THROUGH MY LENS

224 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Some colour photographs but mostly BW photography. A very good copy. 

An insider's account, brimming with colorful anecdotes, humor and passion, of South Africa's turbulent past. Kumalo shares intimate moments of pain and of triumph, in pictures and words. He was the one who escorted Nelson Mandela's aged mother through the menacing crowds at the Rivonia Trial. He was there at HF Verwoerd's funeral. He was a guest at Mohammad Ali’s home in Chicago and at the Rumble in the Jungle fight in Kinshasa. Kumalo joined Mandela on his first visit to America as South Africa’s President. 

Kumalo’s life’s work is a visual documentary of a nation's transformation, but he is also a storyteller of note. His first-person account of historic events and private moments is filled with humour and compassion. An extraordinary and gripping eyewitness account, featuring amongst others: Nelson Mandela and his family, Steve Biko, Desmond Tutu, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu, Nadine Gordimer, Nat Nakasa, Muhammad Ali, Ray Charles, Robert Kennedy, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba and Dizzie Gillespie

Publishers Note.

With additional text by Tanya Farber 

Alfred Khumalo was awarded The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for his excellent contribution to documentary photography and journalism in South Africa.

Profile of Alfred Khumalo as detailed on the website of the Presidency

Alfred Khumalo was born in Johannesburg and matriculated at the WiIberforce Institute in Evaton. He started his working career as a journalist in 1951, freelancing for Bantu World where he was also expected to take photographs to illustrate his stories. As a young man, Khumalo had been captivated by the visual impact of the printed picture, and especially its ability to capture permanently the essence of what is seen or imagined and to “freeze moments in time”, even trying his hand at drawing scenes which caught his attention. Having experienced the matchless facility of the camera to capture the image, Khumalo’s childhood obsession inevitably led him to follow the profession of photography.

In the course of an illustrious career as a documentary photographer for over half a century, Khumalo has documented the life and times of the evolving South Africa, both the commonplace and the historic, in the process capturing on film for all time, much of our collective history. Khumalo documented inter alia, the Treason Trial, the Rivonia Trial, the resurgence of the trade unions in the 1970s, the emergence of Black Consciousness, the Student Uprising of 1976, the state of emergency of the 1980s, the unbanning of the liberation movements, the Codesa talks, the first democratic elections and the inauguration of the first democratic government. His drive to capture the moment allowed him the privilege of witnessing and recording extraordinary moments despite numerous bouts of detention, arrests and official harassment.

Over the years, his work has been published in most South African newspapers and journals and in many across the globe, including The Observer (UK), New York Times, New York Post, and The Sunday Independent (UK). Most recently, Khumalo was given the singular honour of exhibiting a collection of his life’s work at the 59th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2004, an exhibition that drew much acclaim.

Despite his age, Khumalo continues to work professionally and to dedicate his time and effort to promoting his craft. In an effort to ensure that a new generation of South African photographers emerge and to make sure that aspiring photographers do not face the same obstacles he did when he started out, he has opened a photographic school in Diepkloof, Soweto, which offers nine-month courses designed to train photographers from disadvantaged backgrounds.

South Africa will for all time be indebted to this outstanding documentary photographer whose immense body of work stands as a monument to his perseverance and to the dedication to his art, as well as to the struggles that have won us freedom and democracy.

https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/alfred-khumalo-1930