Reid Crandall

Into the light.

Spontaneous street photography session in Woodstock, Cape Town. An area with a wide variety of people, steeped in character. Temporary outdoor “studio” assembled (battery pack, soft box flash, reflectors).

By: David Karnezos (@Dave_Karnezos)

This April marks two decades since the lives of all Rwandans were dramatically changed through violent events that would mark the country forever.

In an effort to highlight this anniversary, South African photographer Pieter Hugo recently journeyed to southern Rwanda, twenty years after nearly a million people were killed during the country’s genocide, to document the lives of those affected by the Rwandan genocide. What he captured is what the New York Times’ Susan Dominus calls “a series of unlikely, almost unthinkable tableaus”. That’s because in each of these photographs, composed of pairs, the two people posing next to each other share a haunting relationship - one a victim, the other a perpetrator. Each photograph consists of a perpetrator, who is Hutu, who was granted pardon by the Tutsi survivor of his crime.

The individuals, all of whom are part of an initiative run by the AMI (Association Modeste et Innocent) that fosters a continuing national effort toward reconciliation, all agreed to be a part of this photographic series. Through this AMI-led project, small groups of Hutus and Tutsis are counseled over a period of several months with the process leading up to the final stage where the perpetrator makes a formal request for forgiveness from their victim.

Read more about the stories behind these photographs.

“As he ascended into the Himalayas, he felt as if he were walking into a myth, up into the mountains and back in time. ‘If I can’t get a good book out of this,’ he remembers thinking to himself, ‘I ought to be shot.’”

"Space Dog"

Illustration by trocar

Roger Daltrey sitting inside The Who’s tour bus, in the XVIII arrondissement November 13th, 1965