Mpeli Pitsi, Katse Dam, August, 2015

Excerpt from : https://lenscratch.com/2018/08/south-africa-week-4/

'In addition to the panoramas the Katse Dam series includes two portrait series of local herders. One of these subseries — the “Balaclava” collection — show close-up views of residents wearing a traditional headgear with only their eyes visible to the camera. This series closely resonates with the explorations of power, access, and visibility explored in the panorama images. Southwood describes himself as an artist who “considers questions of power and privilege in relation to portraiture” and finds an important encounter in these images, wherein subjects choose to obscure their faces for his photograph. The portraits further echo the latent tension Southwood perceives in the dam. The strobe lighting sets the subjects apart from dim surroundings and creates a theatrical disconnect symbolic of the literal restriction to the dam. In some of the portraits the dam is visible, once again making reference to the reservoir as a “blank and distant water mass” and as a “perpetual backdrop.”I undertook three trips to Lesotho before feeling comfortable photographing these young herders.'

At the end of every work day on the reservoir, I printed the portrait for each subject and handed it over.

When I go back to these villages now, the photos are clearly prized because they are thumbed and worn.

Unframed Archival inkjet on Hahnemuhle 300 gsm

L 105 x 84 cm edition 4

M 75 x 60 cm edition of 3

S 52 x 42 cm edition 3