A white dove landing on Kumalo's head is a "blessing" from the late Tambo
Muhammad Ali once teased Alf Kumalo about being "an acorn". He was referring to Kumalo's hairless dome, which features prominently in the photographer's new book, a visual memoir titled Through my Lens.
This hardcover book is not a biography. The distinction is important. Where biographies aim to order the unruly facts of a life, presenting the reader with something approaching a rational chronology of being, memoirs celebrate partiality and the whimsy of subjectivity. "This is who she was," declares a biography. "I was there," responds the memoir.
An irrepressible photojournalist and humane observer of events, Kumalo has been "there" many times over. He heard Steve Biko move a crowd in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, in 1972. He saw Oliver Tambo's hand touch his chest in dismay as he inspected the dead following an SADF raid into Lesotho in 1985. He shook hands with both Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali.
Through my Lens is a record of his many privileged encounters with these extraordinary individuals and, in one notable instance, family too. In 1962 Kumalo photographed an ageing woman in a beret looking for her son in Soweto. We see Nosekeni Mandela holding a photograph of her missing son. He is instantly recognisable.
Thirty-six years later Kumalo photographed Nosekeni's son visiting Buckingham Palace with his daughter, Zenani. It was a jubilant moment: for the Mandelas, for South Africans, probably even for the old duck hosting the event. Not at all like the day Kumalo photographed a young Zenani crying as her mother left Joburg to see her husband on Robben Island for the first time.
Born in Utrecht, near Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal, Kumalo started out as a street photographer in Evaton, a township south of Joburg. After a stint as a freelancer, he joined the staff of Bantu World, later Drum. "And thus began a successful lifelong career during which I have won many awards, met amazing people, and never lost my passion for what I do best - take pictures," offers Kumalo in a clumsy preface.
The self-assured tone of the photographer isn't always corroborated by the inconsistent quality of his pictures, their form ranging from workaday news images to more considered examples of his portraiture and documentary work. In his attempt to reassure the reader that he was always there, Kumalo ends up selling himself short. This is a shame.
Kumalo is a fine portraitist. If you doubt this turn to page 201 and look at his study of saxophonist Winton Mankunku smoking a cigarette in the quiet half-light. Sublime. Ditto his study of Nelson and Winnie in a romantic embrace. Unfortunately, these moments are marred by the book's many wide-screen moments depicting groups of people marching, mourning, singing, dancing, shaking hands and laughing.
The book's peculiar architecture doesn't help either. Organised into seven chapters, the first deals with activist figureheads such as Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, followed by a chapter focusing on "leading women" from the struggle. Extensively annotated, the narration is shared between journalist Tanya Farber and Kumalo, who is quoted often. No doubt intended to open up the photos to the reader, the writing shudders as it jumps from encounter to encounter. It can be heavy-handed too. So, a white dove landing on Kumalo's head at Tambo's funeral, a charming moment to be sure, is rather grandly proposed as a "blessing from the late great Tambo".
The chapters on Sharpeville and June 16 are not very convincing. This is partly because Kumalo wasn't at the centre of the action at the former and was beaten by youths at the latter, his camera and film confiscated. The reader has to rely on his oral testimony here, which isn't why one would instinctively pick up this book.
Kumalo is on more familiar ground in a chapter devoted to Muhammad Ali, his boxing hero. The two met in 1963, Kumalo attending many pivotal bouts, including Ali's famous "rumble in the jungle" with George Foreman.
The focus however quickly goes soft again as Kumalo presents us with a collection of images about the quotidian. Santu Mofokeng is much better at evoking the banality (and poetry) of impoverishment and struggle. The book ends with a series of portraits of musicians, some now departed.
In a recent essay on post-apartheid biographies, literary academic Tlhalo Raditlhalo points out that "Black South Africans generally see life as a continuum between the living and the dead, and hence the concept of having a praise poem to oneself is an important part of 'suturing' oneself into the lineage from which one descends." Through my Lens is an historical praise poem written in uneven verse.
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