Unequal Scene
Cape Town-based photographer Johnny Miller uses a drone camera to capture still images and videos to depict a bird’s-eye view of a tough reality, that exists in South Africa. In a project titled “Unequal Scene”, recently highlighted by PetaPixel, began as a single Facebook post, Miller’s images show the physical divides that separate some ultra-rich neighborhoods from squalid shacks. Sometimes that gap is 200m of wetland; sometimes it includes and electric fence and guardhouse.
Although reasons for divides in rich and poor can differ from country to country the inequality you see below can largely be put down to Apartheid policies when racial segregation was once the law. Although these laws were abolished 22 years ago many argue that things remain very much the same.
According to Miller, some of the communities were “designed with separation in mind,” while others grew “more or less organically.” It is what remains of the Apartheid policies, when racial segregation was enforced by law. It’s been 22 years since these policies were eliminated, but in reality, “many of these barriers, and the inequalities they have engendered, still exist.”
“Discrepancies in how people live are sometimes hard to see from the ground. The beauty of being able to fly is to see things from a new perspective – to see things as they really are.” As Miller explains, the images are “just the beginning” of a larger, interdisciplinary project in which he interviews people in these South African communities and others, pairs their perspectives, and presents his findings. Check out some of Miller’s images below, or visit his website, Twitter, or Facebook for more information.
