Powerhouse Photo Class Covers Election Day

Instead of canceling class today (since almost everything else it closed today) we decided to go out and cover the presidential election. We broke up into three groups of three and spread out to various polling stations in the township. It was a lot of fun and great to see so many people out voting. All day the polls had long queues, which close tonight at 9 p.m. I hope we’ll be surprised by the results (which should be in a few days), but I fear that despite all the controversy, Zuma will become the next president. See some of the photos the students took below.  Thank you again to all who donated cash or cameras to make the class possible!

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Demotix - News by You

Also, I couldn’t help but take some photos myself. I uploaded them to a service that I recently discovered called Demotix. It is a citizen-journalism website and freelance photo agency. Professional freelance journalists, passionate amateurs and ordinary citizens can upload their photographs to Demotix and share them with the community of news-addicts. Demotix then takes the best uploads and licenses them to newspapers, networks and websites around the world using their industry contacts. It’s like the people’s wire service. And the best part is that if they sell, I’ll make some money! You can see my photos here.

Future Photographers

Photography Class
Tshepo, Peter, Martha, Adelaide, Phina, William, Babongile, Mpho, Mmantwa, Simon, Simongile, Johannes, Vincent, Pinky, Joshua and Thembani.

I am excited about the first photography class! There are 16 students that are all eager to learn. I really enjoy teaching photography and we’ve had a lot of fun so far the two times we’ve met. A huge thank you to all those who donated their used cameras for this class. As you can see above, they’re in good hands!

The class meets once a week, on Wednesdays, which allows me to spend more time working on stories. To be able to spend time just doing stories (not shooting while we’re doing something else like the feeding scheme) is a relief because I’ve been struggling to make time for that since we got here back in August. I am working on a few stories with Zimbabwean refugees living in Mamelodi, and am hoping to also work on a story about youth in the township. So stay tuned for some new stories this month!