Paul Weinberg on Documenting Apartheid and South Africa’s 1994 Elections

And yes, the photojournalists of that period during the fight for freedom and self-determination got the job done. They showed the world what was happening and their images conscientized empathetic voices who mobilized the international community. Yet, the personal price they paid for that was a heavy one. The gruesome violence their lenses witnessed — not only in South Africa but in many countries around the African continent where civil war, which brought starvation, was the order of daily life — took an emotional toll.

Many photographers of that era, the likes of Simphiwe Mhlambi and Andrew Tshabangu of the Umhlabathi Collective, have spoken about how they grew frustrated at the expectation to always produce gruesome images of Black people at war with one another. Mhlambi’s current path as one of the most formidable jazz photographers, and of South African pop culture in the post-apartheid era, is the result of that frustration.

The family photographer

Weinberg's love for photography developed during childhood. He was assigned the honorable role of official family photographer, a position he executed with the utmost dedication. At 13, he bought a camera with the money from his bar mitzvah (a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony). The photography seed had germinated and was growing into a promising tree. He pruned it, watered it and fertilized the soil on which it was planted with every frame. But by 1976, he found himself occupied with other things, including being halfway through a law degree.

“As white boys, the price we paid for privilege, in terms of living in South Africa, is that we were conscripted into the South African army. When that happened and they wanted to [force those conscripted] and [others] in the civilian force to go and do the dirty work for apartheid, I abandoned law. I handed in my rifle and became a conscientious objector,” he says.

He went to study photography for one year at Natal Technikon to avoid jail time. “From then on, I’ve been a photographer,” he says.

The heady ‘80s

Weinberg describes the ‘80s as a period where he felt like “a refugee” in his own country. He managed to escape arrest a couple of times. For him, photography was a passport to an expansive world, a universe beyond the confines of the small Pietermaritzburg community he was born and raised in, in the 1950s.

Afrapix came during this rapid shift in his personal life.

“We called ourselves, ‘The Taking Sides Generation,’” he says. “My love, really, was always documentary photography, softer work. I did a lot of work on the frontline, I recorded the atrocities of apartheid, the resistance. But, you know, I'm always just interested in people and the world around me.”

Afrapix formally disbanded in 1991, during a period of heightened violence and tough negotiations leading up to the 1994 elections. Weinberg’s experience throughout the ‘80s came in handy when the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) appointed him to document the 1994 election process from February through to May.

“It was the high watermark of my journey, as a documentarian engaged intimately with the struggle for freedom. This was, at last, the final process that ushered in a free, democratic South Africa. It was a privilege to be on the inside track. The book that celebrated the journey was fittingly called An End To Waiting,” he recently wrote in Daily Maverick.

Among the many images Weinberg made during his time working with the IEC was that of former PresidentNelson Mandela casting his first vote. He used his document as an official photographer to gain access to the classroom the late statesman was voting in.

He continues in the same article: “Mandela registers, and then the anticipated moment arrives. Dressed in his now-popular Madiba shirt, he is like a child, brimming with joy. On either side and slightly behind him are Jacob Zuma and Bantu Holomisa, whom history will later reassess. He holds the ballot above the box for a few seconds and then drops it. He votes for a second time outside, on the veranda, for the large press gathering.”

That image, along with a selection of images from that period, have been collected in a newly-published portfolio called 1994 Elections. The phone call winds up with him reflecting on his thoughts during that historical year.

“One of the most powerful reflections [from the 1994 elections] for me is that… you had all these people… all kind of one, big team. Amazingly, there was this meeting point with everybody. We had a job to do,” Weinberg says. However, “From a political point of view, everyone who’s got half a brain knows that we’ve been very disappointed by the outcome 30 years later,” he adds. “Poor people are more poor than they were then. So we have our freedom, but the contradictions and many of the painful things that were exposed during apartheid and colonizations are still here with us.”