Squatter camp on the fringe of the N1 highway, Woodstock, Cape Town, August 22, 2006
Beginning in the 1940s, South African photographer David Goldblatt documented the people and landscapes of his country in striking black and white. It was only after apartheid that he felt comfortable with color in his work. In Regarding Intersections, published this October by Steidl, Goldblatt’s photographs from 2002 to 2011 embrace sharp hues to examine crossroads of people, landscape, history, and conflict.
Goldblatt, now in his 80s, offered another motivation for choosing black and white photography over colour. “In an interview for the monograph with former Victoria and Albert Museum curator Mark Haworth-Booth, [he said] color photography “seemed too sweet a medium to express the anger, disgust, and fear that apartheid inspired.”