The Catacombs, 12 March 1969
Extraordinarily intimate portraits of the denizens of Cape Town, South Africa’s “Les Catacombs” nightclub taken by photographer Billy Monk in 1969, when he was working as a bouncer at the club. Monk also took pictures of the revelry, which he sold to the subjects. Monk’s friendship with many of the people in his photographs is perhaps the explanation for how he got such “let it out hang out” type scenarios on film.
Monk’s contact sheets and negatives were found in 1982 by Jac de Villiers who arranged an exhibition at the Market Gallery in Johannesburg. Monk never saw the ehibition as he was shot dead in a fight two weeks after the show opened. Jac De Villiers has revisited Monk’s work and curated a new exhibition of Monks classic images and some previously unseen at the Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, from March 1 to April 9, 2011.
The Catacombs, 1968
The Catacombs, 3 March 1968
The Catacombs, October 1968
The Catacombs, 1968
The Catacombs, 1967
26 February 1969
The Catacombs, 25 November 1968
The Catacombs, 6 November 1968
View the rest of the series over at Michael Stevenson.com.
(via KFMW)