Carpenter at Vocational Training Center, Johannesburg

Carpenter at Vocational Training Center, Johannesburg, 1948. Photographic image of a man holding a long piece of wood as he walks between two brick walls. This is at the Johannesburg Vocational Training Center. Young men are trained here to become tailors, builders, carpenters, and cabinet makers. The training is free. Later, they may set up on their own contracting firms and others will make furniture which they sell in the streets, going from house to house in the white districts or sell among their black South Africans. Photograph by Constance Stuart Larrabee, 1948.

In 1945, Constance Stuart returned from her assignment as the first female South African war correspondent in World War II. Her reputation as a photographer grew. She maintained a photographic studio in Pretoria and Johannesburg. This series of images which she entitled "Johannesburg Black Man" depict life in downtown Johannesburg and in parts of the city, where Black South Africans lived, such as Sophiatown, Pimville, and Newclare. A second series of images focuses on Father Huddleston's work in Sophiatown. In 1948-1949, in the early days of apartheid, Stuart documented the building of the South Western townships (Soweto) and the way Africans adjusted to this new environment.

There is one 8x10 black and white vintage print of this negative in the Constance Stuart Larrabee Collection. EEPA also produced an 8x10 study print for reference purposes.