ON THE eve of South Africa’s advent into a democratic dispensation in 1994, people raised alarm regarding my being a photojournalist. They deemed it a dangerous career choice!
As the country edged toward April 27 and two photographers, Abdul Sharif and Ken Oosterbroek, perished whilst out news gathering – their concerns accentuated.
Ahead of the watershed elections, Oosterbroek had recruited me onto The Star newspaper’s photographic department and a few weeks later, he was killed in conflict-ridden Thokoza. The tragedy marked the genesis of my foray into the exhilarating world of the imagery.
I was taking off at precisely the opportune period to be in the news media industry, exposed to the who’s-who of Planet Earth – including fellow lensmen!
This is a chronicle of distinguished photographers I crossed paths with.
In 1993, Life magazine legend, Alfred Eisenstaedt – recognizable for his VJ Day Times Square image depicting a sailor (named George Mendonsa) in black uniform spontaneously kissing a dental assistant (named Greta Friedman) in a contrasting white dress on a teeming Times Square whilst celebrating Japan’s surrender in World War II – held his retrospective exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, where I was in attendance and requested a souvenir with the elderly American.
Pending my very first experience of conflict coverage, the so-called Shell House Massacre – I came across the white-haired Time magazine stringer, Peter Magubane, for the first time. Still inexperienced – I beheld him photographing the body of an Inkatha member lying on a street.
A couple of years on, Eisenstaedt’s fellow American and Life magazine snapper, Gordon Parks – whose image titled, American Gothic, of a Black American worker (named Ella Watson) whom he pictured holding a broom and a mop against the backdrop of an American flag, stirred controversy – also paid a visit to Joburg, where I got to engage with the Blaxploitation exponent.
On The Star, the affable Alf Kumalo – then a personal friend of Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali – took a liking to me, enough to share tales with me such as the one involving thugs chasing police out of Fietas! Demonstrating the incident whilst walking with me along Sauer Street – Kumalo was such an animated sight!
Inside the jacket cover of the 2017 published tome, is a glossy image of a blonde man holding a Leica camera at a vertical angle seemingly poised to snap a subject. The man is German-born photographer, Jurgen Schadeberg, and the book is his memoir, The Way I See It – whilst the image was recorded by none other than myself!
I regard the feat a feather in my fedora, considering that Schadeberg’s monochromatic oeuvre of 1950s Sophiatown compelled me to delve into photography!
Later, having segued into the 21th Century, I heard Sam Nzima – the man who recorded the image synonymous with June 16, 1976 Students Uprisings – ‘admonishing’ me to not be so generous on the shutter whilst I was clicking away on my Canon digital SLR at a Maponya Mall event on May 24, 2009.
All images Jacob MAWELA (Mawela pictured alongside American photographer Gordon Parks, during the Shaft’s creator’s visiting work to Johannesburg).
