South Africa’s apartheid era ended more than 2 decades ago but there is still a lot of racial discrimination and huge economic tension between the black and white community. The black community is discriminated against and it is still the bottom segment of the society.
They are constantly faced with deep poverty, unemployment and inequality. All of this is evident if you visit the communities but it gets all the more pronounced when you see it from above.
American Photographer Johnny Miller, who now lives in Cape Town, wanted to capture this when he began his photo series “Unequal Scenes”. He told city lab, “Drone photography is interesting because it affords people a new perspective on places they thought they knew. Humans have this amazing ability to think we know a situation, having seen it so many times from the same perspective. It becomes routine, almost a pattern. When you fly, you totally change that. I wanted to disrupt that sense of complacency that I felt, and that I knew a lot of privileged people in Cape Town feel.”
The photographer took his drone to some of the most contrasting neighbourhoods of Cape Town.
“I can tell you that it (segregation, inside Cape Town’s urban settlements) is desperate,” Miller said. “In some cases, it is like an urban hell. There is disease, there is crime, there is unemployment, there is anger, and there is hopelessness. Not in every single case, but in many. And literally, in some cases, next door, there are all the wealthy pleasures of life. Internet. Cars. Comforts. Swimming pools. Access to wealth. Jobs. Hope.”
The rich neighbourhoods are physically divided from the shacks by electric fences and guardhouses.
The communities were designed in such a way that they could be separated.
Such scenes are not only limited to Cape Town and are seen all over South African cities.
It is sad to see that we are still living in a world where people are treated differently based on the colour of their skin.