Notes

Nadine Gordimer and David Goldblatt collaborated on his first book published in 1973 and entitled On the Mines. In the late seventies and eighties his vision underwent considerable change. As pointed out by Amy Halliday in her biography of the photographer:
Over time ... he developed a more ‘contemplative’ approach. It is this characteristic restraint – which nonetheless speaks volumes – for which he is most well known, particularly in his projects rooted in high apartheid, such as In Boksburg (1982) and Lifetimes: Under Apartheid (1986). ¹

The photographer and author were re-united in an anthological collaboration of photography and writing in Lifetimes: Under Apartheid. Author, art historian and curator Rory Bester describes the photographs in this volume:
They are iconic photographs of anti-apartheid struggle, so familiar in collected volumes such as South Africa: The Cordoned Heart (1986) and Beyond the Barricades: Popular Resistance in South Africa (1989). ‘Fifteen year old youth after release from detention. 1985’ ends the short sequence. It is also the image on the dust cover, clearly locating the book’s photographic context and words within a time of political ferment. ²

The importance of this particular photograph may be gauged from the fact that Goldblatt singled it out when recently interviewed by Jo Ractliffe:
There are two pictures of the young man who had been beaten up by the security police. He didn’t want to give me his name because, at that time, they were in great fear of the police. ... And the young man with the plaster on his arms was a much more dramatic and immediately accessible photograph.
... the Detainees Parents Support Committee would phone me occasionally and say there were some people who I might talk to and I would go down to Khotso House ... ³

1. http://artthrob.co.za/Artbio/David-Goldblatt-by-Amy-Halliday.aspx
2. Rory Bester, ‘David Goldblatt, One Book at a Time’ in David Goldblatt: Photographs, Contrasto, Rome, 2006, page 17.
2. 'Reflections in a rearview mirror', Mail and Guardian, Friday, June 24 to 30 2011, page 9.

Literature

David Goldblatt, Photographs, Contrasto, Roma, 2006, page 16, illustrated

Nadine Gordimer and David Goldblatt, Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, 1986, Knopf, New York, illustrated on dust cover