Returning to Khayelitsha

Yesterday, I returned to the Khayelitsha township to accompany two social workers on their home visits to the families they are looking after… As I was struggling with my approach, I changed my visual style/approach for this visit on the advice of a very clever and thoughtful friend… Instead of trying to capture these candid moments – which is almost impossible as a white person/umlungu who clearly is an alien and outsider to these communities – I resorted to taking formal portraits of some of the people we visited…

It is obvious that there is a very personal story to each of these photographs but essentially all of these families have not been able to provide for their children for one reason or another or their children are prone to becoming street children…

Not saying that I have found the right way yet, I might be on to something, keeping in mind what Marcel Proust once said: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”