Peter Magubane, a South African photojournalist who chronicled decades of violence during the country's apartheid era including the Soweto student uprising of 1976, died on Monday aged 91, his family announced.
One of his most iconic images, from 1956, captured a young white girl sitting on a bench marked "Europeans Only", her black maid sitting behind her on the other side of the bench.
"He was very passionate about his work, everything else would stop when it comes to his work," his daughter Fikile told SABC television.
No cause of death was given, but the country's journalists' association said "he passed on today peacefully surrounded by his family."
Masterful storyteller
Magubane worked in the photography lab of the black urban culture magazine Drum before moving behind the camera, where he quickly focused on documenting the harsh reality of apartheid, and key moments in the struggle for equality.
During the Soweto uprising of 1976 he captured some of the most striking images of the student revolt and gained widespread fame.
"South Africa has lost a freedom fighter, a masterful storyteller and lensman... Peter Magubane fearlessly documented apartheid's injustices," Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa wrote on social media.
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