This thesis engages with the ongoing debate regarding how photographs can contribute to the writing of black South African history. In the field of South African visual history, a significant literature explores the “white gaze” that emanates from the administrative and missionary photographic archives of the colonial period. Comparatively fewer studies, however, have addressed how black South Africans pictured themselves, largely due to the presumption that black visual archives are scarce and difficult to access. This thesis draws upon previously unexplored photographic evidence from the mid twentieth century—intimate photographs found in black homes. I argue that these images constitute an alternative archive and original source of history. Such archives present a radically different perspective on black urban communities than that emanating from public photographic collections. Photographic portraiture translates how black South Africans wanted to be seen, according to their own conventions. To study everyday photographic practices is to reflect on the set of values, attitudes and ideas that influenced this exercise of self-representation. This thesis employs a variety of methods and approaches—photo elicitation, identifying patterns in poses and conventions, scrutinizing background details, and locating photographs in today’s landscape—to help unravel the historical relevance of seemingly mundane images.
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