Dora

I met Dora when we were out photographing in Orange Farm one Saturday. As the group walked round the community with our cameras we were invited into peoples’ homes, asked what we were doing and then asked to ‘shoot’. It was very encouraging for me and the rest of the group – they couldn’t believe how friendly everyone was.

Dora is a lifelong ANC supporter but wanted us to photograph her so that the powers that be would help her. She’s not well and the house she’s living in is in disrepair.

The Workshops....

And this is how we've been working for the past four weeks or so.

That's Anna in her church outfit looking like she's praying. She was having her portrait taken by another participant when I photographed her.

The Team....

That'll be me having lunch. Ayi thinking during a workshop, Cindy and Thoko preparing to have her portrait taken with her teddy.

Orange Farm sights

A few photos from Orange Farm snatched during workshops.

Jo'burg Cityscape

Jo'burg in the afternoon from a taxi, traveling on Nelson Mandela bridge. His name is everywhere.

The Group in Orange Farm

This is the group of young people I'm working with in Orange Farm. The youngest is Jabulile who is 16 and the eldest is Rooi who's 33. They're all members of VRCO a community organisation which operates in Orange Farm.

I’ve been working as a freelance photographer and facilitator since 2000 or so and have had a strong personal and professional interest in Africa for many years. So when the UK charity PhotoVoice told me about a planned project in South Africa, asking if I was available, I jumped at the chance.
I’d lived in Durban in the late 1990’s just after the first democratic elections post-apartheid dismantled and Mandela had walked free. This project offered me my first return visit to the country and my first visit to Johannesburg.

PhotoVoice trains groups of people all over the world in photography, groups who are on the margins of their society – streetchildren, refugees, people with disabilities. Photography becomes a tool to tell their story to a world-wide audience and enables them engage in debates on issues that affect them.

This project runs from October until December 2006, working with young people who live in Orange Farm, a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg with a population of over 1million. The group are members of Vukuzenzele Reflect Community Organisation which works in a township that faces the challenge of 70% unemployment, extreme poverty and high rates of HIV/AIDS infection.

Their photography and stories will focus on the theme of HIV /AIDS and the issues the pandemic touches and will be collated into an exhibition to coincide with World AIDS Day at the beginning of December.

Links for more info: www.photovoice.org and www.lydiamartin.net

Alternative Tour in Soweto

(Tiff is on the left, Ayi in the middle and Jimmy the Chancer on the right)

On our first Sunday Tiff and I asked Ayi to show us round Soweto where he comes from. He was very accommodating, despite a hangover and asked his friend Jimmy to take us round in his car. It wasn't the tour we'd imagined - me having to sit in the front seat to wave at passers-by, random people being picked up and dropped off. But we saw some of the sites the Credo Mutwa cultural village and the Hector Petersen museum and the streets of the township.

Sunday-things

It's Sunday - and I've been catching up with Sunday-things and along the way I remembered I had set up this blog way back. Seeing as the BBC aren't jumping at the chance to take my thoughts and photos I thought I'd use this.

There's over four weeks of this South Africa trip to catch up on.....