John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

Reuters' Best Best of 2010: Finbarr O'Reilly & South Africa's Poor Whites

The Reuters news agency has just announced its Best of the Year list -- that is, the best of the over 500,000 photos that its photographers made in 2010. (Seems a bit early, but so be it.) One of the images is from Finbarr O'Reilly's superb series on South African... Read more →

Convergences, 3: South Africa's Poor Whites & the Color of Poverty

I've been thinking about two remarkably similar photos, one made by Contance Stuart Larrabee, in 1947 or '48, and the other by Finbarr O'Reilly, in 2010. (Scroll down to see them.) They've got me wondering: What is the color of poverty? Ask Americans, and they'll probably tell you that poverty... Read more →

Convergences, 2: Finbarr O'Reilly, Constance Stuart Larrabee, & South Africa's Poor Whites

Africa's exotic species -- giraffes, rhinoceros, mountain gorillas -- have always fascinated outsiders. And none has been more exotic and unexpected, more scandalous and titillating than South Africa's poor whites. After all, wasn't apartheid -- South Africa's particularly vicious system of white supremacy and black subjugation -- supposed to ensure... Read more →

Poor Whites in South Africa: Deja Vu (All Over Again), Part 2

Here we go again... The New York Times is the latest foreign media outlet to discover, as if for the first time, that there are (shockingly!) poor whites in South Africa. The paper's Lens Blog has just posted an interview with Reuters photographer Finbarr O’Reilly (see below) and a gallery... Read more →

Rediscovering Poor Whites in South Africa: Deja Vu (All Over Again)

Update, 23 October 2010: I've just posted a longer look at the poor white phenomenon in South Africa, and, especially, at the way that they've been photographed. You can read "Poor Whites and Photography in South Africa, the Backstory," here. Update, 25 June 2010: The New York Times is the... Read more →