King George St, Joubert Park

Jo Ractliffe’s photograph captures King George Street in Joubert Park, Johannesburg, presenting a layered urban streetscape during the early 2000s. The image employs a low-fidelity Holga camera aesthetic, producing soft, muted colors, motion blur, and a hazy quality that evokes a fleeting, lived experience of the city. Cool blues and greys of the sky and building reflections contrast with warmer tans and off-whites of the apartment facades, while a vivid red line near the top of the frame punctuates the composition.

Multi-story apartment buildings line the street, reflecting Johannesburg’s inner-city residential patterns, shaped in part by apartheid-era spatial planning, which segregated communities and concentrated urban density in specific areas. The street is animated by numerous vehicles, particularly white mini busses, the local taxis, which remain a central element of the city’s informal transport network. These taxis not only facilitate mobility for residents but also structure social and economic activity along streets like King George, highlighting how everyday life adapts to and negotiates the legacies of planned urban segregation.

Ractliffe’s work presents King George Street as both a concrete location and a site of broader historical and social significance. Through her soft focus and panoramic composition, the photograph captures the interplay between architecture, transport, and human activity, reflecting Johannesburg’s evolving inner-city landscape while acknowledging the enduring impacts of apartheid’s spatial design.