In South Africa, the first photography was seen in the mid-19th century. The earliest portrayals were mostly ethnographic and anthropological, depicting the society living under colonial rule. The 1940s and 1950s saw the height of film photography’s participation in the two recording worlds of cultural life and political struggles. The resistance movements in which documentary photographers using film cameras took part have gone down in history. Their capturing of “everyday realities” led to the making of archives that are still essential today.