 How's it? How's it? David Goldblatt's exceptional documentary photography perfectly captured the crazy contradictions of life in South Africa under apartheid. His photography is a lesson to us all that sometimes the most unassuming images can be the most powerful. Thank you for joining me here today on The Photographic Eye as we look at the life and work of David Goldblatt. Goldblatt was born in a town called Ranfrantin which is a mining town on the outskirts of Johannesburg and he spent his early life photographing the changing face of South Africa and this carried through until his death in 2018. He published many books of photography over the years but in my mind there are two of them that are worth looking at on the mines and in Boxburg. South Africa is a land of stark contrasts and especially socially and when looking at photography and documentary photography in particular I think it's always useful to be able to see the images in some sort of context. While these two books are separated by about sort of six years in real life they perfectly illustrate a duality that exists both in David's photography and in South Africa. By looking at these two books in conjunction we're going to get a better understanding of how great social photographers don't really think in terms of more like a singular image but more of a kind of an overriding narrative. To give you a brief background, Johannesburg is a city that exists solely because of the immense gold fields on which it sits. In South Africa from the 1940s it was ruled by a party called the National Party whose policy of apartheid forced segregation and third-class citizenship status on its black inhabitants. The lifeblood of Johannesburg, these mines, they were built on the back of what was then called native labor and because of David's commercial work on the mines he was able to access places that would otherwise have been off limits and we get a real insight into the world of the working you know the mine workers and that's where the basis comes from for on the mines. The second book released a few years later is called In Boxburg. Now Boxburg is or was then an exclusively white suburb on the eastern side of Johannesburg. You know it's a generic and fairly unassuming non-descript. It was extremely typical of the types of suburbs at the time that were popping up around the mines. David's commercial work was mostly in color and all of the work which he considered to be his personal work was created in black and white and Goblin observed that his use of color during the apartheid would have been what he felt was inappropriate. You know he claimed that it would have enhanced the beauty and the personalities whereas for him black and white photography and more effectively documented the dramatic contradictions that sort of defined this period for David. God Blacken said that if a photograph serves a certain idea even you know even if it's a good idea the idea always seems to take precedence and then the photography contains a judgment and he decided to record the facts and leave these judgments to the viewers and this is what I think makes David's work for me it's hallmark is this quietness and the fact that that he doesn't sort of contrive events to to to forces into a way of viewing things. What I find really intriguing about these two bodies of work is that in on the mines there's an almost double Eugene Smith approach to to the photography of this heavily industrialized process which is somewhat reminiscent of the work again a personal project that Smith did in in Pittsburgh with the steel workers and there's a lot of similarities between the two and one of the things I find especially striking when it comes to similarities is that how in both cases the photographer has managed to make the industrial process seem almost organic in in a way and and we see this most most obviously in the images where where David went down the mineshafts with the shaft sinkers now these these are men who are working thousands of meters beneath the ground you know digging holes deeper and deeper and deeper looking looking for gold and and of course down there it's extremely dark it's extremely hot and and and that's all reflected in the photographs and and you see this in this gritty you know way because the film has been pushed to its absolute limits and and slow shutter speeds so you get all this blurring and and everything just sort of comes together to combine this almost abstract image of of of almost like kind of you know a hellscape that that is is populated by people who are working for you know for almost a non-existent wage for a government that barely considers them to be citizens and then of course you combine this with the idea that that almost literally above their heads there exists this world this white society where these people who are who are forging this existence are extremely not welcome you know inside of the the very mind dumps that these miners are helping to create is is the surreal world that David has documented you know and and the images in in in boxburg have a very different feel to them you know they are they're banal they're mundane and and they're just every day and and while there are some obviously some black people sort of featured the focus really is on this sort of bizarre normality that just kind of existed at the time and and and I and I believe a lesser skilled photographer would probably be tempted to create caricatures of of these white Africanas you know and to make them look evil and and and be pantomime villains but but David didn't of course because of this this this this non caricature way of photographing people the government was accused of being dispassionate in his portraits and and and certainly you know some of his contemporaries were a lot more forceful in their images protesting of apartheid but but in the case of David's photography you know by photographing events as he found them his quiet unassuming photographs hold hold so much more power you know this is what David himself had to had to say about this you know I I was asking myself how it was possible to be so apparently normal moral and upright which almost all these citizens were in such an appallingly abnormal immoral bizarre situation I hoped we would be able to see ourselves revealed by a mirror held up to ourselves I feel if both of these subjects you know the the the boxburg suburb and the mines had both been photographed in the same style it would lose this kind of impact of contrast and and of course the books are not supposed to be seen as a pair you know they're completely separate works but when you take the two of them together it's a perfect illustration of how we can introduce into you know photography a greater sense of depth by understanding how images work together and when you see echoes and sentiments revisited between these images it helps us get a lot more from the photographs and and and certainly improves on our reading and and and understanding of what's going on in in the wider sense goldblatt's photography from this period serves as a stark reminder of how easily you know we can blink ourselves to the reality that surrounds us you know they're not really with with some exceptions you're beautiful photographs but they are photographs that pose questions you know documenting a world that no longer exists but whose shadows are still evident across the land once partite was dismantled in the early 90s and mandela was voted president of the new democratic south africa 1994 david decides to introduce color into his photography work and and he worked up until his death in 2018 creating beautifully quiet photographs of the changing face of south africa if you take one thing away from these two books it is that you don't need to shout in your photography i think to make yourself heard you know so often the strongest words are the softest spoken thanks again for joining me here today on the photographic i and i hope that you found this brief look at david goldblatt's photography interesting that you were encouraged to go off and discover more of this fascinating photographer this video is part of a series that i've created to give you an introduction to the greats of photography if you'd like to see more of these videos which i'm going to release every friday please do hit the subscribe button below to make sure that you are notified when a new episode is released thanks again so much for joining me and i'll see you again soon