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Phone technology and social media platforms have democratised photography, paradoxically making us value the intrinsic skill of a talented photographer less and less. We produce billions of photographs every year, documenting breakfasts, beaches, pets, landscapes and ourselves with ever-increasing enthusiasm. It seems like there’s no nook or cranny left that hasn’t been snapped with a click of the phone. But the truly memorable images — the ones that change how we see the world instead of just recording it — are still rare.
South African lensman Santu Mofokeng had a knack for taking this kind of photograph.
He wasn’t interested in photographing South Africa as a postcard or political commentary. His camera was drawn to the country’s contradictions: faith and hardship, beauty and brutality, memory and landscape, which he managed to combine in one image. His photographs rewarded a second look because they never surrendered all their meaning in the first. They captured what it felt like to live in South Africa, not just how the scenery and people looked.
Six years after his death, his legacy is being turned into something practical that can assist other young photographers inspired by his images. The newly launched Santu Mofokeng Foundation Photography Prize has been established to invest in emerging photographers instead of celebrating only established ones — a refreshing approach in an arts sector that often excels at honouring yesterday’s talent while neglecting tomorrow’s.
The prize, administered by the Santu Mofokeng Foundation with Latitudes Art Fair as its promotional partner, offers far more than a shiny trophy for the mantelpiece. The winner will receive R100,000, editorial support, a professional artist profile and exhibition opportunities through Latitudes — the sort of tangible assistance that can genuinely alter the trajectory of a young artist’s career.
South Africa has many gifted photographers, but most of them lack visibility, mentorship and access to the networks that could transform their work into sustainable careers. This prize acknowledges that creating meaningful art is half the battle; getting people to see it is the difficult part.
The award comes at an interesting moment for photography itself. Most images today survive for seconds before disappearing under the next wave of digital ephemera — every minute, thousands more pictures are uploaded, shared and forgotten. We all seem to be very good at taking photographs and very bad at looking at them.
Mofokeng belonged to a generation of photographers who believed that photographs needed time. His images resisted easy conclusions. They challenged viewers to notice details — a church gathering on a hillside, a scarred landscape, an ordinary street transformed by extraordinary light. To him, photography was less about pressing a shutter and more about deciding what attention should fall on.
That philosophy is at the heart of the new prize, which will hopefully attract photographers whose work demonstrates depth, sensitivity and critical engagement with the medium. At its heart, it’s a search for people who can surprise us with the familiar. Santu Mofokeng’s legacy is the standard his Foundation now hopes a new generation will aspire to.
Applications open this month to emerging photographers living and working in South Africa, with entries accepted until October. The launch at Joburg’s Latitudes Centre for the Arts on Saturday included an exhibition of Mofokeng’s work.
For further information about the prize and application details, visit the Latitudes Online and the Santu Mofokeng Foundation websites.
Sunday Times Lifestyle
