Photobooks and South Africa: Notes on Works by Peter Magubane and David Goldblatt

Abstract

Photobooks are creative processes. Besides their historical contributions, they provide a platform for experimentation with photographs and other sign systems. South African photobooks are among the most prolific publications in Africa. They include a variety of works that range from colonial photographic books from the 1860s to recent and thought-provoking works such as those by Zanele Muholi, Sabelo Mlangeni, and Sophia Klaase. In the second half of the twentieth century, South African photobooks integrated a phenomenon in which photographic essays became to be used as a tool to document conflicts and denounce social problems. The article approaches this phase of South African photobooks by describing and analysing semiotic aspects of works by Peter Magubane and David Goldblatt. Their books indicate the existence of a variety of criteria - aesthetic, literary, political, and documentary - acting together to characterise the photobooks emerging around the 1960s in South Africa.