assists photographer Gary Bernard
with a fatally wounded Ken Oosterbroek,” image by Jo ão Silva, 1994
“The day after he was killed, The Star ran a poster: 'Ken Oosterbroek dies in action.' The sub
who wrote that poster felt no need to describe his subject – it was taken for granted that all the
newspaper's readers would know his name. More than that, it was taken for granted that everyone who
saw the poster would know it.”30 Oosterbroek was “lauded by many locally and overseas as one of the
most talented and versatile photographers to have come out of South Africa.” 31 Even Nelson Mandela
recognized Oosterbroek's death when, after Inkatha announced at the last moment that they would
participate in the elections and the violence ceased, he stated, “Let us hope that Ken Oosterbroek will
be the last person to die.”32
“Joao Silva, Jim Nachtwey and Greg Marinovich in Thokoza. This is the second last frame shot on
Ken Oosterbroek's Leica m6 before he was shot in Thokoza on April 18, 1994.”
“For Ken Oosterbroek, it wasn't simply a matter of recording. He was caught up in the irony.
The irony that the deaths in these war zones were no more than deaths. Body counts. The politics went
on elsewhere, regardless.”33 Unlike so many of the violent deaths that Oosterbroek photographed in
South Africa, his was one that would be remembered, and therefore not forgotten. The contributions
that Oosterbroek made to the realm of South African photojournalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s
would leave a lasting legacy as well. He gave his life to witness and capture – to show the world – the
turmoil that was pre-election South Africa; and he – and his photographs – left a lasting impression on
everyone he met. “Almost everyone who knew him will label him arrogant, yet almost all of them will
say that this was a front, that when you got under the skin there was a soft, helpful, compassionate
person who gave patiently to young photographers … who loved fiercely, who cared.” 34
Notes
1 Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War (New York: Basic Books, 2000),
59.
2 1994: Thokoza fracas, Ken Oosterbroek killed (The Bang Bang Club), 2010, http://www.youtube.com; Marinovich and
Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War; Mike Nicol, The Invisible Line: The Life and Photography
of Ken Oosterbroek (Roggebaai, South Africa: Kwela Books, 1998).
3 John Carlin, “South African Elections: Carnage follows Inkatha talks - Nineteen dead in township gunfights as hosteldwellers and multi-party National Peace-Keeping Force clash,” The Independent, April 19, 1994, sec. World,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/south-african-elections-carnage-follows-inkatha-talks--nineteen-dead-intownship-gunfights-as-hosteldwellers-and-multiparty-national-peacekeeping-force-clash-1371007.html.
4 Peter Hawthorne, “Moments in Time,” Time, October 9, 2000,
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2051137,00.html.
5 Nicol, The Invisible Line: The Life and Photography of Ken Oosterbroek.
6 Ibid., 10.
7 Ibid., 66-67.
8 Ibid., 67.
9 Ibid., 84.
10 Sally Roper, “A Death Unrecorded is a Death Forgotten,” Review, July 1994.
11 Nicol, The Invisible Line: The Life and Photography of Ken Oosterbroek, 126.
12 Marinovich and Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War.
13 Svetlana Bachevanova, “FotoWitness: Greg Marinovich Interview,” FotoEvidence, April 20, 2011,
http://www.fotoevidence.com/greg-marinovich.
15 Ibid., 115.
16 Marinovich and Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War, 60.
17 Terry Gross, “Two War Photographers On Their Injuries, Ethics,” NPR, April 21, 2011, sec. Fresh Air,
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/21/135513724/two-war-photographers-on-their-injuries-ethics?ps=cprs.
19 Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, “‘Bang-Bang Has Been Good to Us’: Photography and Violence in South Africa,” Theory,
Culture & Society 27, no. 7-8 (2010): 214-238.
20 Marinovich and Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War., 134.
21 Ibid.
23 Roper, “A Death Unrecorded is a Death Forgotten”; Nicol, The Invisible Line: The Life and Photography of Ken
Oosterbroek.
25 Ibid., 92.
26 Marinovich and Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War; Nicol, The Invisible Line: The Life and
Photography of Ken Oosterbroek.
27 Roper, “A Death Unrecorded is a Death Forgotten.”
30 Ibid., 14.
32 Marinovich and Silva, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War. Ken Oosterbroek would of course not be
the last person – nor photographer – to die in South Africa. Kevin Carter would commit suicide the same year just
months after winning a Pulitzer Prize. Among many contributing factors, Carter felt that instead of Ken, he should have
“taken the bullet;” and according to his suicide note, “I am haunted by the loss of my friend Ken.”
33 Nicol, The Invisible Line: The Life and Photography of Ken Oosterbroek.
34 Ibid., 30.
Afterword:
Photographing in the Tradition of …
No discussion of empathetic photographers would be complete without the mention of one of the first.
Lewis Hine is known for his compassionate photographs of immigrant arrivals in the United States, as
well as his revealing and challenging images of child labor around the country in the early 1900s. “His
work seems to argue that compassion is an essential complement of intellect; that without it, reason
fails.”1 It is in Hine's tradition, described by his famous words: “There were two things I wanted to do.
I wanted to show the things that had to be corrected; I wanted to show the things that had to be
appreciated”2 that Parks, Magubane, Shames and Oosterbroek worked.
Gordon Parks: “The camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things you like about the
universe, things you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.” 3
Peter Magubane on photographing traditional South African cultures: “There have always been many
stories, not just apartheid stories. This country is not made of violence only.” 4
Stephen Shames on his photographs in Bronx Boys: “The idea is to create a world that others can see and
feel and know what it was like. That is why the photos are so personal. Many others just see the rawness,
the crime, the violence, and miss the subtle moments, the yearnings, the humanity. I try to see both.” 5
Sally Roper on Ken Oosterbroek's photographs: “It's often the images that don't make the front page, the
ones of a lover curled dozing in bed, or Oosterbroek's beautiful shot of a field of flowers that drew your
eye in The Star's full page obituary – it's those that tell, another, just as important side of the tale.” 6
1 Richard Lacayo and George Russell, Eyewitness: 150 Years of Photojournalism, 1995th ed. (New York: TIME Books,
1995), 59.
2 Mauro, My Brother’s Keeper: Documentary Photographers and Human Rights, 45.
3 Photo District News, “PDN & Kodak Professional Present Legends Online: Gordon Parks.”
4 John Cook, “One-Man Truth Squad,” Mother Jones, June 1997, http://motherjones.com/politics/1997/05/one-man-truthsquad.
5 O’Neill, “A Lens On Life For Boys In The Bronx.”
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Further Reading
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Bieber, Jodi, and Niq Mhlongo. Soweto. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2010.
Bloom, Lisa. With Other Eyes: Looking at Race and Gender in Visual Culture. Minneapolis and London: University of
Brennen, Bonnie, and Hanno Hardt. Picturing the past: media, history, and photography. University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Brothers, Caroline. War and Photography: A Cultural History. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
Buell, Hal. Moments: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs. New York: Black Dog and Levanthal Publishers, Inc., 2002.
Capa, Cornell. Concerned Photographer. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1968.
Entman, Robert M., and Andrew Rojecki. The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Studies in
Communication, Media, and Public Opinion. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Ferrarotti, Franco. “Culture and Photography: Reading Sociology Through a Lens.” International Journal of Politics,
Culture and Society 7, no. 1 (1993): 75-95.
Fiske, John. Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics. Revised Edition. Minneapolis and London: University of
Freed, Leonard. Black in White America. 2010th ed. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1969.
Gross, Larry, John Stuart Katz, and Jay Ruby. Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and
Television. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Horton, Brian. Associated Press Guide to Photojournalism. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Kennedy, Liam. Race and Urban Space in Contemporary American Culture. Tendencies: Identities, Texts, Cultures.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
Langton, Loup. Photojournalism and Today’s News: Creating Visual Reality. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
Macleod, Scott. “The Life and Death of Kevin Carter.” Time, September 12, 1994.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981431-1,00.html.
Meltzer, Milton. The Eye of Conscience: Photographers and Social Change. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1974.
Metelerkamp, Peter. “Considering Coloniality in South African Photography.” metelerkamp.com (2010).
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Moeller, Susan D. Shooting War: Photography and the American Experience of Combat. New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
Publishers, 1989.
Natanson, Nicholas. The Black Image in the New Deal: The Politics of FSA Photography. Knoxville: University of
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Press, 1980.
Phu, T.N. “Shooting the Movement: Black Panther Party Photography and African American Protest Traditions.” Canadian
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The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
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1997.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977.
———. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Stolley, Richard B. LIFE: Our Century in Pictures. New York: Time Warner Trade Publishing, 1999.
Taylor, John. Body Horror: photojournalism, catastrophe and war. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Tester, Keith. Compassion, Morality and the Media. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2001.
The Editors of Time-Life Books. Photojournalism. Revised Edition. Life Library of Photography. Alexandria, Virginia:
Time-Life Books, 1983.
Turnley, David C. Why Are They Weeping?: South Africans Under Apartheid. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1988.
Waldmeir, Patti. Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 1997.
Wright, Richard. 12 Million Black Voices. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1941.

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