Legendary photographer Sam Nzima has passed on. The Photojournalist is well known for the infamous photograph of Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo during the 1976 Soweto student uprisings.
However, he struggled for years to get the copyright.
Last month, the legendary photographer joined the rest of South Africa in remembering the late ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
In 2011 former President Jacob Zuma conferred Nzima with the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze.
Masana Samuel “Sam” Nzima was born on 8 August 1934 in Lillydale, a small village in Bushbuckridge, located in the south- eastern part of Limpopo Province and the north eastern part of Mpumalanga Province.
He grew up on a farm where his family lived and his father worked. When the farmer pressed the young Nzima into farm labour, he fled to Johannesburg after nine months of working on the farm. He found a job as a gardener in Henningham.
His interest in photography developed at a very young age when one of his teachers had a camera. He was fascinated by the concept of pictures coming out of a box.
Nzima bought himself a Kodak Box Brownie camera. During the school holidays, he would go to the Kruger National Park and charge people to get their photographs taken by him.
