Young talents, who are attuned to the internet and blogging, are changing the face of photography, writes Sandiso Ngubane.
A new generation of young photographers is coming of age in a world where smartphones, blogging and social networking have, to some extent, democratised the craft and profession of photography. And increasingly, brands and media outlets are tapping into often untrained photoblog hobbyists, street-style photographers, bloggers and influencers who command a respectable social media following for their campaigns.
Cape Town-based photographer and art director Jody Brand (25) is one of the new breed. She takes pictures of ordinary folk on the streets and her friends – young people who are into popular culture. This is something, she believes, that reflects the diversity of the South African story.
Jody Brand
Brand started taking pictures in 2011, using a camera she got from her father. She started a blog, chomma.tumblr.com, where she posts some of her pictures. Currently an editor for the South African art group CUSS, her work has been shown at the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, at Kalashnikov gallery in Braamfontein and at La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris, and she was one of the speakers featured at this year’s Design Indaba in Cape Town.
Another newcomer, Sipho Mpongo (20), went from stealing his aunt’s camera in grade 7 so he could take pictures of his school graduation dance to buying himself a BlackBerry phone in grade 10 to teach himself how to take pictures. “I couldn’t afford a real camera, so the BlackBerry was the next best thing,” he says.
Sipho Mpongo
Born in the rural town of Nqa-makwe in the Eastern Cape, Mpongo was raised in Langa, Cape Town, where he still lives. Using his lens, the young photographer has sought to document the township and its inhabitants from his own perspective – what he calls “anthropological photography”. [See also lead photo]
Tour guide
While at the Leap Science and Maths School in Pinelands, Cape Town, which provides free education to young people who exhibit potential, Mpongo says tourists would often come to the school and take pictures using “big” cameras. “I wanted to be as close to the cameras as possible,” he says, “so I became a tour guide.”
Karen Page, his mentor for four years while he attended the school, facilitated an exhibition for him in San Francisco. Mpongo was not present at the exhibition but his photo-graphy was showcased in the form of a two-minute video, titled My World Through the Lens, which he narrated.
Commercial Aspect
Though the commercial aspect is very much an objective for these young photographers, there are other motivating factors.
“I don’t have a car so I walk a lot around Cape Town and I see a lot of interesting people out here,” says Brand. “These people have stories to tell and it’s important to me to reflect that. So, I think it’s important to take pictures, not just of cool club kids, but also ordinary people.”
On one of her walks around the city recently, Brand photographed a young man walking barefoot. “I asked him why he was walking barefoot and it turns out he had just come out of hospital,” she says. The young man, whom she snapped without showing his feet for fear of making him feel exploited, had been in a fight and had been hospitalised for a stab wound. Brand says he had found himself with no shoes or money for a taxi home after being discharged.
Brand had earned the man’s trust and learned his story before turning the lens on him. “He said to me: ‘Your name will be in lights one day’,” to which Brand responded: “And yours will be right there next to mine.”
Storytelling
Brand’s response is that people tell her that, in her own way, she does make South Africa “look cool”. It’s a different way and style of telling a story.
At the same time, she says she just wants to document the truth the way she sees it. “I think a lot of people are bored with documentary photography. It’s painful and it’s messy,” she says, but documenting her favourite subject – being young and African in today’s world – also comes with some harsh criticism from some quarters.
At an exhibition she was featured in, Brand remembers an attendant accusing her of promoting promiscuity.
“It was a picture of myself and two of my friends who were really drunk,” she says of the picture that sparked the viewer’s response. “Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but life is not black and white. I want to embrace everything. It’s not really about trying to get a reaction out of people. That’s not my intention.”
Full report and photos – see Mail & Guardian
