The Market Photo Workshop
As a school of photography, a gallery, and a project space, the Market Photo Workshop has played a pivotal role in the training of South Africa’s photographers, ensuring that visual literacy reaches neglected and marginalised parts of our society. Since it was founded in 1989 by world-renowned photographer David Goldblatt, the Photo Workshop has been an agent for change and representation, informing photographers, visual artists, educators, students and broader communities of trends, issues and debates in photography and visual culture.Founder David Goldblatt envisioned the workshop environment as a space to provide further education in visual literacy and photography practice to disadvantaged learners during the reign of the previous regime.
The Photo Workshop offers courses in photography and training, as well as multi-layered projects and interactions that respond to the complex backgrounds of education, culture, and identity, within a contemporary understanding of photography and the social conditions of South Africa.
The Market Photo Workshop is a division of The Market Theatre Foundation.
JP Hanekom
After obtaining a diploma in Photography from the Vega School Hanekom also completed a degree in Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria. The latter opened his mind to the conceptual worlds of images. Photography has always been in his life and he has always been curious to know what a thing would look like photographed. He says photography is a compulsion, obsession and love that forms an integral part of his being.
After obtaining a diploma in Photography from the Vega School Hanekom also completed a degree in Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria. The latter opened his mind to the conceptual worlds of images. Photography has always been in his life and he has always been curious to know what a thing would look like photographed. He says photography is a compulsion, obsession and love that forms an integral part of his being.
“My primary love is the photograph as an object, a thing. Of how images can evoke so much in the viewer or tell one of a distant place or stranger.”
Siphosihle Mkhwanazi
Mkhwanazi has a keen interest in documentary photography, re-touching and image manipulation. In 2014, Mkhwanazi was awarded the Gisèle Wulfsohn Mentorship in Photography and was mentored by renowned South African photographer and 2011 World Press Photo of the Year winner, Jodi Bieber. Mkhwanazi’s solo exhibition, The Usual Suspect, which was produced during his Gisèle Wulfsohn Mentorship, has been exhibited at The Photo Workshop Gallery.
“It is through photography that I am able to explore, create and see a world through my mind’s eye. The versatility of movement, flexibility and strength of the Fassi crane is remarkable.”
Nkosinathi Khumalo
Born in Soweto, Nkosinathi Khumalo started off as a self-taught photographer. Khumalo studied photography at the Market Photo Workshop and completed the yearlong Advanced Programme in Photography in 2015.
“I have always been fascinated by how Italians use statues, from a place that seems insignificant, such as a garden, to the significant historical statues of saints. Hence, I chose to make the Fassi crane be the wings of a statue turning it into an angel. Ultimately, giving significance to something insignificant.”
Themba Mbuyisa
Mbuyisa was awarded the third place in the 2015 National Award at the Sony Photography awards. In May 2014, he participated in the Rural.Scapes – lab in Residency in São Paulo, Brazil. Mbuyisa was the finalist of the 2013 Elle Magazine Style Reporter (blogging and photographical competition).
“The Fassi Gru commission brief gave me a chance to imagine the unthinkable and also to continue to re-imagine it in the image making process. As a result, I used the Fassi crane as an enhancement to the type of world I currently live in.”
