Larrabee and Fischer received photographic training in Germany, while Wissema was trained by Fischer. Their work reflected the influence of which was then the new documentary style in Germany. That photographic style coincided with the development of the first commercial 35mm cameras and the more professional, but compact, Rolleiflex camera, to which all three photographers had a preference.

Constance Stuart Larrabee

Constance Stuart Larrabee was born in 1914 in Cornwall, England and came to Pretoria, South Africa with her family when she was three month old. In 1924, she developed an interest in photography when she was given a Kodak Box Brownie for her birthday. In 1933, Stuart returned to London to study photography and move to Munich two years later to undertake advanced studies. In 1936, she returned to Pretoria where she established a portrait studio to capture the local elite along with important visitors including members of the British royal family. Apart from her commercial work, Stuart enjoyed travelling across the country to chronicle the vanishing ethnic cultures such as Ndebele, Bushmen, Zulu, and the Xhosa peoples. Her photographs in rural areas demonstrate her excellent technique and aesthetic vision. Her exhibitions drew national attention and led to her appointment as a war photographer.

Stuart was the South Africa’s first woman correspondent during World War II when she accompanied the South African Sixth Armored Division and the American Sixth Army as they swept through Europe. She photographed South African soldiers fighting their way up to Italy, as well as the liberation of Paris, with Gen. Charles de Gaulle addressing a crowd. In 1949, she married Col. Sterling Loop Larrabee and settled in Chestertown, where she established a long association with Washington College. She supported its arts programs and helped establish the Constance Stuart Larrabee Arts Center. Larrabee's work has been exhibited in several museums, including the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, and the National Museum of African Art in Washington.

Anne Fischer

Anne Fischer was born in 1915 in Berlin, Germany where she trained as a photographer’s apprentice in a portrait studio. In 1937, she fled Germany shortly before World War II and arrived in Cape Town, South Africa as a Jewish refugee. There she established her own portrait studio and rapidly became part of the city’s artistic circle. In her flourishing commercial business, Fischer developed a specialty in portraiture and wedding photography. With a growing reputation, she gave training to several other prominent women photographers including Jansje Wissema. In parallel of her commercial studio activities, Fischer also produced a body of documentary work, mainly in the rural areas where she photographed many black and coloured South Africans. Though documentary in style, this body of work is without the overt political agendas of some of her contemporaries and is closer in style to her commercial roots in portraiture, even if Fisher’s subjects in these documentary photographs are a far cry from the well-heeled clients of her Cape Town studio.

Jansje Wissema

Jansje Wissema was born in 1920 in Netherlands and emigrated to South Africa in her twenties. In 1947, she encountered the prominent photographer Anne Fischer who managed a successful portrait studio in Cape Town. Fischer appointed Wissema as a trainee photographer and manager of her studio during a two-year absence. Upon Fischer’s return she worked freelance, undertook theatre photography at the University of Cape Town’s Little Theatre, and even medical photography. Wissema is best known for her photographic celebration of the then soon to be demolished District Six. In 1970, when it became apparent that the Government was determined to eradicate District Six, the Cape Provincial Institute of Architects commissioned Wissema to record the buildings, street life, and people of the area. Demolitions had already begun so there was a widespread air of apprehension among the residents, but a considerable part of the district was still inhabited and Wissema vividly and perceptively captured what remained of the ethos of the place. Unfortunately she did not live to print the photographs in her own taste, but the negatives were kept and stored by the institute until their development and publication in 1986, as a book of photographs entitled District Six followed by several exhibitions.

Sources: Rhodes Journalism Review 27, Sept. 2007