Ernest Cole (Ernest Levi Tsoloane Kole)
[Photographer, chronicler of Apartheid, b. 1940, Eersterust, South Africa, d. 1990, New York.]

 Cole
Photographer
(Total inscription on the stone slab covering Cole’s grave at Mamelodi cemetery, Tshwane, South Africa.)  
 I don’t just want to show new material just for the sake of showing it but I want it to be related in some way or another. So that the viewer walks away with a message in his head and not just with a head full of images. 
 In my observation of the Black man’s life in South Africa as presented in House of Bondage, my personal attitude was committed to exposing the evils of South Africa. 
 To me photography is part of life and any photograph worth looking at twice is a reflection of life, of reality, of nature, of people, of the work of men from art to war. 
 Recording the truth at whatever cost is one thing but finding one having to live a lifetime of being a chronicler of misery and injustice and callousness is another. 
 I couldn’t get over [being given a camera. For] the first few days I carried it around with me wherever I went— even to school. I went around taking snapshots of school friends, beer parties, babies, and I made quite a bit of money.