Through the camera viewfinder on the morning of August 16, 2012, photojournalist Alon Skuy watched as militarized police rolled up to the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, a town in northwestern South Africa.
Atop the mine, hundreds of striking miners waved crude weapons in resistance to owners who had retracted a promise to negotiate for a living wage.
As tensions around the mine continued to rise, authorities arrived at the scene with the intention of “ending this matter.”
As violence erupted, Skuy began snapping photos, capturing what would be the most severe instance of South African brutality against civilians since the end of apartheid in 1990.
Thirty-four men were killed and 78 injured. When the dust settled, bodies lay strewn across the rocky ground.
“At that moment, you don’t quite take consciousness of the fact that people are dead,” Skuy said. “It was, as I say, just so surreal.”
The events of Marikana were a watershed in South African society. Even 12 years later, the massacre remains an open wound for the country. The photographs Skuy captured on that day connect to the broader theme of his life’s work. They are raw, visceral, and above all deeply emotional.
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Skuy is a South African-born photojournalist who now lives in Miami. He began his career two decades ago as a photojournalist for the Star, a daily newspaper in Johannesburg. He has dedicated himself to stories that document the candid resistance and resilience of communities in his homeland amid ongoing struggles with xenophobia, wealth inequality, systemic injustice.
Skuy’s work is a direct reflection of the power of visual journalism in capturing humanity during periods of change. He’s won multiple awards around the globe for his work and is presently a fellow at the iWitness, IPC Institute for Visual Journalism at Florida International University.
“Alon lives beyond the obvious and is not defined by the darkness,” said Miami Herald photographer Carl Juste who is co-director of iWitness. “He goes beyond the moment, expands the frames of past, present and future.”
Skuy’s wife Toni, who has been by his side for much of his career, remarks on her husband’s natural ability to relate and connect to the people he photographs. “I think he’s very empathetic towards people and kind-hearted, so I think that sensitivity is what makes his pictures so compelling,” she said. “He’s also got a sense of humor and a quirkiness, and I think that also comes through in his storytelling and his photography.”
This past September, an exhibition featuring Skuy’s work and curated by Juste opened at IPC ArtSpace in Little Haiti. The exhibition titled “A Beautiful Struggle,” includes an eclectic selection of Skuy’s photography.
The exhibition visually articulates the “beguiling complexity” of South Africa’s post-Apartheid era, reflecting both the nation’s ongoing struggles and its resilience and its . His photographs bear witness to the struggle people face living on the fringes of society while simultaneously illustrating the prevailing beauty in humanity despite hardship and brutality.
“That is hope,” Juste said in response to Skuy’s work. “He finds light in the darkest places, and you’d be surprised how quickly your eyes will adjust to darkness when there is a flicker of light.”
Skuy, who was born in Johannesburg, remembers from a young age being affected by the stories he’d read in newspapers delivered to his home.
“I was always so interested in human stories and the visual aspect of how stories are told,” he said, emphasizing the power photos have in “documenting history and creating awareness about issues.”
Skuy also felt immediately at home in the dynamic newsroom environment where he had the resources and support he needed to work closely with communities and cover in-depth stories.
He was formally educated at The Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg. After graduating, he became a freelancer for various news organizations around the area. In 2006, he landed his first full-time job as a photographer for the Star, a job he considers to have been a pillar in the foundation of his work.
Over the next 15 years, Skuy’s career grew. He was later hired by another local newspaper, the Times, where he covered a variety of human-interest stories and other long-term work centering around themes of xenophobic violence and intimate portrayals of subculture.
Awards Skuy has won include recognition by the World Press Photo Foundation and the Picture of the Year International. He eventually became chief photographer of the Times and began mentoring young photojournalists on the power of visual language.
Often, he said, images create a human connection. Stories of xenophobia, for example, are usually filled with data and statistics. Photos add another dimension, humanizing the struggle serving a vital role impacting how people interpret the world, and how they get information.
“If you take pictures of something that affects a lot of people, people can respond to those issues, and it creates awareness about it,” Skuy said. “It’s a privilege and also a responsibility.”
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Ufrieda Ho, a Johannesburg freelance journalist worked with Skuy on several projects including a commemorative book reflecting on the tenth anniversary of the Marikana Massacre.
In putting together the book, Ho describes Skuy’s return to Marikana in 2022, where he captured images of the site of the violence and the lasting effects it has had on the surrounding community. This time, his work focused on the fragmented stories of those who were forced to “keep going.” These were the stories that had originally been left untold and bear witness to a community otherwise forgotten.
As Ho wrote the text for the book, she interviewed Skuy several times about his experience in Marikana. To her, the massacre is representative of the country’s ongoing society struggle and how one kind of tragedy is a reflection of the world we live in now. “[The victims] remain restless ghosts,” she said. But choosing to return to the site of the massacre 10 years later is “ a way to walk with the ghosts because we don’t get to lay them to rest.”
Yet even in a society where there is so much inherent struggle and brutality, Skuy finds a way of documenting pockets of joy that bring people hope, keeps society afloat and preserves moments of quirky joy as well.
Toni recounts a time when musician Lionel Richie performed in South Africa. Skuy was on assignment, taking photos of the event, when he and Richie struck up conversation and immediately connected. Later that night Richie asked Skuy if he would be his personal photographer for the remainder of his time in South Africa.
“A very memorable moment was when Lionel Richie invited the two of us to his hotel room when we got there the next thing you know, we were waiting for him, and he walked out in just a towel,” Toni said laughing. “I mean they struck up a friendship and I guess it shows his versatility.”
Skuy is able to forge deep personal relationships with people from all different backgrounds that are visible through his work, she said. “From all walks of life, Alon has this ability to just connect with people.”
“When you look at [Alon’s] body of work, there is a personal form of resistance and survival that he chooses to make photographs of something that represents everyday beauty—even amidst brutality,” Ho went on to explain.
“It’s the beauty, it’s the brutality, it’s bizarre—he sees it all,” said Ho. “It always returns for me back to maybe a question or an invitation or a glimpse into just what it means to be human.”
Skuy’s work comes at a time when journalism is undergoing immense pressure from the web of society. Decimated newsrooms, and business model politics within the industry have resulted in a smaller pool of journalists and more weight on them to return stories quickly, not allowing journalists to pause long enough to find the nuance or the deeper meaning in the story they are covering.
Ho observes that many photographers’ relationships with those they cover are transactional. Photographers come into a scene, she said, even in some instances pausing the journalist’s interview to capture the frame they think they need before moving on to their next assignment.
Skuy chooses to linger, taking time to forge bonds with the people in his stories. Through the trust he gains from those he covers, he can unobtrusively capture the raw sincerity of the moment.
“It takes that level of being personally invested to remember that above all, above whatever it is that you do, there are people who exist in those photographs,” Ho said. “They are not just a flat image on photographic paper.”
Skuy’s work is as much rebuttal to systems of oppression, brutality, conflict and social inequality as it is a reflection of the human resolution to live on, fight on and persevere.
“Alon chooses not to look away, as paining as it is,” Ho said “it’s a beautiful reminder that life gets made where we don’t imagine it to be made.”
