Sam Nzima

Sam Nzima (born August 1934) was a South African photographer during the apartheid era. Quotes The difference with today’s cameras is that we don’t need that kind of focus. We just pull the trigger; we just pull out our cell phone and point it at the subject we want to photograph The art of the picture is gone now. There is no more art in photography, because everything is automatic Photographers have become lazy. All they need to do is point their camera towards what they want to capture and press the button, that’s all! According to my judgement, there is nothing artistic in that. everything these days is done under the light yet, in the past, everything was done in the darkroom. It was a long process. But, nowadays, ‘zip zip’, and it’s there everything these days is a competition. It is a commercial thing in the past the competition was very stiff. Who comes first with the good news? But, nowadays, it’s who comes first with the good picture People nowadays, I think, are becoming lazy; they want to read easy articles, they want to get their information by only looking at the pictures in the magazine True documentary photography is disappearing now. We are no longer looking at people who are doing things and contextualising their images with good article writing. We have to safeguard on that. What I’d like them to learn is that, before there were cameras in the world, artists made an impression by looking at a person and drawing the face of the person We must teach them how the history of the camera can preserve their own history. If you took a photograph everyday, from the day of your birth up to when you are an old man, if every day you took a picture of your son or your daughter, we could have a visual history of our own lives Photographers were always in competition! It’s nice to be retired, after being a champion like Mohammed Ali. [laughs] People remember me for [the Hector Peterson] picture, but enough is enough. I can no longer destroy my future Interview with Sam Nzima: Exclusive Content from snapped magazine’s Special Re-Launch Issue! 2013 Category:Photographers Category:Dead people