Youth graduate in Photography Empowerment

Graduates - Image by Terra Dick

  

The Photo Experience initiative is the brainchild of Zanele Muholi 

in the attempt to empower young black females

 with arts activism tools and techniques. 

The trainings have taken place in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Aurora Girls High School in Soweto, Zimbabwe, Benin, Italy and Norway. 

The Inkanyiso Media, Photo Experience training team awarded Durban youth for participating in a Mobile School of Photography during December 2018. On Saturday the 5^th of January 2019, they received certificates for participation with their best photographs being exhibited at the event. The ceremony took place from 10am until 3pm at ‘The Chairman’, 146 Mahatma Ghandi Street in Point, Waterfront, Durban; with speeches, performances, an exhibition and a certification ceremony. 

Participants were joined by their parents and families while they are awarded with certificates by photographer and visual artist Prof. Zanele Muholi, in a ceremony honouring their participation and the work produced over the two-week course. The youth were facilitated by Inkanyiso Media contributors through basic camera and photography skills. They were also given Canon digital and disposable cameras as well as cell phones to capture images with the skills that they were engaging. The participants comprised of youth from Thamela Primary School in Umlazi Township and Duduzani Primary School located eNtuzuma township; as well as a senior group which was made up of participants from various schools. 

The Mobile School of Photography took the participants on field trips for exposure to different working environments from shooting onsite to studio and other different kinds of photography. The youth visited several townships, the beach front and artist studios, during these field trips they learnt how to photograph and archive history and everyday existence. The participants were encouraged to read and write in order to empower themselves in captioning their images and the storytelling aspect of presenting their bodies of work.

Inkanyiso Media is a non-profit organization that functions as a source of information for art advocacy, specializing in photography and filmmaking production, education and information dissemination. 

The training is free of charge, with the main objective being to see photographers making a living out of their newly acquired skill. The facilitators that conduct the photography training workshops are volunteers and contributors to the Inkanyiso Media blog which focuses on documenting the existence of young black queer individuals, they too received empowerment through the Inkanyiso Media platform, allowing them to hone their photography, filmmaking, visual arts, media advocacy and visual literacy skills.

Visit Inkanyiso Media on www.inkanyiso.org