Life in South Africa: In Photographs

A tall black, uniformed man, a gap in his front teeth, smiles into the camera. Complete with hat and cane, he stands in a doorway alongside a sign that reads in English and Afrikaans: Non Whites Entrance.

The South African man is a guard at a farm in Stellenbosch, a wine-growing region. The photo was taken in 1994 as the Apartheid era ended. According to Saff it is the side of South Africa that is not often photographed. "So much of what we see in photos of Africa is white people's experience or the exotic side of elephants and lions," Saff says.

Saff, who was born in South Africa and who once worked there as an urban planner, has been periodically photographing South Africa for 25 years, making him a witness to the Apartheid period, its aftermath, and its affect on the poorest.

Saff holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. He took many of the photos in the 1980s and 1990s, traveling to many places that were not usual destinations for whites or tourists.

Marconi Beam was one of those places. A shantytown built on property owned by the South African post office, it became home to the poorest of the poor. In the photos women walk around with children tied to their backs with rags, the same rags used in the doorways of their makeshift tin huts.

The hamlet “doesn't exist anymore," Saff says. "The government moved out the poorest, built affordable housing, and moved in the poor who were one rung higher in the pecking order."

Saff has published extensively on urban issues relating to segregation and economic development policies in the United States and South Africa. His current research is on urban redevelopment and economic change in New Jersey, and issues relating to the opposition toward day-laborers in Long Island and New Jersey.

"Hispanic laborers in Farmingville, Long Island have the same problems as blacks in South Africa," Saff said. "They are kept out of certain neighborhoods and hidden from most people. They don't fight for better rights because their intent is not to stay but to raise money for their families and go back home."

Saff reports that he most wanted to point out that people in the photos are just going about their lives, seemingly immune to their plight.

There is only one photo of a white man in the exhibit. In Pretoria in 1994, a white supremacist is marching with a Nazi flag in a parade. A black woman on the street walks by, not looking in his direction or giving any indication that she knows a parade is going on.

"It was the only night I ever spent in Pretoria and I stumbled upon the march," Saff said.  "Photos have more significance when they are serendipitous; I simply ended up at the right place at the right time."

In a 1991 photo taken in Yeoville (a suburb close to Johannesburg), two children are playing with a skateboard, while on the left two people conduct Saturday afternoon business at an auto mechanic shop. Dead center is a drunk man laying prone in the middle of the sidewalk. Neither of the two groups seems to notice him.

"It's the matter-of-factness of life going on around him that is so astounding," Saff said. "In none of these pictures is anyone upset. They’re just living their lives as if they were normal."

It seems that Saff aimed his camera at the homeless, the unemployed, and those at the bottom rung of society. But for many it was just a typical day.

"The guard is going about his normal routine," Saff said. "It's normal for him to go to work and start at the only door he is allowed to enter."