Casting Shadows: Images from a New South Africa.

Casting Shadows: Images from a New South Africa by Lesley King-Hammond, Mongane Wally Serota, Lemuel Johnson and Athol Fugard Photographs by Edward West University of Michigan Museum of Art January 2001, $40.00 ISBN 0-295-98117-2

Since the fall of the minority white government, there have been numerous studies on how the end of apartheid has affected South Africans. In the new book Casting Shadows, photographer Edward West uses the visual metaphor of the shadow to illustrate affects of the changing power dynamics on the lives of black South Africans.

The shadows have multiple meanings. They can be seen as a means of avoiding detection. They may also represent servitude, as in the way Soweto is also known as "Shadow City" in reference to its black population and its geographic position as a satellite of the previously white Johannesburg.

In his photography, Mr. West manages to capture the subtle interplay of inferences and avoids cliche or trite "message" photography. His evocative, full-frame photographs (no crops or edits) lend an unquestionable truthfulness to the book. Each page is like a slice of actual life with the volume turned down. It's as if the murmur of a conversation, the rumble of truck tires, the wind and the everyday sounds of life were quieted just below what is audible. If you held your ear close enough to the page you might just hear the sound of unease in the transition, and the rebirth of a nation.

Gregory A. Woods is a photographer and writer.