A picture is worth a thousand words. Using only an iPhone, South Africa's innovative photographer Dale Yudelman tells the story of a nation's journey from apartheid to democracy.
The pictures were captured during an 18-month journey taken by Yudelman around South Africa and have been put together in an exhibition and a book titled 'Life under democracy', seeking to show different sides of the rainbow nation.
Yudelman was the first recipient of the Ernest Cole Award, a prize named after the South African documentary photographer who made it his mission to expose what it was like to be black under apartheid rule. Cole died in exile in New York in 1990.
"I have tried to keep myself open to how I see democracy. I can't speak for everybody and I have tried to keep things fair to myself and how I experience it when I wake up every day," said Yudelman.
Yudelman has been a photographer for the past three decades, starting out at a daily newspaper as a teenager then working around the world. He came back to South Africa where he photographed the country's transformation from white minority rule.
His exhibition, shot entirely on iPhone is the first of its kind in South Africa.
"The phone in a way has sort of democratized photography, people having fun with it. It has exploded over the years and I have always been interested in playing with equipment whether it's an old antique camera or a new camera, what ever it is. It is not really about the equipment, its about having a little bit of fun engaging with people," said Yudelman.
Some critics said the photographs showed that not enough has changed since apartheid.
"If you change the title to life under apartheid a lot of the images would still reflect the same circumstances that a lot of the people in the photography still live and he has chosen to take pictures of workers, security guards, maids, people who work in fish and chips shops or at a road house and I think it talks to the circumstance of the majority of people living in South Africa today. You know, workers, a lot of them poor, a lot of them unemployed; he has captured a lot of that in his images as well," said Kholisa Thomas, a guest at the exhibition.
Income distribution in South Africa today is even more unequal than at the end of apartheid in 1994, according to the World Bank's Gini index, which measures income equality.
The exhibition which opened at Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg on September 05, will also be showing in Durban and Capetown in coming months.