Alf Kumalo

Alfred Kumalo (5 September 1930 – 21 October 2012), better known as Alf Kumalo, and with the surname sometimes spelled Khumalo, was a South African documentary photographer and photojournalist.

Alf Kumalo was born in Utrecht near Newcastle in the province of KwaZulu Natal. He first worked in a garage doing various jobs and then started freelancing for various publications, selling his photographs where he could. He did a lot of work for the Bantu World.

In 1956, he found a permanent position at the Golden City Post and later received assignments from The Star, a South African daily, Drum magazine, and international publications like The New York Times. He was among the photographers who captured the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960.

In 1963, while working for Drum, he was selected together with Harry Mashabela to go and shoot a story about African students in the Iron Curtain countries. The two made the front cover of the next edition of the magazine, "Drum men go to Europe".

While in London, he interviewed Cassius Clay and then found out that he had won first place in a photographic competition. The prize was an Austin Cambridge motor car. Kumalo had been encouraged to enter by David Hazelhurst, the editor of Drum.

Kumalo had used his African names Mangaliso Dukuza because he wanted the judging to be impartial and not influenced by his reputation. A picture of him and his award was published by the Star on its front page. "A lot of black people talked about it for days afterwards, because in those days they would only get on to the front pages of white newspapers if they were thieves."

Despite the prospect of being arrested and assaulted, Kumalo kept on taking pictures, sometimes at personal cost. David Hazelhurst recalled:

One day in 1963, when I was editor of Drum magazine, Alf Khumalo walked into my office carrying a picture. It showed a burly policeman delivering a vicious kick between the legs of reporter Harry Mashabela from behind. Such was the power of the kick you could see the shape of his boot exploding through the front of Mashabela' trousers.

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