John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

LIFE Comes (Back) to Africa: Life Magazine and the Visual Representation of a Continent

On Monday, October 9th, I'm taking Life back to Africa. It's been away since 1972, when it went out of business. For the previous 36 years, however, it had been America's most important source of visual information about the world and that world most certainly included Africa -- for good... Read more →

Priya Ramrakha: Photographer, Pan-Africanist

One of the most significant photography exhibitions of the year -- Priya Ramrakha: A Pan-African Perspective, 1950-1968 -- opens on Thursday, October 5th, at the FADA Gallery, in Johannesburg, South Africa. It will add immensely to our understanding of African photography. The exhibition draws on his recently rediscovered archive and brings the work of this pioneering African photojournalist to the public for the first time since his death in 1968. Read more →

#FeesMustFall: South African Student Protests

Over the last two weeks, a wave of student protests have swept over South Africa. The spark was a hike in tuition fees, which many students are already unable to afford. The deeper causes have to do with a fragile economy, gloomy job prospects, and the slow pace of transforming... Read more →

Cedric Nunn at the University of Virginia, 16 and 17 September 2015

Acclaimed South African photographer Cedric Nunn will visit the University of Virginia on September 16th and 17th, and I couldn't be happier. Cedric is both an artist whose work I've admired for many years and a friend. I can't wait to hear him speak and to introduce him to my... Read more →

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 →

What Makes a Photo Iconic? Four Dead Boys on a Gaza Beach

Note: This has become part of a series on the politics of iconic photographs. Part 2 is here. I'll post Part 3 later this week. * What makes a photograph iconic? Why do some stick in our minds and represent for us a powerful historical memory, while others fade away?... Read more →

Sarah Stacke: Love from Manenberg

I can't remember when I first saw photos from Sarah Stacke's on-going project, "Love from Manenberg," but I know that I responded immediately to their intimacy and beauty. I also liked the people and the setting. Manenberg is an impoverished suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, a city that has... Read more →