As part of my series The Price of Gold, photographing miners with silicosis around South Africa and Lesotho, I visited Mr Dlisani and his family at their home in Teko Springs, Eastern Cape. He told me about his time working on the explosives team in the gold mines and his subsequent 18 months in hospital for a lung disease, from working in the mines, for which he received no compensation.
We chatted inside the small, one room rondavel (round house) where he and his family lived. The kitchen was a two burner electric stove, stood in the corner of the room, with the food and cooking implements stored neatly under the bed.
I decided that the only real option I had was to photograph Mr Dlisani and his wife inside their one-roomed home. The resulting photograph was underwhelming and I left feeling like I hadn’t quite done their story justice. To listen to such hardship and then not be able to translate it into a compelling image is always disappointing, but you have to work with what is available to you.
I got into the car and, as I was reversing, I opened the window to thank Mrs Dlisani for her hospitality. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?” she asked.
I was in a bit of a rush to get to my next shoot but I didn’t want to be rude so I got out of the car and followed her around the corner. She showed me the rest of their home, the large kitchen which, due to bad weather and poor building materials had collapsed.
With no job, no compensation and lungs that were severely damaged from working in the mines, Mr Dlisani had no choice but to leave the house to go to ruin and move his family into the rondavel.
As soon as I saw the building and heard the story I knew that we had to retake the portrait. The crumbling kitchen not only created a more dramatic scene but was also an honest visual narrative that told their story in an instant. This is what you hope for as an environmental photographer, every time you arrive at someones house. A simple scene that tells the story.
I went back to the car, got all my equipment out, setting up a light inside the building as there was no electricity and little natural light in the room.
I was tempted to use a wider shot of the house, placing it in the context of the rural landscape. Because of the lighting it was well balanced and it possibly told a broader story about their lives but I felt that the tighter crop of the final image simplified it and focused on the family more than the building.
The story, after all, was about Mr Dlisani and so I wanted for him and his relationship with his family to be the main reading of the image. The building acted as the perfect frame, leading the eye towards the family whilst simultaneously telling a visual story about their lives.
With much of my work the context is needed, so once you know the basics about Mr Dlisani and his illness, the way he was treated by the mine and his inability to support his family, the photograph is even more powerful.
It could, however, have had so much less of an impact if I had not got a second chance at the portrait.
This portrait was taken in 2015 and from that moment on I have always looked a little bit further when I feel like I haven’t got the image that I need, especially when I am advocating for the rights of the person I am photographing. It seems like I am doing them a great disservice if I do not take a bit more time and more of an effort to do the best that I can.