David Goldblatt’s work reflects a life-long exploration of the relationship between individual South Africans and the society they live in. His first extended photographic essay was compiled in the 1960s. When finally published in 1975 as Some Afrikaners Photographed the book angered some and left others cold. Eventually most of the small print run had to be sold off for a song. Considered one of the major photographic works in this genre, Some Afrikaners Photographed was never reprinted and is almost impossible to obtain. Some Afrikaners Revisited offers an additional twenty images from the period which were not included in the original book, notes by Goldblatt on how both books came into being, a contextualising essay by Ivor Powell and Antjie krog’s impressionistic response to the images.

Almost all of Goldblatt’s photographs have different layers of interpretation through which the viewers, according to their experience and previous knowledge unravel a tale. Indeed, behind each one of Goldblatt’s images there are several stories, most of them related to vital questions, which affect in a direct or tangential way the values by which the country moved and moves. Throughout his career, Goldblatt has been searching for a photograph that would discover probe, reveal or clarify some of these values.