John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

Updates (Finally!): Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, Kamoinge, & En Foco

It's been a long time -- too long a time -- since I updated this blog. And I'm pretty sure that my regular readers (all three or four of them) have departed for more entertaining pastures. To them I say, please come back. Why have I been so silent? In... Read more →

Kronos 38: Documentary Photography in South Africa

The new issue of Kronos is out, and I'm in it. Forgive the shameless self-promotion. Kronos is a wonderfully innovative historical journal, and the articles in this issue, which is devoted to documentary photography in South Africa, are terrific. The editors, Diana Wylie and Andrew Bank, have done a spectacular... Read more →

Margaret Bourke-White in South Africa: Part 2, the Black Problem

Now about the mines. One thing that’s happened to me... from now on I just hate gold and diamonds. --Margaret Bourke-White * * * Note: It's a sad coincidence that I'm posting this piece on the day after over 30 striking platinum miners were killed and nearly 80 were wounded... Read more →

Margaret Bourke-White in South Africa: Part 1, the Voortrekker Monument

High above Senegal aboard a New York-bound airliner, Margaret Bourke-White typed a letter to a friend. She had left Johannesburg only hours before, and as she wrote, her emotions exploded into a white-hot fury. "I don’t know where to begin about South Africa," she said. "I’ll have to get further... Read more →

Margaret Bourke-White & the Photography of Segregation: Life Magazine, 1956

“Outside the South, the white Southerner who believes in segregation is sometimes pictured as a latter-day Simon Legree who now does with the law what used to be done with a whip. ...There are Southerners who fit this picture, but there are many more who are thoughtful, pious, gentlefolk --... Read more →

Funky Friday & Convergences 7, Together Again for the First Time: Margaret Bourke-White, Marion Post Wolcott & Louis Jordan

Funky Fridays make me happy. It's a chance to show off music (and other funky stuff) that puts a glide in my stride and a dip in my hip. (By the way, if you're here for the tunes, skip all my talking and scroll down to the videos.) Convergences make... Read more →

Convergences, 6: Margaret Bourke-White & David Goldblatt Photograph Some Afrikaners

Margaret Bourke-White was already a Life magazine legend when she photographed some Afrikaner men on horseback. Despite her fame and her accomplishments, she was out of her depth. While technically accomplished, the photo is politically naive. Twelve years later, when the great South African photographer David Goldblatt made a similar... Read more →