Topic: Real interesting article on South African photography

[hookstrapped]

"Since the end of Apartheid, our contemporary black photographers have found themselves obligated to portray an after picture, and by definition one which positively juxtaposes itself to a gruesome predecessor.

This explains the ever-more popular yet problematic trend of portraits of township hipsters as a pseudo-political fashion statement meant to shatter preconceptions about Africa but instead just replacing one simplistic view of Africans with another more palatable one."

http://www.okayafrica.com/culture-2/black-social-photography-south-africa/

[Sandeha Lynch]

He may be trying to work out what's been happening, but I get the idea he still hasn't much of a clue - and flailing around with generalisations about the past is not going to help.

[Ed Wenn]

Laurie/Lawrie - an excellent photographer who used to post here a lot - was from South Africa. It's a shame he stopped dropping by because he is a fantastic photographer and he might have a had a view on this piece.

[Late Developer]

IMO, ".....obligated to portray" is a very strange phrase in the context of photographing the reality in any city or country.  It holds connotations of almost propaganda or deliberately giving a false or misleading impression.

I have a couple of ex-colleagues who are white, anti-apartheid South Africans whose families were British but moved to SA quite a few generations ago. They moved to the UK with work and, even post-apartheid, used to dread the prospect of returning "home" as, although apartheid had gone "officially", there remained massive inequality and an awful lot of violent crime.

I've no knowledge of SA but, from the article and the few people I know who are from SA, it seems as if there's still a long road to travel before there's equal rights and opportunities across race, colour and tribal (in the widest sense) divides.

I'm interested to photos from SA as much as anywhere - but only if they are genuine representations rather than a rose-coloured spectacle view or the product of some other political agenda.