Not Jazz in Africa: Winter in Cape Town

It's well and truly winter in Cape Town.  Cool temperatures and cloudy skies gave way on Tuesday to day-long torrential rains, driven by gale-force winds coming off the icy South Atlantic.  Perfect weather for black and white photos.

I made this photo on Monday, before the heavens opened.  It's a shop in Khayelitsha, a high-density, low-income suburb of Cape Town.  During the apartheid era, Khayelitsha and suburbs like it all over South Africa were called "townships," residential areas in which the law forced Africans to live.  In fact, "township" has never gone away.  Nobody actually says "high-density suburb." (By the way, you can click directly on any of these photos to see larger versions.)

In any case, many shops in the townships are highly decorated and a source of pride for the shop owners.  And, yes, that's Nelson Mandela on the right.

We're still in Khayelitsha.  You wouldn't know it from this photo, but it's home to nearly a million people.  This photographer's studio is across the street from an Home Affairs office building.  It does a brisk trade in producing photos for the identity book that every South African must have.

 

Another photographer's studio.  It's parked right across the street from the first and a few steps closer to the Home Affairs building.

 

A view out a window at the Wynberg Sports Club.  See what I mean about black and white and the Cape Town winter?

Comments

[bill emory]

yay, Black and white, love it. Please, more urban fabric, shops and dwellings in Khayelitsha. What does an identity book look like?

[John Edwin Mason]

@Bill

More Khayelitsha is on the way, but in glorious color. Sorry about that.

Stay tuned.

--JEM