Roger Ballen, born in New York in 1950, has lived in South Africa since 1982. His mother worked with Magnum and established a photography gallery in New York in the 1960s, through which Ballen was exposed to leading photographers.

Ballen's photography in South Africa has focused on the social margins. During Ballen's trips as a professional geologist, he began to document rural towns, or dorps, and their inhabitants. He published these images in books entitled Dorps: Small Towns of South Africa (1986) and Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa (1994). The documentary flavor of these images resonates with the work of Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, and other social documentary photographers.

Ballen's more recent work shifts away from the documentary value of the image toward the exploration of psychological tensions through structured poses and formal compositions. This body of work is published in Outland (2001).

Ballen has exhibited internationally and is included in many notable international collections.