South Africa Youth See New Life Through Photography

September 26, 2013

There is a growing iniative in Johannesburg, South Africa, that teaches disadvantanged children how to take photographs and sell their prints in high-end parts of the city. The project is called "I was shot in Joburg" -- a word play on the city's violent reputation. The initiative is providing children with a new perspective and is helping to change their lives.

Shooting photographs of people has become a way of life for Pritchard Ndlovu.

Four and a-half years ago, he was living at Twilight Shelter in Hillbrow, one of the most disadvantaged areas of Johannesburg. That's when he met Bernard Viljoen, who enrolled him in his new photography workshop at the shelter.

"Before, I didn't have a vision of photography. I was just in a shelter because I needed maybe to go to school. And after school, I would do something about my life, but I didn't know what. So when Bernard came to the shelter and he introduced photography, that's when I thought, 'Okay, doing things like this in my life maybe can bring some change,'" Ndlovu said.

Viljoen started the workshop four years ago and began with a simple guideline for the teenagers. "I literally said to the guys, 'Take the cameras, walk out the gates, and find beauty where you thought there was none," he said.

In this crime and poverty-ridden neighborhood, Viljoen urged the teenagers to see things in a new way. "I wanted to tell them that with photography, if you see something that you don't like, that does not resonate with you, you just change your eyes and find something else," stated Viljoen.