JOHANNESBURG Oct 22 (Reuters) – Alf Khumalo, a South
African photographer whose pictures of the brutalities of the
apartheid regime piled pressure on the white-minority
government, has died of renal failure at the age of 82.
Khumalo made his name as a photographer for Drum magazine,
initially a black lifestyle magazine that was notable for its
reportage of township life under the apartheid state.
He photographed some of the most significant moments of the
liberation struggle including the student uprisings of the 1970s
and captured images of Nelson Mandela when he was released from
prison and led the country to its first democratic elections in
1994.
“He was a meticulous photographer and his work will live on
forever as a monument to the people’s resilience and fortitude
in the face of colonial oppression and apartheid,” President
Jacob Zuma said on Monday after Khumalo died at the weekend.
Former colleague and award winning photo-journalist Peter
Magubane described Khumalo as a hardworking man whose apartheid
photographs helped free South Africa.
“We were calling the shots and did not believe in being
dictated to. We used our cameras as our guns to liberate
ourselves and South Africa,” Magubane said.
(Reporting by Tshepo Tshabalala and Ndundu Sithole; Editing by
Jon Herskovitz and Alison Williams)
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