Greg Marinovich Photographer
greg@gregmarinovich.com
Feature
soccer soccer soccer, oh Africa
“Hey Mister!” I ignored him. I have learnt it is best to ignore the police, usually. “Hey Mister, is this your car?” as I opened the door. Busted. “Yes.” “These, these flags, you must change them,” he pointed to the little South African flags ‘gloves’ adorning the wing mirrors. I stared blankly at him, were [...]
What really happens behind the khaki curtain ….
I have to admit to a startling and disturbing memory that overtook me as I was driving towards Ventersdorp to watch Eugene Terre’blanche be buried. Thousands of his sad and angry supporters were also driving to that little North West (formerly Western Transvaal) town to bid their white power icon adieu, after he was murdered [...]
Sharpeville protests 2010
Sharpeville. If one word epitomises the history of the South African people’s struggle against malign power, then it is the name of this small township south of Johannesburg. It was in 1960, on March 21, that white police officers opened fire with sten guns on an unarmed crowd of some 5,000 black protesters who were [...]
Heavenly day
I must admit, I was nervous about going to Nigeria. It seemed akin to going into the lair of the beast. I had seen District 9, after all, and have ventured through Little Nigeria – Hillbrow – of a night. Was I, too, about to become cat food? Nah, I told myself as I waited [...]
Christmas tree print
‘Tis the time to be jolly, give presents, drink a lot, eat too much, be maudlin, and take long afternoon naps. This year the winning Marinovich Christmas tree photograph came from an entry by Mevrou Marinovich, who was traveling in Benin shortly before Santa Claus was due to visit. Please click on the link to [...]
A Minor Inconvenience
Of course I had forgotten about Angola’s farewell sting. At the airport, once safely past immigration, security and the shops, the “Financial Police” gather at enclosed cubicles for the final shakedown. “How much dollars you have?” “Not much…” I said, fanning the notes in my wallet. The policeman nodded intensely, eyes fixed on my wallet, [...]
The Miracle
I was having an unusual breakfast of spaghetti and meatballs at my hotel in Accra, Ghana, gulping desperately at the fourth or fifth cup of weak coffee when I noticed that the entire kitchen and wait staff were riveted to the television set. Instead of the usual CNN or soccer on the massive flat screen, [...]
Unable to resist the issue of ‘truth in the telling’, I fell into Errol Morris’ writings on the NYT blog space. Amazing musings, on everything from re-enactments in doccy films to the ‘veracity’ of Fenton’s Crimean War images of the Valley iof the shadow of Death. One of my favourite subjects – the ‘truth’ of [...]
Journo humour…
who says press releases can’t be funny? Nat Nakasa was a prominent journalist and writer who died in exile. This annual award recognises the exceptional efforts of any Media Practitioner. The Elangeni Hotel (Durban) was filled with journalist, editors, photographers and heads of the country’s publication house on Saturday, 27 June 2009. One would assume [...]
Shame and anger
Stuck in traffic on a downtown Johannesburg street, while giving our kids’ nanny a lift back to her apartment, a shadowy figure filled my window. I turned to look and there was a youngish man, thin, wearing a blue windcheater and his face covered with lesions. He has The Sickness, I thought, as I began [...]
Kinois Style – Leonie Marinovich
As I sit sweating in the airport lounge at Kinshasa airport, my fingers are frantically tapping out messages on my cell phone. I glance at my chipped index finger nail, and sigh. Text messages are mobilizing my peeps… Appointments are being re-shuffled, plans concocted and supplies ordered. I happen to glance up at the amazing [...]
FENCE JUMPERS
Fence-Jumping, Zimbabwe’s new national sport. Bumping along a sandy track in the pre-dawn gloom, sleepy boredom turns to excitement as security guard Pappi Molefe hisses “Illegals!” from the open back of the Landcruiser and turns on his failing torch to reveal two frightened young men huddled under Mopane bushes. Isaac and Nathan, in their twenties, [...]
UNWELCOME GUESTS
While in downtown Johannesburg to photograph the thousands of Zimbabwean refugees who seek shelter at the Central Methodist Church, I encountered an obstacle. My pen refused to write. It just so happened that the journalist with me had the same problem. The journalist’s idea was to gauge the feelings of those who had fled [...]
Dusty fields for maize, soccer and graves
It was a tough soccer match. Tackles made with scant regard for their bare feet or the legs they connected with. The dusty, rough pitch made falling both painful and dirty. Not that they seemed to mind or even notice, those bloody-minded little tykes. And the fact that the one team was 6-0 up did [...]
Christmas Goodie
In the Christmas spirit, I have convinced Greg to give away an A4 pdf of a photo he took in Kinshasa, DRC. You can go and download the full-size .pdf here Leonie Marinovich
Windy days
The Marinovich’s opened their Congo exhibition at Bell-Roberts gallery in Cape Town last weekend. That Cape wind was blasting away. Open til mid-Jan. See my cell-phone movie here ….. prospects-opening52
Should tannies toyi-toyi?
The ‘relaunch’ of the Democratic Alliance was never going to be a hot affair. But I was being paid to shoot it, so did what one has to do in the interests of fending off the end of capitalism as we know. When I saw the carefully decorated and lit stage, I turned to a [...]
Let injustice flourish
A great man lives in South Africa’s largest informal settlement, Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg. He was an activist in the ‘Eighties, during a particularly difficult time to be black and outspoken. The Apartheid state rewarded him with two years in police detention and left him for dead in the veld at the side of [...]
And we spit on the cult of personality
Or One Nation’s Struggle To Save Democracy. As the African National Congress breakaway, split or splinter – depending on your tendencies – met in the economic hub of Africa, I was left a little bemused. While it likened itself to the 1955 Kliptown gathering that gave birth to the Freedom Charter as a response to [...]
Honey-trucks and who to vote for
I had been assured that the African National Congress breakaway would be having a meeting in the tiny dorp of Winburg Saturday. So I was thrilled to discover, some four hours from home, that it had been postponed ’til next week in some other little Free State town. Oh joy. The rains we of the [...]
Heavies join rebels
And on a scorching day as we wait for the summer rains to start on the rapidly dessicating highveld, Mbazima Shilowa joined the rebels. it had been expected after he resigned as Gauteng’s Africa National Congress premier what one young journalist for a pink-tinted paper “premier of Africa’s richest economy”. Shilowa came with a plan [...]
A grass-eye view of the elephants
The war for the heart and soul of the African National Congress continues to be a bitter hidden series of political battles. One insider told me “The blood is knee deep in meetings.” For me, it all began with the televised firing of South African deputy president Jacob Zuma three years ago for bribery taints. [...]