Mozambicans on Tuesday mourned the recent death of Ricardo Rangel, a groundbreaking photojournalist who documented six decades of Mozambique’s history from colonialism and through civil war.
The 85-year-old Rangel, whose photographs created a vivid black-and-white record of Mozambican life, died June 11 at his home in Maputo, and his passing has been mourned throughout society.
“His photos are unmistakable, even though now what’s happened is that – like all the great masters – he left the school of convention and now the majority of photojournalists working today are imitations of Rangel, said photographer Luis Souto, who got his first job at Noticias newspaper when Rangel was director of photography.
“The country has lost a master. There is not going to be another one like him, at least not any time soon, Souto said.
“He always went around photographing everything. We even said that Rangel takes the camera with him when he goes to the bathroom.
Rangel was born in 1924 in the capital city then called Lourenco Marques, Portuguese East Africa, into a family that had roots in Africa, Asia and Europe.
He developed a fascination with photography from an early age, becoming the first non-white photographer to be employed at a Mozambican newspaper in 1952.
His career spanned almost 60 years and saw him work for several national publications, including Tempo, a weekly magazine he helped establish and often pushed the boundaries of colonial censorship.
Much of Rangel’s work was banned at the time and would only be published after the fall of colonial rule.
“He was much more than a photographer. He used photography as a weapon against colonialism and foreign aggression, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo said at his funeral, saying his death left “an indelible mark on the history of Mozambique.
Through independence in 1975, a 16-year civil war that gripped the country, and the hard-won return to peace, Rangel documented Mozambicans’ lives and their country’s troubled past.
His work was characterized by an overriding humanism and a focus on social issues.
Some of his most famous subjects include a young boy branded by his colonial employer as punishment for losing a cow, the black prostitutes who serviced white sailors in the colonial capital’s port area, and the child beggars who roam the streets of Maputo with tattered clothes.
Rangel’s photos have been exhibited in museums and galleries across Africa and Europe, and his passion for jazz led him to open a club in a train station that became a focal point for Mozambican music.
His work charted a path for a new generation of photojournalists in Mozambique, and he was remembered for the efforts he spent training young photographers.
He founded the Photographic Training Centre in 1983, and worked as its director until his death.
“One of my memories of him was how encouraging he was to up and coming photographers. It will be a great loss, said AFP’s photo chief for southern Africa, Alexander Joe.
“He’s a dying breed, you don’t get them like that. He was one of the old masters, like Alf Khumalo, Peter Magubane. These are the people who recorded their countries’ social problems in the good old way of black and white, and are masters of the true photography.
