DALE YUDELMAN

Dale Yudelman (b. 1958) grew up in Johannesburg and began photographing at a young age under the tutelage of his father.

His career in photography has led him through two eras of South African history as well as across several continents. He was barely out of his teens in 1979 when he started working as a staff photographer for The Star Newspaper. In 1986 he moved to London and then Los Angeles, working freelance for various newspapers and magazines. Returning to a newly democratic South Africa in 1996, he began collaborating with artist Arlene Amaler-Raviv. Together they produced three major exhibitions and a number of commissions – their final show, ‘Livestock’ was exhibited at the 8th Havana Biennale in Cuba.

Yudelman then ventured into uncharted territory drawing on his photojournalism background and a growing interest in digital technology. The resulting series, titled ‘Reality Bytes’, aimed to reclaim and freeze the emotional content of daily experience rather than merely regurgitating actual events. A number of projects followed, most notably a series titled ‘I am…’, a portrayal of the ongoing plight of refugees in South Africa. For his series titled 'Life under Democracy' he won the inaugural Ernest Cole Award in 2012 - the country’s most prestigious prize for social documentary photography.

Yudelman’s work is a consequence of a studied eye, brokered over more than forty years of incessant image making. Enthralled with the many aspects, nuances and dimensions of reality – his images are a manifestation of how modern photography is able to escape the bounds of the ‘record’ - creating an authentic and evocative account of recent times.