This image is taken from Michel Setboun’s third book about agencies. Eighty reporters were chosen to comment on one iconic image taken during their careers. The image we’re publishing today is a picture by Yves Gellie. Every week we’ll be publishing an image from the book along with its accompanying text.
“In the 1990s, war raged between the Inkatha and the ANC in South Africa. I covered the campaign of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the political leader of the Zulu party, Inkatha. His main opponent was Nelson Mandela, then head of the ANC. Buthelezi shared power with the king, Goodwill Zwelithini, who remains highly influential.
During my reporting, I witnessed an odd scene in Ulundi, in the former capital of Zululand. It was an initiation ceremony with a thousand virgins holding large green bamboo shoots. In their midst, a young albino Zulu. What an image! It was like an apparition.
The picture wasn’t included in the report, but my agency sent it to the World Press. Benetton saw it. It went all over the world. Later, it would be used on the cover of Polynation, an album by the South african rock group Electric Pedals. The photograph had nothing to do with my report, but it was prescient. A few years later, many photographers began to focus on the plight of albinos in Africa.”
Interview by Sarra Ben Chérifa
