The photographic document as subjective register in contemporary South African visual culture

Abstract

This research report examines the notion of the photographic document as subjective register in contemporary South African visual culture. It provides a critical framework for considering my own photographic practice, which explores how photographs can be used to concretize emotion and to register the subjectivity of the photographer. In exploring this subjectivity, I consider the notion of truth-value in the photographic document, especially in socio-documentary photography, focusing on some examples from the South African ‘struggle’ tradition. I then look at the shift towards a personal approach in photography in South Africa, using the exhibition Democracy’s Images: Photography and Visual Art after Apartheid as a case study of these shifts towards the personal in South African photography. The show helps to locate my own work, which is highly invested in the personal. The notion of affect is unpacked in considerable detail since my own work focuses primarily on the evocation of emotional experience.