I was born during the state of emergency in South Africa in the 1980s and witnessed our country’s difficult birth into relative democracy in the 1990s. My time abroad has shown me that structural injustice is a global phenomenon. I’ve always wanted to use my work to show people that something is deeply wrong with our society. I’ve realized though, that more often than not you can make people look, but you can’t force them to see. Photojournalism needs to find a new home off the printed page of the newspaper and new ways of engaging with audiences. I’m experimenting with different forms of visual journalism in order to find new ways of communicating the urgency of our societal and environmental problems. I think photojournalism needs to move away from simply illustrating stories and start embracing authorship and longer forms of “telling.” I think the internet is the key and although work is harder to find than ever, we will endure if we can adapt. The story is always more important than the picture.
Photo Credit: Daylin Paul