Photography

Anthony Maturin spent two years in South Africa with Volunteer Service Abroad, during which time he did the photography for, and wrote "Grace's Song". He worked with small, mainly black and coloured, Non Governmental Organisations in the townships and informal settlements of the Eastern Cape Province, as well as in the villages in the Keiskamma River area. His aim was to portray the essential human spirit found in the depths of poverty and to record the stories of courage of families living with HIV/AIDS, and the memories of the loss of many family members.

People invited him into their homes, often patched together tiny shacks, with mud, or mud and cow dung floors and cow dung plastered walls. He was invited to photograph some of the village Ancestor Worship ceremonies. He came to love South Africa and its people, and was loth to go back to New Zealand when the VSA stint came to an end!

Village children dress each other's hair in traditional Xhosa styles.

Foreword by Tony Schnell: Director of the Department for Social Responsibility of the Grahamstown Diocese of the Anglican Church, South Africa.

To capture the soul embodied is a rare and dangerous thing. What you shoot is as much your own soul, your own eye, as that of your subject. “Grace’s song” is an “eyeshot” or a window to souls, which he respectfully and thoughtfully places to create a sense of integrity of song, of the grace that surrounds us and visits us in every nation and people, and as he would correct me, “but especially in the poor”. Does he succeed? His photos glimpse at the inner, both his and those of his subjects. I love his photography, because it speaks. However, I am uncomfortable. I feel the danger. Meaning is given, not captured. Tyebe is sharing his meaning. It cannot be the full picture. A lens is not reality and captions are never accurate. The photos may provoke you and they are rare. They are not populist. I think he wants these photos to provoke you to think. So please think. You are on rare and dangerous ground. Please engage with grace!

To go to Google site, "Grace's Song"

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Anthony Maturin

Grace's Song Book Review

If you saw Anthony Maturin’s earlier book of photographs from Cambodia you will need no persuading to sample his new book, ‘Grace’s Song’. This time he has put together a collection of sepia photos from Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. He has been living there for the past two years as a VSA volunteer.

East London dump scavenger's house.

Dump scavenger's house in East London.

The photos have a commentary as well as some poems by local poets. Almost all the photos are of people. People who are being helped by local NGO’s. And the few that are not of people show some of the material poverty which is their life. And the purpose of the book is to ‘celebrate the human dignity found in poverty’. The quality of these photos is quite outstanding and as I commented on the ones in his last collection, they are very reminiscent of the great photographer, Sebastiao Salgado, who devoted his life to photographing dispossessed people. Also many of the poems add another degree of poignancy to what is otherwise simple brutal poverty. More...