Roger Ballen, Pals, USA, 1977

In the 1970s, the US-born, South Africa-based photographer Roger Ballen set out to capture what he feared was a vanishing rite of passage: a carefree boyhood, resulting in a 1979 photo book titled just that. “I worried that a boy could no longer be a boy,” Ballen writes in one of the book’s opening vignettes, noting that “instead of drifting through life in a misty, half-focused, dreamlike state, [boys appear] constantly subjected to the demands of society.” Filled with uplifting images of boys at play around the world, the newly reissued book is the focus of a new feature

by Tom Whyman for our Sunday Read column. Discover more here.