Last year I was privileged to join a guided tour of the photographic exhibition on show on the mezzanine level of the Wits Art Museum, led by the photographer himself, Graeme Williams. It comprises 50 choice photographic works of Williams, who is the third winner of the prestigious Ernest Cole Photographic award. The award gives photographers the opportunity to produce an exhibition and to publish a book. A fine hardcover book of photographs accompanies the exhibition and includes a reflective essay on Johannesburg by Leon De Kock.
Graeme is a professional photographer but one who uses his lens as a tool to capture the moods, emotions and texture of the City of Johannesburg. This collection of coloured photographs taken with a digital camera over the last three years, 2012-2015 seeks to expose a rather different city to the heritage city which some of us work hard to preserve. Nor is this exhibition about the city’s architecture.
His city is one about the feelings, moods and experiences of people who live in the inner city of today. It is a strange exhibition because there are no captions, no titles, no explanatory labels to the works. No date, no place, no time of day is listed. This means it is for the viewer to make what she will of each image although there is a background explanatory text that contextualises the exhibition.
Williams starts from the premise that Johannesburg is a city reflecting seismic...
