Journalist/photographer Chris Parkinson, who lives in Johannesburg, has shot this short film about car spinning in the city. Invited by a fellow photographer, who is also a spinner, he headed out to Nasrec, a racing track on the edge of Soweto. “What I loved about the event is that it seemed to be completely mixed, racially, both in terms of the drivers and the spectators – this is rare in South Africa where most sports are considered to be either black or white. There was a great atmosphere and everybody was there just to appreciate the cars and the driving,” he told me an in email.  Parkinson, born in Britain has been living in South Africa the last 4 years as a cameraman for BBC News.  “I like to think that I came to Africa with an open mind and have really enjoyed travelling widely and meeting so many different people. i wouldn’t say that I have a philosophy about how I film and the stories I tell about the continent–I just try to create something interesting to the viewer. I like to do positive stories and to show what a diverse and fascinating continent it is but at the same time it is impossible to hide from the challenges that the people and governments face –those stories must also be covered.”

You can view his work here.

Further Reading

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.

The new antisemitism?

Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in ‘Time’ is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.