I visited the Joburg Art Fair last saturday primarily for one reason; meet the two remaining members of the original Bang Bang Club, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva. They were going to be at the Rooke Gallery stand and would tell little anecdotes behind the pictures. I met them and off course had them sign my copy of the book (see image). This book is an absolute must read! Especially when living in South Africa, you just can't miss out on this brutally honest book. This book will stay with me for ever! They are currently filming the movie of the book which is due for release in september this year.
Here's some more background information about them:
The Bang-Bang Club was a name primarily associated with four photographers active within the townships of South Africa during the Apartheid period, particularly in the years running up to the country’s first democratic elections (27 April 1994). While a number of photographers and photojournalists worked alongside the Bang-Bang Club (such as James Nachtwey and Gary Bernard), Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and Joao Silva were the four main men associated with the name.
The name comes from the culture itself; township residents spoke to the photographers about the “bang-bang” as reference to violence occurring within their communities, but more literally, "bang-bang" refers to the sound of gunfire and is a colloquial form of nomemclature used by conflict photographers.
In the course of their work, the members accrued two Pulitzer prizes. Greg Marinovich won the Pulitzer for Spot News Photography for his coverage of the killing of Lindsaye Tshabalala in 1990. Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer for Featured Photography in 1994 for his photograph of a vulture that appeared to be stalking a starving child in southern Sudan. The latter drew intense scrutiny to the roles a photographer was to play, as Carter was asked many times if he had helped the child or not.
Tragically, the photography of the Bang-Bang Club ended with the death of Ken Oosterbroek, killed on April 18, 1994 while photographing a siege in Thokoza, a few days before the elections they had worked so hard to support. Marinovich, who was also shot, documented the incident in an autobiographical book about the "Bang-Bang Club" and believes that, ironically, he and Oosterbroek were inadvertently shot by stray bullets fired by members of the National Peacekeeping Force. Kevin Carter committed suicide on July 27, 1994. Both Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva have remained active photographers. In 2000, they authored The Bang-Bang Club, a book documenting their experiences.
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