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people involved, Cartier-Bresson most needed to see.These photographers worked
often showed how the events affected ordi- for the South African magazine Drum.They
nary people, how they reacted and continually risked their lives in order to
responded. Among his subjects were capture images portraying the evils of
Portuguese fishermen, villagers in Roma- apartheid (the name of the policy of racial
nia,Yugoslavia, and Greece, refugees in segregation in South Africa).
India and Pakistan, European residents in In presenting photographs of apartheid
China when the change to Communism and of black Africans struggle for freedom,
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P H O T O G R A P H Y / A N I L L U S T R A T E D H I S T O R Y " 1 0 0
Drum s owner, Jim Bailey, and editor
Anthony Sampson accomplished what can
be regarded as a publication miracle.
Image Not Available
Although many South African magazines
had been banned after printing such pic-
tures, Bailey and Sampson somehow man-
aged to include anti-apartheid photographs
in Drum along with pictures of weddings,
nightlife,and other events.
The photographers who contributed to
Drum were a talented and courageous lot.
In order to create their picture stories they
often donned disguises to get into places
from which they otherwise would have
been kept out. Some, determined to take
pictures inside South Africa s notorious
prisons,actually got themselves arrested and
took hidden cameras inside their cells.Typi- that would make the world understand Peter Magubane.Couple
dancing,1957.
cal of these photojournalists was the South why black people are so angry in this
Although Magubane devoted most of
African photographer Peter Magubane. In country of South Africa. I said to myself, I
his photographic career to depicting
1969 while he was taking pictures for don t care. If I die for the cause, so be it. If I
black South Africans struggle for free-
Drum and for a daily newspaper, Magubane see a picture . . . at all costs, I will try to get
dom,he also photographed other sub-
was arrested for supposed crimes against that picture.
jects.Like many of his images,this
the state. After two years in prison he was The vast majority of photographs that picture appeared in Drum magazine.
released, but he was banned from taking appeared in Life, Drum, and the other news
photographs for five years. magazines were of people.There was, how-
When the five years were over Magu- ever, another type of subject which, begin-
bane resumed his photojournalistic career. ning in the 1930s, increasingly captured
Undaunted by continual government photographic attention.The picture maga-
scrutiny, he continued to take pho- zines had come into being at a time when,
tographs of apartheid practices, particular- after decades of industrial development,
ly the exploitation of black African machines and huge structures allied to
children. Late in his career Magubane industrialism increasingly dotted the land-
spoke for many of his fellow African pho- scape. For many people around the world
tographers when he stated, In my work, these machines and structures,such as man-
and in the kind of pictures I chose to pro- ufacturing plants, bridges, and dams,
duce, I wanted to liberate myself, liberate became powerful symbols, not only of the
my people, liberate the oppressor and let progress that had been made but of even
the world understand through my images greater advancements that seemed to lie
what we were going through, what ahead. Aware of the fascination with the
apartheid meant . . . to capture the images icons of industrialism, those who published
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P H O T O G R A P H S I N P R I N T " 1 0 1
Margaret Bourke-White.Ammonia
Gas Tanks,1938.
Bourke-White s appreciation of the beauty
created by the lines of industrial structures
can be seen in this picture of giant storage
tanks.Along with photographing industri-
al objects in their entirety,Bourke-White,
like many other industrial photographers,
often focused her camera on details within
massive structures and machinery.
Image Not Available
Charles Sheeler.Ford Plant,
Detroit, 1927.
the picture magazines made certain that
For many years,Sheeler s pho-
many of their issues contained pictures of
tographs,like this image of an
the latest machines and structures. Out of
automobile plant outside of
this emerged yet another photographic
Detroit,Michigan,were far less
heralded than his paintings.Today approach known as industrial photography.
they have come to be recognized
While those who took up this approach
as equally powerful representa-
came from many nations, two American
tions of his unique vision.
photographers in particular, Margaret
Bourke-White and Charles Sheeler, pro-
duced some of the most compelling of
all industrial images. Bourke-White and
Sheeler shared a common motivation for
taking their industrial photographs.Aside
from the symbolic nature of the machinery
and structures they wished to portray, both
found a very special beauty in industrial
objects. It was this vision that led to the
special quality of their images.
Before becoming a major Life photogra-
pher,Bourke-White had taken many indus-
trial photographs for Fortune. It was Fortune
that championed industrial photography,
much in the same manner as Life promoted
and inspired photojournalism.The pho-
Image Not Available
tographs that Bourke-White took for For-
tune, as well as the many other industrial
images she captured, were characterized by
the way she was able to convey qualities not
commonly attributed to utilitarian objects.
Any important art coming out of the
industrial age, she wrote, will draw inspira-
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