Steve Hilton Barber
Names: Barber, Steve Hilton
Born: 1962, Tzaneen, Limpopo Province (then Transvaal), South Africa
In summary: South African photographer, member of Afrapix.
Steve Hilton Barber was born in Tzaneen, Limpopo province in 1962, into a wealthy farming family. He received a Bachelor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University. In 1986 he joined Afrapix and worked as a stringer for Reuters in the Eastern Cape.
His 1990 photo-essay on a Northern Sotho initiation ceremony, entitled “The savage noble and the noble savages. Photography and an African Initiation”, engendered much debate. He photographed semi-naked to naked initiates gathered in the indigenous bush in the foothills of the Northern Drakensberg mountains in a circumcision ceremony - their journey into manhood.
With this series Hilton-Barber challenged the taboo of secrecy around such ceremonies, as well as that around the depiction of the male nude in the South African press and issues of the relation of power between photographer and subject. Amid the controversy, the photographs were stolen from the walls of the Market Theatre's gallery. The aesthetic value of the images, however, was unquestioned.
That same year he left Afrapix, and started SouthLight Photographic agency with Paul Weinberg. In 1992 he worked with Saturday Star, and in 1993-94 with Mail and Guardian. He died of a heart attack on 23 May 2002.
References
- “Dislocation: Artists” [online] Available at: arquired.es [Accessed 15 April 2009]
- Obituary: Steve Hilton Barber [online] Available at: 3rdearmusic.com [Accessed 15 April 2009]
