Mikhael Subotzky Contestants in the fancy dress competition at the Beaufort West agricultural show. Beaufort West, South Africa. 2006.
“I think it was on my sixth or seventh trip to Beaufort West that I went to th
(...) e agricultural show. I really wanted to be there because of the special place these shows have in the culture of small towns. All the surrounding farmers bring in their best cows and sheep and horses to be judged, and everybody dresses up in cowboy hats and those funny cowboy ties, and there’s a fancy-dress competition, the winners depicted here in this photograph. It’s a real occasion. Shows like this are at the heart of the traditional white Afrikaans farming community.
This work is from the series ‘Beaufort West,’ a portrait of a small South African rural town. I was inspired by the tradition of photographic portraits of small towns in South Africa, and in particular by David Goldblatt’s book, In Boksburg (1982). In Boksburg took a very different angle, but I was interested in how it told a powerful social story by exploring one particular place largely ignored by the outside world.”
- Mikhael Subotzky © Mikhael Subotzky | Magnum Photos
