Some Afrikaners photographed

David Goldblatt (1930–2018) began working on Some Afrikaners Photographed (1975) in 1963. He had sold his father’s clothing store where he worked, and become a full-time photographer. The ruling Afrikaner National Party―many of its leaders and members had supported the Nazis in the World War II―was firming its grip on the country in the face of black resistance. Yet Goldblatt was drawn not to the events of the time but to “the quiet and commonplace where nothing ‘happened’ and yet all was contained and immanent.” Making these photos he explored his ambivalence toward the Afrikaners he knew from his father’s store. Most, he guessed, were National Party voters, yet he experienced them as “austere, upright, unaffected people of rare generosity of spirit and earthy humor.” Their potency and contradictions moved and disturbed him; their influence pervaded his life. The book includes an essay by famed South African writer Antjie Krog.