The Market Photo Workshop, with the support from the Department of Arts and Culture, is hosting the Photo Incubator Edition 3 programme with 9 emerging photographers. Market Photo Workshop, in Newtown – Johannesburg, is in its 3rd year of running this photography incubation programme, designed for practicing photographers who need support in further developing their photography business to the next level of practice. As part of this incubation, the Photo Workshop will schedule several masterclass sessions, mentorship opportunities, business incubation, and either exhibitions or publications or site specific interventions as outcomes. We endeavored to expose participants to a wide variety of artistic practices to inspire their creative thought and sense urgency for their enterprises. One of the critical contributions to the programme is to introduce participants to trans-disciplinary practices that would enhance both their artistic practice and entrepreneurial success.

The 9 photographers participating in the programme were selected through an open call based on the depth of their photography project proposals and portfolios. Their experience includes working in media spaces, training young photographers in townships, commercial photography and producing photography bodies of work.

The 9 photographers are:

Andile Bhala is a photographer who views photography as a means of making visible under- served communities. His work is about the people and he sees photography as a weapon against racism and many other social issues.

Bhala’s project for the Photo Incubator Edition 3 programme is titled UBUDODA. The project will see him riding a bicycle for 150km through Soweto. For every kilometer, Bhala will photograph a portrait of a man. The resultant 150 portraits will result in a conversation with men confronting the question “yini ubudoda?” (“what is it to be a man?”). Through the project, Bhala aims to confront, understand, challenge and deconstruct the idea of masculinity in South African communities, particularly in Soweto.

Baveesha Naran from Benoni studied a BSC Information Technology at Rand Afrikaans University. When she began her working career, she found herself in aviation and since 2002 has worked in ATNS (Air Traffic Navigation Services). While she grew within the organisation, her personal life brought her to a point where she realised she had an intense passion for photography. In 2012 she purchased her very first camera, and attended a short course that allowed her to learn the basics of photography. Instagram specifically highlighted her excitement for photography when within a year of beginning her profile she posted over 800 pictures.

Naran’s project for the Photo Incubator Edition 3 programme aims to use photography to raise awareness for Vitiligo and aid people living with Vitiligo who are battling with self- acceptance. Naran’s vision is to establish an NGO to assist people with Vitiligo. She would like the Photo Incubator Edition 3 programme to aid her in enhancing both her photography and business knowledge in order to build a stronger foundation for the organisation.

Kerileng Mafole was born in Kroonstad, Free State. Her husband introduced Mafole to photography in 2009. Mafole’s photography and video company, Eulogia Graphix, focuses mainly on baby showers, bridal showers, weddings and portraiture.

Through the programme Mafole wants to further develop business and artistic skills of running her photography and video business.

Natasha Jacobs is originally from the small town of Eshowe, Kwazulu-Natal. She completed a diploma and Bachelor of Technology degree at the Durban University of Technology. Jacobs is currently awaiting the final result of her Masters of Arts in Fine Arts degree at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Jacobs would like the programme to assist her with developing a photography business that allows her to work as a photographer and sell those photographs. The photographs sold will be of conceptual merit, framed, signed and editioned. Web presence and pop up exhibitions are some elements, which will be introduced in Jacobs’ business.

Niamh Walsh-Vorster lives and works in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal as a freelance photojournalist for various publications. She completed a four year photojournalism and media studies course at Rhodes University, with Anthropology as her second major. Walsh- Vorster went on to intern at LiveMag in Cape Town in 2015. She had her first solo exhibition, The Faithful in Cape Town at The Central Methodist Church in 2015. Walsh-Vorster has worked for Independent Newspapers in Durban, been a student and volunteer for The Durban Centre for Photography and is the co-founder of the award winning e-zine publication, Ja. Magazine. In 2016 she was awarded by BASA for an article about arts and rape culture.

Walsh-Vorster will develop a body of work that can contribute to the visual story of Durban and it’s current history. She would love to produce images that can be used commercially and artistically to reflect the colourful and complex city.

Nkosinathi Khumalo is a South African born photographer from Soweto. He completed his Advanced Programme in Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in 2015.
Khumalo is the first-prizewinner of the ‘Transformation Art Project’ hosted by Mashumi Arts Projects, together with German Engineering Company Reinhausen SA in 2014, which funded the competition. He has also been featured in various group exhibitions. In 2015, world- renowned Italian crane company Fassi Group commissioned Khumalo and two other photographers to develop content for their 2016 calendar. He was a top 6 finalist for the 2016 SA Taxi Foundation Awards.

Khumalo is planning to establish a company that is focused on bridging the gap between emerging photographers and the industry at large. One of the core objectives of the company will be career management. Khumalo’s company will nurture emerging photographers in professional practice regarding issues like internships, proposal writing, mentorships, commercial photography, exhibitions, copyright, laws and legislations.

Sibusiso Nhlapo-Ngubeni is a photo-documenter, entrepreneur, a member of Kollective104 and recently a part-time Jazz DJ. He studied the Foundation and Intermediate courses at Market Photo Workshop. Nhlapho-Ngubeni has over 5 years of experience as a freelance photographer within events and entertainment photography. In 2011, he participated in the Market Photo Workshop’s Makweteng Heritage Project. Nhlapho-Ngubeni is also a social media consultant for an NPO called Ubuhle Bezwe Environmental Care based in Orlando West, Soweto. He has established a photographers crew and movement for artist/photographers along with his pop-up galleries innovative brand #TAGaPHOGRAPHER through his social media interaction expertise.

The #TAGaPHOTOGRAPHER is an emerging events and photography initiative that documents entertainment events, music festivals and cooperate functions. Through the programme, Nhlapho-Ngubeni wants to acquire skills to mentor up and coming photographers and freelance professionals from previously disadvantaged backgrounds. He wants to learn the business of photography skills so that he can be able to support young people to make a living through photography.

Sipho Gongxeka was born in in 1989 in Soweto, Johannesburg. Upon completing Matric, Gongxeka developed a passion for photography and fashion. In 2011, he successfully completed the Foundation and Intermediate courses at Market Photo Workshop. In 2012 he continued with his photography studies at the Market Photo Workshop enrolling for the yearlong Advanced Programme in Photography. Gongxeka has published locally and internationally been exhibited on group exhibitions like the 154 Contemporary Art Fair in New York and Against Time in the 2015 Bamako Biennale. He is the 2012 Tierney Fellow at the Market Photo Workshop.

With one existing body of work titled Skeem Saka, Gongxeka intends to create two more bodies of work with the specific aim of publishing a book rather than creating an exhibition. Over the course of the Photo Incubator Edition 3 programme, he will conceptualize, photograph, edit work and eventually create a publication.

About the Market Photo Workshop

For over twenty six years, the Market Photo Workshop has played a pivotal role in the training of South Africa’s photographers, ensuring that visual literacy reaches neglected and marginalized parts of our society. Since it was founded in 1989, by world-renowned photographer David Goldblatt, the Photo Workshop has been an agent of change and representation, informing photographers, visual artists, educators, students and broader communities of trends, issues, and debates in photography and visual culture.

The Market Photo Workshop also runs a number of Public Programmes, which are a series of events involving and directed at professional photographers, visual artists, educators, students as well as the broader public. These Public Programmes seek to inform the trends, practices, methods, and contemporary ways of working and thinking in South African photography practice through exposure to a broad understanding of visual culture as well as a networking platform that encourages critical thinking and engagements.

Showcasing a number of high profile local and international photographers, as well as student and alumni photography work, the Market Photo Workshop has been able to build a strong and consistent audience base around our gallery, ‘The Photo Workshop Gallery’ in Newtown, which is on the same premises as the school. Since 2005, when the gallery was initially launched, the kind of platform it has engendered encourages not only emerging students to experience and enter into professional practice, but has distilled a new type of photographic practice amongst the greater artistic community. Various critical discourses, especially around the role documentary photography, have been stimulated by the multitude of exhibitions that have shown at The Photo Workshop Gallery creating dynamic interactions between students and the greater photography community.

For more information, please contact: Bekie Ntini

Coordinator: Mentorships and Training
T +27 (0) 11 834 1444
E-mail: bekien@marketphotoworkshop.co.za

Market Photo Workshop
c/o Market Square, 138 Lilian Ngoyi St, Entrance at Margaret Mcingana Street Newtown
Johannesburg
Newtown
Johannesburg
info@marketphotoworkshop.co.za
www.marketphotoworkshop.co.za

The Market Photo Workshop is a division of The Market Theatre Foundation.