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David Goldblatt was born in Randfontein in 1930. After a spell in his family's clothing business, he became a full-time photographer in 1963. In addition to pursuing his own work, he has photographed for magazines, corporations, advertising agencies, and other institutions in South Africa and abroad. His work has been exhibited in South Africa, Europe, Britain, the United States, and Australia. In 1989, Goldblatt founded the Market Photography Workshop in Johannesburg, which has provided young South Africans with an entry into photography. He has won numerous award including the Hasselblad International Foundation Award in Photography in 2006.

David Goldblatt has photographed his native South Africa since the early 1970's, carefully observing the social, cultural and economic divides that characterise the country. His first publication, On the Mines, examined gold-mining in the East Rand area of the country. In Boksburg documented a small town which he sees as "shaped by white dreams and white properties" but which is ultimately "nondescript and elusive". Goldblatt often creates webs of likenesses and contrasts across an image, such as seen and seeing; young and old.

Source Photographic Review presents: An audio interview with South African photographer David Goldblatt. Interview is accompanied by a slide show of the photographer's work. Original interview conducted by Mark Durden.

n asbestos fibre the diameter of a human hair is actually a cluster of two million individual fibres which could fit onto the head of a pin. If inhaled, minute fibrils can work their way deep into the lungs, where they cause asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma, an otherwise unknown cancer of the lining of the lung or the abdominal cavity'. All of the three principal types of asbestos, white, brown and blue are carcinogenic, blue being the most deadly. Mesothelioma is invariably fatal and associated with the inhalation of asbestos fibre, usually blue asbestos. Even the most trivial exposure might result in mesothelioma, which can be latent in the body for forty or more years. Once the cancer becomes active, death follows inexorably within about twelve months. After witnessing the excruciatingly painful death of a friend who contracted mesothelioma I did some exploring of the aftermath of the mining of blue asbestos in Australia and South Africa. These are some of the photographs that resulted. In this introduction I briefly review a few of the factors at work in that aftermath.

The iconic South African photographer, in conversation with Max du Preez, discusses the literary influences on his work, including Athol Fugard and Herman Charles Bosman.

Then & Now - Eight South African Photographers Then and Now 160 Images View photos from the exhibit An exhibition of 160 photographs mounted in 5 venues at Duke University. South African photographer Paul Weinberg conceived and curated Then & Now which is comprised of black and white and color photographs from 8 South African documentary photographers. Twenty photographs were selected from each photographer, 10 made under apartheid and 10 photographs made after the historic democratic elections of 1994.