Johannesburg - One picture, taken amid the chaos of flying bullets and crying schoolchildren, became the iconic image that thrust the 1976 Soweto uprising into world headlines.
But while that photograph exposed the brutality of the apartheid police and shocked the world, it also saw an abrupt end to the career of the man behind the lens.
Photographer Sam Nzima believes that while the picture catapulted him to sudden fame, it also destroyed his life.
The small Pentax camera he used on June 16, 1976, had cost him R1, which had taken a year for him to pay off. It was this camera that captured the image of a limp and bleeding Hector Pieterson in the arms of fellow schoolboy Mbuyisa Makhubo, running, his face twisted in grief. Hector’s sister, Antoinette, was running beside them, sobbing.
A few hours before this image was shot, Nzima had marched with the schoolchildren, chatting to them and taking pictures along the way.
In Orlando, one of the pupils mentioned that the police were on their way. Nzima, who had an armband that identified him as a member of the press, ran towards neutral ground when the police arrived.
The now-82-year-old Nzima remembers the events of the day vividly. “A guy with a stick under his arm told the schoolchildren he was giving them three minutes to disperse. The defiant children began singing Nkosi Sikilel’ iAfrika before all hell broke loose, as the man reached for his gun and began shooting, shouting skiet’ (shoot).’
The children scattered, screaming. “I saw Hector Pieterson fall down and Makhubo pick him up. I ran to the scene and took the pictures. Our press car was the nearest vehicle there and they put him inside and took him to Phefeni Clinic. But he was certified dead on arrival.’
Nzima knew what he had just captured with his camera was big. He hid the film in his sock.
He loaded fresh film and continued shooting pictures. The police were to confiscate all the film they found on him, but they missed the cartridge tucked in his sock.
At the time, Nzima was working for The World, which was banned by the apartheid government in 1977.
When his film was developed, there was much deliberation in the newsroom as to whether to publish the powerful picture. It was.
There were many rules in place at the time regarding the publication of images. Breaking these could prompt the government to go as far as closing down a newspaper.
This image would particularly enrage the regime.
The Star