Frozen Winds

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Monday, November 7, 2011 | 5 photos

The five photographs that I have chosen represent an area and concepts of South Africa and it's society about which I am extremely passionate. The are depicted in these five photos are the Johannesburg CBD (Namely the CBD itself, Hillbrow and Braamfontein). These areas were populated the well-to-do of South African society before they were deserted during the apartheid era. The majority of the area now has nothing to show aside from extreme poverty, filth, degradation, hurt and loss of hope. The chaotic streets are alive during the day with thousands of unemployed people: parents pushing and shoving to sell anything they can to make a living while their screaming child bakes in the sun, thieves and pick-pocketers stealing from those who are even the slightest bit too trusting, people asleep on cardboard boxes unaware of passers by taking photographs and so the list carries on. For years this area was left abandoned by middle to upper-class folk out of fear but this is changing: The degradation that stems from what I mentioned above has come to be classified as 'chic' and 'edgy' by those people wealthy enough to afford to buy a few buildings here and there and convert them into trendy spaces or those who can afford to buy the run-down penthouses in the high-rise buildings. My selection of photographs was chosen to illustrate the severe division and carelessness of our society. How are we as moral beings capable of celebrating right in the midst of such poverty? Such loss and pain? How can we appreciate the 'beautiful African thunderstorms' from the windows of these building and penthouses, knowing that a few meters below us, people are crying, stranded in the rain: their only relief being the baking hot sun of the next day.