Be it countless demonstrations and protests, riots such as Soweto 1970, Nelson Mandela’s 1964 trial, many other kangaroo-court “treason” trials, funerals of African National Congress leaders and, yes, everyday life, Magubane was ubiquitous.
He told The Guardian in 2015, “The police once broke my nose when I refused to destroy my images. I was sent to solitary for 586 days.”
Born in 1932, he started using a Kodak Brownie box camera as a schoolboy. As a young staffer at the Johannesburg-based Drum magazine, where he first worked as a driver, he learned to shoot anything involving the police covertly. Photographing police was banned, a typical fascist tactic based on fear and self-preservation.
Magubane would sometimes hide his camera in a Bible and use a cable release in his pocket. At a trial of an ANC leader, in which cameras were strictly forbidden, he hid his Leica 3G in the proverbial, hollowed-out loaf of bread he pretended to be eating. Yes, fascists can be pretty stupid. Milk cartons saw their call to duty, as well. So many of us shoot food and drink for social-media posts. There was a time when it helped brave, “truth to power” documentarians like Magubane actually do their jobs - at great risk.
His photos often depicted compositional contrast, reflecting pathetic and ignominious apartheid laws. A good example is his “Nanny and Child” (1956) portrait (first image here) underscoring the absurdity of back-to-back park benches “separated” for so-called Europeans and Blacks.
Magubane told The Guardian about this shot, “These labels – ‘Europeans only’, ‘Coloureds only’ - were on everything, by order of the government. When I saw Europeans only, I knew I would have to approach with caution. But I didn’t have a long lens, just my 35mm, so I had to get close. I did not interact with the woman or the child, though. I never ask permission when taking photos. I have worked amid massacres, with hundreds of people being killed around me, and you can’t ask for permission,” he said.
We are thankful Peter Magubane never asked for permission.
Images courtesy of Peter Magubane.