Roger Ballen

Ballen is an American-born photographer who has lived in South Africa since the 70's. As well as having a degree in psychology, a masters in something else (I forget), and a PhD in mineral economics, he is an accomplished documentary-inspired photographic artist [my questionable title!].


While never having studied photography formally, his mother worked as a photographic assistant for Magnum for much of his adolescence and young adulthood.


His early work was more traditionally documentary based, developed during global travels. While living in in South Africa, however, his style evolved from observational and journalistic to interactive and artistic. His interest was with South Africa's poor white underclass - a group who was virtually unknown to the wider world.


With so much hatred and racial tension in South Africa at the time, Ballen has said that he wanted to neutralise the issues, to make photos that could be from anywhere and speak universally. He sees his work as both documentary and aesthetic in intention, and is drawn to subjects who are "archetypal".


In more recent years, Ballen has (by his own admission) taken his photography much more seriously. His work has become more abstracted and stylised, and focuses on documenting the 'human condition'. He states that subjects become actors, rather than people living in certain places, and has worked with the same people numerous times.

..."I'm really a perfectionist when it comes to formal aspects of images. On the other hand, the type of content I'm dealing with - the people, the places - are completely imperfect (in most people's definition)... [It balances] an inherent tension between the imperfect and the perfect." (Ballen in 'Self portrait : The work of Roger Ballen', a film by Saskia Vredeveld).

Check out his website here.