Goldblatt's body of work was distinct from that of other anti-apartheid artists in that he photographed issues that went beyond the violent events of apartheid and reflected the conditions that led up to them.
[2] His forms of protest have a subtlety that traditional documentary photographs may lack; Goldblatt said, "[M]y dispassion was an attitude in which I tried to avoid easy judgments....
I would have to bump or walk in front of them at the critical moment so that my boss was the only person who ended up with good photographs.
"[5] A couple years later in 1963, as his skill developed, he sold the clothing shop that he had taken over on the death of his father in 1962, and became a full-time photographer.
[9] He in turn was looked down upon and disrespected for not involving himself in activism, on which he commented: "I wasn't prepared to compromise what I regarded as my particular needs.
"[11] During Apartheid, Goldblatt in his work The Transported of KwaNdebele documented the excruciatingly long and uncomfortable twice-daily bus journeys of black workers who lived in the segregated "homelands" northeast of Pretoria.
"[12] In the 1970s, Goldblatt documented one of the many injustices of the Apartheid South African government in a series of photographs of houses, shops and other types of architecture in the Johannesburg suburb, Pageview.
[13] Goldblatt documented the local population's demonstrations of resistance and determination through their persistent occupation of their homes and businesses—regardless of the damage done.
It would have enhanced the beautiful and the personal, whereas black and white photographs to more effectively documented the external dramatic contradictions that defined this earlier period.
[20] Goldblatt was inspired by photography in magazines such as Life, Look and Picture Post, which helped him with things such as captioning his photographs.
[9][21] Goldblatt also cited writers and visual artists as his major influences, among them Jillian Becker, Guy Tillim, Herman Charles Bosman, Nadine Gordimer, Njabulo Ndebele, Ivan Vladislavic and playwright Barney Simon.
[citation needed] Herman Charles Bosman specifically helped inspire Goldblatt in his second photo essay titled The South African Tatler.
[22] After founding the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg in 1989,[23] Goldblatt turned no photographer, struggling or famous, away from his door.