A Stone's Throw

Book for artist Roger Palmer, A Stone’s Throw is 64 gelatin silver photographs made on Robben Island, Western Cape, South Africa The embossed cover represents a stone while the debossed back cover represents Robben Island. All the photographs were made while facing south. They are arranged in groups of eight, each suggesting a notional day that begins with an exposure made soon after sunrise and progresses to one made shortly before dusk. A black page separates one group from the next. In addition to the proximity of Robben Island to Cape Town, the title recalls a history of political prisoners forced to quarry and crush stone and to the so-called ‘klipgooiers’ (‘stone throwers’), dissidents who were imprisoned on the island in 1976.