One could tell that the community, those passing by on the main street where the gallery is situated and the neighbours, were all curious. This is because in this neighbourhood, it is unusual to see a bus load of strangers, especially an assortment of visitors, some with cameras strapped on their shoulders, some carrying note books and whipping out phones from their pockets to capture all the action. Certainly the crowds were no tourists, but locals. And this they could tell by hearing a plethora of local languages that these surprise visitors spoke as they descended on a small space that is among other assortment of businesses. But this particular space a few weeks before might have looked like any other business in the streets, such as spaza shops and eateries. In fact Mandebele Photo Gallery in Braamfisherville, near Soweto, is hemmed on each side by a barber shop and a small shop that operates as a restaurant in this vibrant but poor township.
It is clear that poverty in this place is a common feature of this community’s life due to unemployment and the general lack of opportunities. However, it is here that new gallery owner, Gopolang Ledwaba, the founder of Mandebele Photography Gallery, dreams of transforming not only his life, but that of the community by bringing a gallery that showcases photography. It is a gallery that not only showcases photographs taken by the photographer, but a multi-purpose centre providing other services important to this community. The visitors descended on the township to witness the launch of Mandebele Photography Gallery.
This event took place in March 2024, when with the team from the Market Photo Workshop, the creative entrepreneur launched Mandebele Photography Gallery. The event that was attended by fellow photographers, mainly, just like the new gallerist, had completed an eight month business incubation programme at the Market Photo Workshop. The incubation programme, sponsored by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, aims at teaching photographers, all previous graduates of the Market Photo Workshop, business skills.
This programme is in fact part of the extensive list of programmes this famous photography school offers to young people, particularly from formerly disadvantaged communities.
“However the Market Photo Workshop offers more than photography education, it is a photography hub which comprises 3 artistic units namely: Research and Archives; Courses as well as an extensive list of public engagement programmes, and the incubation programme is part of that. The Public/Outreach Programme is made up of sponsored programmes that involve the community and society at large, such as the one sponsored by the Barloworld Empowerment Fund, which sees us give camera equipment and photography workshops for the community to tell their own stories. Through this way, the community create their own visual narratives, their own realities through their own eyes, instead of other people telling their stories,” explained Bongani Mahlangu, the Head of the Market Photo Workshop.
Khona Dlamini, the programmes Manager at the Market Photo Workshop explained how the idea of the Market Photo Workshop started.
“From what I understand, the Market Photo Workshop came about as a result of its founder David Goldblatt (the late legendary world renowned South African photographer, known for his seminal photography features on the history of mines as he was for his powerful portraits of particularly black people in the townships), noticing that whenever he had an exhibition around the Market Theatre precinct, young black people who came to such exhibitions showed great interest. But there was nowhere in South Africa during Apartheid where they could go and formally learn photography, as that time black people, due to the apartheid laws were not allowed to enroll at universities where photography was offered.
David therefore started by offering weekend photography lessons to such young people who showed interest and potential. He was assisted by other photographers, friends of his. This was in the 80s, but then in 1989, the Market Photo Workshop became a formal photography school,” Dlamini explained.
Today, the Market Photo Workshop has distinguished itself as the foremost photography school on the continent, which not only attracts students from southern Africa, but also from as far as Uganda and Kenya in East Africa, Nigeria in West Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia in North Africa, with Zimbabwe in southern Africa supplying the majority of its students from the African continent.
“The Market Photo Workshop also attracts students from the West, who come here because of the institution’s international reputation for offering quality photography education. The unique elements of the Market Photo Workshop’s curriculum is its strength in offering skills of visual narrative to its students. They come out of this institution with a strong background in creating narratives that are context based and are based on communities from which the students come. This is important in making sure that the kind of student who graduates from the Market Photo Workshop is a person who tells African stories that are grounded in their community and their lived realities. Often the Western education curriculum that is taught at other schools is out of touch with the realities on the ground, because it is Western pedagogy based and little history is recorded on African pedagogy.
Here at Market Photo Workshop, we long realized the importance of decolonizing the curriculum, to make the education we offer our students critical skills that enable them to meet the demands of the situation on the ground,” Mahlangu said.
He went further to explain the finer details of the courses.
“This education is delivered through three different levels –a Foundation Course that was originally for three months, but now runs for six months and has been accredited as an NQF Level 4 qualification (an equivalence of a Matric). Through the Intermediate Course, and to be accepted into the Intermediate Course a student needs to achieve at least 65% in the Foundation Course. From here students can either choose the Advanced Programme in Photography , which looks at commercial photography practice, such as conceptual visual storytelling, advertising and so forth or, the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Programme, which immerses the students in visual narrative practices such as documentary photography and photojournalism. Both of these courses are a year-long,” Mahlangu explained.
The Market Photo Workshop, has also harnessed the superpower that comes through collaborating with other similar institutions on the African continent and elsewhere.
“On the African continent, we are part of a network for photography learning and teaching known as the Centres for Learning Photography in Africa (CLPA),” Dlamini explained.
Internationally, the Market Photo Workshop has collaborated with the World Press Photo Foundation (WPPF) that is based in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the WPPF runs the World Press Photo Contest for visual storytellers from across the globe and in 2024 the MPW hosted the regional (Africa) jury of this contest.
The Market Photo Workshop has indeed over the years distinguished itself in photography education by producing photographers who have gone out and made a mark in their different practices on the market, such as in newsrooms as well as in art photography. For example Sir Zanele Muholi, is today internationally lauded for raising the issues faced by the LGBTQI+ community and the danger they face in communities across the world, such as threat of physical attack because of their sexual orientation. Today Muholi stands out as the symbol of activism against homophobia through their photographs that capture the LGBTQI+ community in their various states of vulnerability and risk from attack which have gone on to earning Muholi an honorary doctorate and honorary professorship. Muholi regularly speaks at international forums on the subject. Muholi is still closely associated with their alma mater. Â
“Professor Zanele Muholi continues to do a lot for the Market Photo Workshop and for  aspiring photographers. For example every year they sponsor a number of students, mainly from KwaZulu-Natal, paying for their tuition fee in full, their accommodation and on top of that giving them a living stipend during their entire period of studies,” Mahlangu revealed.
Other well known names that are alumni of the Market Photo Workshop include Ruth Motau, who became the first female to be appointed a chief photographer on a mainstream newspaper (Weekly Mail), former Pictures Editor of Sowetan and City Press. Today she is an independent photographer who regularly exhibits her work in commercial galleries.
Sabelo Mlangeni is today an internationally respected name in photography and has won several prestigious international awards for his work.
 Lebohang Kganye has since she graduated from the Market Photo Workshop gone on to make a success of her career as an art photographer whose work is critically acclaimed and has among other accolades worm her a Sasol New Signatures Award, one of the most prestigious and richest award for visual artists in South Africa. Her work is also regularly featured at the country’s art fairs, including in 2025 where her work at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair was lauded by visitors and collectors alike.
One other notable success story in Newtown associated with the Market Photo Workshop, is the Umhlabathi Collective, an exhibition space and a hub of photography that houses several studios for photographers. The majority of the collective members are either alumni of the Market Photo Workshop or facilitators at the institution, such as the veteran art photographer Andrew Tshabangu
. Umhlabathi hosts regular exhibitions and talks on art in Newtown.
This is to name but just a few of alumni from the Market Photo Workshopwhom have gone out to do well for themselves. Several of its alumni have over the years populated several newsrooms, taking pictures that got the nation talking as the population consumed news in which these photographers contributed immensely in the recording of South Africa’s contemporary history.
The Future
“For us we are living in the future. This is because we are the only school that teaches both analogue and digital photography. The analogue camera is on the comeback trail globally. We also have a Research and Archival unit that preserves, protects, and promotes both digital and physical archives. This is so that our students and the large community will in future access the photography archive of an extensive body of work that has been created by our students over the years. The collection goes beyond the work of students as the MPW includes work from some of the most important photographic archives from South Africa such as a donation from the Nelson Mandela Foundation of the Between States of Emergency exhibition, a collection that the NMF conceived to honour photographers who exposed the brutality of apartheid in the 1980s, and more recently, the late Peter McKenzie archive. Peter was a friend of the Market Photo Workshop, a council member and a mentor to many at the MPW,” Mahlangu said.
Mahlangu went further to note some of the recent successes achieved by the institution.
“The archival unit, in 2022, published the Black Photo Libraries publication volume 1 – a book that recorded the experiences of Black photographers in South Africa before 1989. – and in 2024 volume 2 of the Black Photo Libraries publication centred around contribution from Peter to both photography and his pedagogy in an African centred photographic practice will be published and launched to the public,” Dlamini added.