The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War By Greg Marinovich

The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four young war photographers, friends and colleagues: Ken Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, war correspondants during the last years of apartheid, who took many of the photographs that encapsulate the final violent years of racist white South Africa. Two of them won Pulitzer Prizes for individual photos. Ken, the oldest and a mentor to the others, died, accidentally shot while working; Kevin, the most troubled of the four, committed suicide weeks after winning his Pulitzer for a photograph of a starving baby in the Sudanese famine. Written by Greg and Joao, The Bang-Bang Club tells their uniquely powerful war stories. It tells the story of four remarkable young men, the stresses, tensions and moral dilemmas of working in situations of extreme violence, pain and suffering, the relationships between the four and the story of the end of apartheid. An immensely powerful, riveting and harrowing book, and an invakuable contribution to the literary genre of war photography. An eye-opening book for readers of Susan Sontag. The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War

You might end you up with a pink slip if you start reading this Book in a working day. Absolutely recommended on your day off. The Bang Bang Club is a thrilling account of the four photojournalists who worked and have fun together during last days of apartheid. In this book I have learned more about Kelving Carter, a photographer among the four who took the famous picture of a vulture that seemed to stalk a starving Child in South Sudan. The photograph made Kelvin get the Pultizer award. He later committed suicide.

One of the other three forming the club, Greg Marinovich, who narrated the story is a also a recipient of the Pultizer award. The other were Joao and Ken. Ken was shot by peacekeepers as South Africa was approaching its first democratic election. A very informative Book and one that I couldn't put down.
Greg Marinovich (Reread June 2022: This was even better the second time around. Bringing it up a star.)

Enjoyed this one. It had a good blend of personal details and contextual ones, which is often a difficult balance to get right. I went into this book not knowing too much about the history of South Africa past the basics we went over in school; I came out of it with a decent grasp of the events of the 1990s, and a good bit of context explaining how things got to that point as well. The history goes hand in hand with the stories of several photographers, focusing mainly on Marinovich for coherence but certainly not to the detriment of any others. There's a lot of detail to cover in this book, and it manages to do so with remarkable clarity.

Running throughout the book, though certainly not to distraction or overabundance, is a philosophical and moral question about the role of war photographers and just what their duties are. Where does the commitment to getting the story and recording a part of history end, and where, if at all, should the humanity play a part? Should these people bear witness and do their part by bringing these often horrific scenes into our living rooms, so we might know the price of war? Or should they intervene more, even at the often very real danger to their own lives? A specific answer is never given, but there's more than enough information in this book for the reader to make their own -- and it might be different to what you assume it would be. Kindle Edition I took a visual journalism class at Boston University with Greg Marinovich last year. As happens with many of the teachers and instructors I’ve encounter in your life, I did not really know much about him as a person. All I knew what was in front of me: Here was a man who walked with a funny gait and spoke with a foreign accent but explained the fundamentals of photography like no one I’ve ever met. He was personable yet encouraging, pushing people to strive for things that he knew was within their grasp. I’m not ashamed to say that he was one of the best instructors I’ve ever had.
But I had no idea who he was. I had no clue what his story was, all the terrible things he’s seen and experienced and taken pictures of. I had some vague knowledge that he was a Pulitzer Prize winner but knew not why.

Then a year later, my history of journalism professor assigned this book. Technically, I didn’t have to read it, but I was curious. So I read the first chapter, and I was hooked.

The book is Marinovich’s (and a fellow photojournalist’s) memoir. The writing was clear and straight forward, not terrific (he is a photographer not a writer after all), but the events were engaging enough to retain my attention. They tell of the time between 1990 and 1999 as Marinovich and others covered the Hostel Wars in South Africa. Really there are two stories contained within these pages: that of Marinovich and his friends’ and that of South Africa.

The Bang-Bang Club refers to a group of photojournalists that made their name covering the conflict that sparked around the time Apartheid ended, also known as the Hostel Wars. It was a complicated battle, full of propaganda as well as various tribal, political, and racial divides that can be hard to understand even to South Africans. Then take in consideration that the fighting didn’t really get much international media attention save the first post-Apartheid election in 1994, and you can understand why a good half of this book is devoted to explaining the situation that they were covering.

It was interesting, if a bit repetitive. You don’t really learn about this stuff in school. Sure, they mention apartheid and how bad it was, but they never really explain the complex conflicts surrounding it. In a way, the inclusion of the explanation of the fighting is more of a history lesson than a rundown of the context that the photojournalists were working in. But that’s okay. It’s interesting anyway.

The other part of the book of course follows Marinovich and the others of the Bang-Bang Club as they develop as photojournalists, win awards, make friends, and struggle with the effects of covering a very ruthless conflict. It’s a personal story but it also covers the ethics and emotional dilemmas of photographing war â€" the battle between a photojournalist’s duty to capture and a person’s duty to help. I mean, when a person is tasked with documenting events, what are they supposed to do when a man is burning or a child is starving in front of them? This struggle to justify their actions affects each in the Bang-Bang Club in different ways, from mild depression all the way to suicide.

It’s so private and frank in some moments that I felt strange reading it, having already met and formed an opinion about Marinovich. It’s similar to the feeling you get when you realize that your parents are people too, that they’re not some one-sided entity here on Earth with the sole purpose to help you. I honestly don’t know what I’d say to Marinovich when I will encounter him in the hallways after reading this book. What do I say to someone who is such a good photojournalist that his talent intimidates me? What do I say to someone who has seen and experience all that crap? I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that really nothing has changed. Regardless of what happened in the past, he is still the same fantastic instructor that I had last year. The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War This is an easy read about four photographers in South Africa who photographed the township wars between the political parties the ANC and Inkatha. These wars occured in the early 90s as the country geared up for its first democratic elections in 1994. The book is also an interesting treatment of the moral problems associated with artists (like photographers) whose jobs demand that they witness people's pain but do little more than be a witness of it. A sobering and melancholic take on the culture wars in South Africa, and the group of photographers who documented it. A very gripping read, very shocking but informative for those who don't know the full story. Also, love the little reference to Manic Street Preachers, who wrote a song about Kevin Carter in 1996 😁 Greg Marinovich

If you're very much into photojournalism or documentary photography or have an iota of interest in it then chances are you might have come across a very powerful photo of an emaciated Sudanese girl who is collapsed and there is a vulture lurking around in the background. This is one of those hard-to-forget photos and the photographer who took this photo, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography in 1994. Sadly, about a couple of months later, he ended his life.

I picked up this book as I wanted to know more about him but along the journey of reading this book, I got to know more about three other daring conflict photographers with whom, he was part of a group that was later on known as the Bang Bang Club based in South Africa transitioning from apartheid to a democratic one. The group comprised Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek, Joao Silva & Greg Marinovich. The book was written by both Joao Silva & Greg Marinovich and it is in the voice of the latter.

I found this book to be very dynamic and not meant for light-hearted ones owing to the gruesome disturbing nature of stories and photos. Moreover, I usually think such accounts can be biased as narrators often try to exonerate themselves of any negative emotions but here I find both the surviving photographers of the Bang Bang Club to be brutally honest which I highly appreciate.

Highly recommended to both history & photography lovers!


The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War Once again I have returned to the world of Autobiographies this time with infamous Bang Bang Club of South Africa. A name I would point out not of there own coshing but one given to them by a fellow journalist. Going into this book I knew little of apartheid and the events that took place in South Africa in the early nineties. What led me to read this book was a picture that many people have seen the world over. One that had haunted me ever since I had seen it many years ago. It wasn't however until recently that I discovered the man who took the photograph had committed suicide not long after winning an award for it. I started to do some research about Kevin Carter and the photo he had taken this, in turn, lead me to the small group of South Africans photographers who had risked everything to show the world a conflict that was tearing the country apart.

As the book start the author threw me in at the deep end with an inability to swim in these unfamiliar waters. Within moments Greg and a fellow photograph Ken Oosterbroek are lying shot on a township street in the middle of a gunfight between peacekeepers and local opposition fighters. It defiantly grabbed my attention. But while they describe the scene in intense detail little context is given. It is only as I moved forward through the book and back in time did it reveal the incredible story of how these two men and the rest of the little club came to be there on that fateful day.

Primarily this is a book about a ragtag group of people who were using old cameras to try and capture a pivotal moment in their countries history. Between the two authors, they manage to give an unflinching account of their time leading up to the election that would end apartheid. While the style of the book is easy to read the subject matter for me was definitely not. There where a couple of time I had to put the book down just to take a break from the scenes that were being shown to me. The photos they captured would change the way the world saw South Africa. In the process of getting these photos there, actions seemed at times to verge on insanity. But for the most part none of them could let go of the job they had chosen to take on addicted to the hunt for the next image. But like all junkies, they also suffered the side effects of their dangerous habit.

Not all of them would make it out alive and the ones that did were left with both physical and emotional damage that will stay with them the rest of there lives. None more so than Kevin Carter who under growing press from both outside forces and the demons he carried in his own mind chose to end his life. For me this sets up the great underlying theme of the book how do you justify your actions as a war photographer. whatever image you supply to the papers is of another's death some atrocity committed on a fellow human being. I think one of the powerful messages this book gave me is that you can't. There is no amount of rationalization that can heal these wounds all you can do is learn to live with it and carry that weight the best you can.

Whilst this books primary job is telling the story of the bang bang club it gave me an illuminating insight into a time and place I knew little about. It sits alongside their own story giving insight into the key events that took place and the people that made them happen. Both topics are fascinating on there own but combined make this book a force to be reckoned with. This for me was a very emotional read taking me right into the heart of darkness. A mixture of obsession and the clashing of political ideas this is a book that will open your eyes to not only the story behind some of the most iconic images of that decade, but also shows the human toll that was shed in blood and tears to end a far-right governments control of a country. The sentence that best summarizes this poignant read for me is from page 153, Good pictures. Tragedy and violence certainly make powerful images. It is what we get paid for. But there is a price extracted with every such frame: some of the emotion, the vulnerability, the empathy that makes us human, is lost every time the shutter is released. Although you won't know this while reading, it perhaps explains why Greg Marinovich is no longer shooting conflict.

While this book is the story of deep friendships and camaraderie, it is also a story of tragedy. The photographers cope with their work through heavy drinking and drug abuse and it leads to the eventual suicide of their friend Kevin. Kevin made one of the world's iconic images, of a vulture stalking a little girl in Sudan. While it is a stunning image and won the Pulitzer Prize, the questions that arose after the photograph about what the photographer had done to help, or not, the little girl in the photograph haunted him.

If you follow photojournalism at all, you'll have heard of Joao Silva. He tells the story along with Greg Marinovich. This book truly gives insight into the world of conflict photography in a raw, matter of fact way. If war photography is a genre in which you're interested then this book is well worth the read. Kindle Edition Trudna książka, pełna drastycznych scen: bólu, przemocy i czystej ludzkiej niegodziwości, do tego bohaterowie, których ciężko darzyć sympatią: chorzy, rządni sławy megalomani, uzależnieni od adrenaliny i widoku śmierci, jakby wyprani z empatii, sami pchający się ze swoimi aparatami na linię ognia. Do tego Bractwo Bang Bang jest po prostu kiepsko napisana.

Mimo wszystko książka warta przeczytania, bo gdyby nie te zdjęcia (niezależnie od pobudek jakimi się kierowali podczas ich wykonywania) świat nie zobaczyłby tragedii humanitarnych w Sudanie, czy w Somalii, ani ostatnich morderczych podrygów zbrodniczego apartheidu w RPA i wielu innych krwawych konfliktów na całym świecie, ciężko zatem przecenić ich działalność, szczególnie, że wielu z fotoreporterów wojennych zapłaciła za nie życiem. Greg Marinovich Uma leitura forte e tensa e que retrata um dos períodos mais nefastos do século XX.

Dá pra escrever muita coisa sobre o que, de fato, é esse livro. Ele trata de temas que vão desde os absurdos inexplicáveis do racismo até as consequências terríveis de problemas desencadeados pela saúde mental, passando pelos limites do ofício jornalístico, dentre outros não menos presentes.

Eu acho bizarro pensar que o apartheid durou quase 50 anos em pleno século XX. Enquanto o Brasil comemorava o tetra no futebol, a África do Sul dava seus primeiros passos democráticos em uma nação destruída, dividida e endividada em razão de (mais) uma guerra sem sentido.

Falando um pouco sobre o aspecto jornalístico da obra, em tempos de fake news em que o Jornalismo talvez nunca tenha sido tão importante, o livro nos faz lembrar que capítulos abominantes da história só se tornaram conhecidos em razão do trabalho de fotojornalistas como os autores do livro e seus colegas de profissão.

Marquei vários trechos durante a leitura. Há muitas passagens impactantes que embrulham o estômago. Entre elas.Sem as nossas fotos, a única fonte de informação sobre o massacre teriam sido os porta-vozes da polícia e os partidos políticos. Os editores de muitas organizações nacionais e estrangeiras ainda aceitavam como verdadeiros os relatórios policiais, embora fosse evidente que a polícia era parte do problema.

Outra parte que me chamou a atenção e que me fez instantaneamente traçar um paralelo com o que vivemos no terraplanismo político que dominou o Brasil foi esse: Depois de décadas de propaganda do governo, que demonizou os movimentos de libertação como parte de um ataque comunista e anticristão total contra a África do Sul, não era de surpreender que o policial branco médio, assim como o cidadão branco médio, detestasse e temesse os partidários do CNA (Congresso Nacional Africana - movimento negro de libertação fundado em 1912). A antipatia era mútua..

Coincidência ou modus operandi de extremistas disfarçados de cordeiros de Deus?

Livros como esse me fazem pensar, pessimista, que a história da humanidade é composta por um looping infinito de erros, guerras e absurdos baseados em verdadesconstruídas por aqueles que detém o poder da narrativa.

E como é triste insistirmos em não aprender com o passado e com fatos que estão escancarados bem diante de nossos olhos.
The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War