The Way I See it – A Memoir

Jürgen Schadeberg

Jurgen Schadeberg was born in Berlin in 1931. He studied at the School of Optic and Photechnic in Berlin, and worked as an apprentice for the German Press Agency for two years. In 1950, at the age of 19, he moved to South Africa to join his mother and stepfather, and in September 1951 he joined Drum magazine as their official photographer and layout artist. His first employment in South Africa, however, was with a developing and printing company, printing amateur pictures. This was followed by a position at a studio photographing families.

By the mid-1950’s Drum had grown as a publication, and had attracted some innovative and talented writers. However, in 1959 Jurgen left Drum to pursue a career as a freelancer. In July of the same year he joined an expedition led by Professor Phillip V. Tobias, the Chairman of the Kalahari Research Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand, to study the San (Bushmen). He published these images in the book The Kalahari Bushmen Dance in 1982.