Yasser Booley
An unspoken agreement
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Whitey. A ‘stroller’ (street kid) adopted by friends, Lola’s, Long Street, Cape Town, 2013
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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“I am trying to keep a record of what is happening inside.”
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Dressing room, Cape Town Carnival, 2011
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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Yasser Booley is 'listening to his lens.' Making pictures from the age of 17, Booley peers his world as a meerkat, or mierkat as he calls himself. His uninhibited account of the lives of factory workers, partyers, the unemployed, streetwanderers, exhausted commuters crammed in trains and protesters at political rallies bears witness of a great compassion and even intimacy with the world around him, his world, South Africa.
In an interview with Design Indaba he says: “Very often there is this unspoken agreement: I am allowing you to take my photo so that you can tell people my story.”
Rather than the violence, the pain and the blood – images too confronting, he feels –, Booley tells stories, real stories of dignity and understanding. -
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Fruit seller. Woodstock Main Road, Cape Town, 2011
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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Ottery Reformatory. Boys too young to serve sentences in adult facilities are sent here. Smoke break after rehearsing for a rendition of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, an incredible experience for many of the boys. Cape Town, 2013
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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My cousin Imtyaz and his new bride. Bo-Kaap, Cape Town, 2008
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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Mogamat. A ‘stroller’ (street kid) on Long Street, sitting outside Mohammad Somali’s corner shop. Cape Town, 2003
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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A woman photographed close to her home for a story on families living on less than a dollar a day for the Mail & Guardian, Khayelitsha Site C, Cape Town, 2004
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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Early in the morning and then again in the evening there is a movement of goods and carts through the streets of Cape Town. The various stalls that populate the pedestrian malls, pavements and market areas get set up and the packed away again in the evening. The informal trade sector employs a lot of asylum seekers/refugees who have slipped through the cracks of bureaucracy. Cape Town, 2012
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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On board the early mornings train from Heideveld station (Cape Flats) to the city. Cape Town, 2003
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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Bo-Kaap fair on the playground of Scotcheskloof Primary School, Cape Town, 2004
©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
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Credits
- Photography: From the book South Africa at Liberty. ©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa
- Artist website: www.yasserbooley.wordpress.com
- Text: Bart Luirink and Nicole Segers with thanks to Yasser Booley
- Quote: Yasser Booley: Out from behind the lens (Part 1) | Design Indaba, 2015
- Editor: Christina Månsson for ZAM
- Curator: Nicole Segers for ZAM, February 2017. Read the introduction here
- Special thanks to: Africalia
- Want to buy the book by Yasser Booley. Click here
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- Photography: From the book South Africa at Liberty. ©Yasser Booley. Courtesy of Yasser Booley and Joan Legalamitlwa