Jill Coleman - People Of the Klein Karoo

September 2nd, 2008 | Scroll down for comments

Jill Coleman will be returning from Chicago to her home base in the Western Cape of South Africa later this month.  Jill was born in Zimbabwe in 1963 and emigrated to South Africa in 1977.  She is a self taught, freelance photographer and uses her life experience to try to capture emotion and reality.

The full series (of which this is just a part), “People Of The Klein Karoo,” took over 3 years to complete. All the photos were taken right next door to where Jill lived, near the little town of De Rust in the Western Cape of South Africa.  Most of the people in the series are farm workers and their families on Rooi Rivier Plaas (Red River Farm).  Jill prefers to spend at least a year on each documentary series.  She previously spent two years doing “The Recovery Series” on recovery from alcohol and drug addiction at Serenity Rehabilitation Centre, Sedgefield.

Jill’s particular  strength, she feels, is indoor intimate portraiture characterized by gentle natural light through small windows, textures on the walls, and the intimacy of home life, emotion and empathy.  Jill admires photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Roger Ballen, Obie Oberholzer, Steve McCurry, and Sebastiao Salgado amongst others.

Jill writes that it’s very important for her to respect her subjects. She wants to preserve and display the dignity that each person posesses if we would only see it. She hopes to display the series in galleries that well appreciate both the documentary and artistic nature of the images, but for now she is glad that they are more widely accessible as photo journalism.

The following quote by Ansel Adams describes how she feels about photography:

Some photographers take reality… and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.  Ansel Adams

Jill’s portfolio at IrisF64 (agency)

15×100.com (group project)

Featured photo at JPG Magazine

Jill at MySpace

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I spent six weeks living in Soweto, South Africa in the summer of 1989, and the place and people will always be etched on my mind. Now I’m excited to finally show Jill Coleman’s work. Her photographs are what this gallery is all about. She shows people living on another side of the world with warmth, intimacy, and glimpses of our common humanity.

A request - I will be going to Cambodia on September 9th. Several times a year I take small groups of Japanese people (others are welcome) with me to learn and volunteer in simple ways. I’ll be bringing a gift of cash for a couple wonderful projects.

If you want to learn more and perhaps contribute click here to learn more.

Once again, the purpose of this gallery is to present different faces and perspectives of humanity. Your comments and conversations are welcome. If you enjoy these photographs, sign up for our email list to receive reminders of future exhibitions!