Through The Lens Collective

Major congratulations to TTLC mentee, Caroline Sohie on being nominated for the prestigious Star Photobook Dummy Award, for her work Everything in Its Time.
Unlike most photography competitions where anyone can apply, this award is by nomination only. A global network of top photography professionals carefully scouts and selects only a handful of exceptional, unpublished photobook dummies each year.
This award matters deeply because it was created by the Photographic Social Vision Foundation to honor the brilliant graphic designer Inés Casals, celebrating projects filled with human values like empathy, intimacy, and resilience. Furthermore, it offers a life-changing prize of €10,000 to fully fund and bilingually publish the winning book, complete with expert mentorship and global distribution by premier publishers RM, Phree, and Ediciones Posibles.
By nomination, Caroline joins an incredible legacy of past recipients who have used this platform to launch deeply moving works.
Recent winners include Yufan Lu with Make Me Beautiful, Mohamed Hassanwith Our Hidden Room, and Ruth Lauer Manenti with I Imagined It Empty.

This is a selection of pages from the book.
Caroline Sohie

Final day to submit your portfolio for a free review:


Receive feedback on your work, allowing you to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement in your photography.

12 PARTICIPANTS WILL BE SELECTED OVERALL FOR THE REVIEW

PORTFOLIO REVIEW WILL TAKES PLACE ON THE WEEKEND OF THE 27/28 JUNE

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS 17 JUNE

You will be notified by the 22nd June

Have your portfolio reviewed by TTLC director, Michelle Loukidis.

*review is free
*review is remote (ZOOM)...you can be anywhere!
*anyone can apply above the age of 18
*all types are photography are considered for the review
*40 minute slots available.
*time slot will be given to you if selected

Please see details on website for submission -Portfolio review

Thank you to Lauren Lulu Rattray for her wonderful image

Such a feeling of deep excitement and delight to see South African artist, Lusanda Ndita exhibition Indlela ibomvu currently on show at Gallery MOMO.
Indlela ibomvu is both a path travelled and a journey remembered. In this deeply personal exhibition, Lusanda Ndita excavates family histories through photography, printmaking and collage, drawing from domestic archives, oral narratives and fragments of memory to trace the legacies of migration, absence and belonging.

“Through this compelling body of work, Lusanda reflects on memory, migration, and inheritance, drawing from domestic archives, oral histories, and personal narratives. His work traces the journeys of absent paternal figures while reimagining the archive as a living, shifting space; one that holds both presence and absence.

Lusanda asks to consider how memory is shaped, carried, and transformed, and how histories - both personal and collective - continue to unfold across generations.”

Lusanda is the winner of the 2024 Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award.

Gallery MOMO
Lusanda Ndita

TTLC mentee Nonzuzo Gxekwa (Nonzuzo) offers a nuanced portrait of inner city Johannesburg, a city shaped by movement, memory, and everyday encounter. Through a practice rooted in observation and proximity, she alters the familiar into a site of reflection, revealing Johannesburg as a complex social landscape where histories, identities, and aspirations continuously intersect.

Johannesburg is neither romanticised nor sensationalised, acknowledging the city’s contradictions while highlighting forms of beauty that exist alongside its challenges. Her use of light, colour, composition, and attention to human presence transforms everyday urban scenes into spaces of reflection. In doing so, she broadens how Johannesburg can be understood visually, presenting it as a site of cultural production, belonging, and constant reinvention.
Her work challenges audiences to move beyond familiar stereotypes and to recognise Johannesburg as a multifaceted metropolis whose stories are best told by those who live within it. From this perspective, the city becomes not a symbol of African urban problems, but a dynamic and evolving space where ordinary lives, personal histories, and collective futures intersect.

Haven’t had the opportunity to see one of my favourite South African artists Lebohang Kganye’s incredible work up close for a while. Last week there was a small window, with the opening and walkabout of In Zilande / Landa Abakini in Parktown North.

“What does it mean to fetch yourself?

In Zilande / Landa Abakini, invites us into a world where memory is living, shifting, and constantly returning. Through photographs, family stories, and inherited histories, she reminds us that who we are is often found in those who came before us.

Before the archive, there was the telling. Before the photograph, there was memory.

This exhibition is an invitation to gather the fragments, fetch our people, and in doing so, fetch ourselves.”

On Friday night the Foam Talent 2026 exhibition opened, amongst the selected artists was Through the Lens Collective mentee Sudanese photographer, Ammar Yassir.

In his work, “I will never find Home” Ammar Yassir explores questions of belonging and displacement, after being forced to leave Khartoum in December 2023 due to the Sudanese civil war.

Foam Talent:

“A group exhibition showcasing work of an extraordinary new wave of image-makers shaping the future of photography. This year’s exhibition features the work of 15 extraordinary artists, chosen from nearly 3,000 submissions from 107 countries.

Through the use of powerful visual language, their works often connect to a notion of belonging; the search for a safe space, whether found within the home, family, community, or a sense of place, is an underlying thread that surfaces in different ways. From intimate portraits to sweeping visual narratives, each piece invites you to see the world through a new lens.

Alongside the Foam Talent group exhibition in Amsterdam, the selected artists’ work will be presented across multiple Foam platforms, offering international visibility: through a travelling presentation at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Frankfurt, a dedicated issue of Foam Magazine, and features on our digital platform.”

Huge congratulations to all the artists and a special extra hug for

Looking forward to working with Cape town based photographer and director, Andile Phewa, who has recently joined the TTLC Mentorship.

“Born in Durban and trained at the renowned Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, Andile has built a body of work that blends urban life, fashion, and artistic experimentation. His photography moves between candid street moments, moody cityscapes, and striking high-fashion portraits, often exploring the intersection of identity, environment, and emotion. Some images feel introspective and still, others full of movement and edge , together forming a visual language that captures both the everyday and the extraordinary.

As a medium format film photographer, Andile’s work is rooted in emotional honesty, atmosphere, and detail-driven storytelling. With a background in observational photography, he brings a grounded, cinematic eye to his visuals, balancing documentary-style realism with refined stylization to create scenes that are both intimate and visually layered.

Now stepping into the world of directing, Andile is expanding his focus to include TV commercials, branded content, and documentary projects. His fresh voice behind the camera has already drawn attention, with a growing portfolio that leans into fashion, music, skateboarding, and culture-driven narratives that prioritize authenticity and bold visual language.

Andile has collaborated with brands like Adidas, Mr Price, Edgars, Superbalist x Adidas, Superdry, H&M New York, Birkenstock, Ashluxe, Apple Music, Rain, KFC, MTN, Skoda, Santam, Bash, Chicken Licken, SA Tourism, and Vogue Portugal. His international appeal was first recognized in 2016 with the Radio Africa group show in Barcelona. In 2020, he held his first solo exhibition at Cape Town’s A4 Gallery, titled Missing Subject.”

An absolute honour to see one of the giants of South African photography Santu Mofokeng’s exhibition Rumours at the Standard Bank Art Lab, in Sandton Johannesburg.

“There is a way that memory circulates before it settles. It moves through people in fragments, in gestures, in images half-held and half-recalled. It gathers slowly, carried between voices, before it takes form. It is within this register that the Standard Bank Art Lab presents Rumours /2026 by Santu Mofokeng.

Rumours /2026, co-curated by Lunetta Bartz on behalf of the Santu Mofokeng Foundation, brings together three bodies of work drawn from Mofokeng’s extended engagement with Bloemhof and its surrounding communities between 1988 and 1994. First shown in 1994 as Rumours / The Bloemhof Portfolio, this exhibition returns not as a fixed historical moment, but as something reactivated, repositioned for a present that continues to negotiate the conditions it reflects.

At the centre of the exhibition is The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890–1950, a body of work composed of studio portraits collected by Mofokeng over many years.”

The exhibition is open until the 18th October

Receive feedback on your work, allowing you to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement in your photography.

12 PARTICIPANTS WILL BE SELECTED OVERALL FOR THE REVIEW

PORTFOLIO REVIEW WILL TAKES PLACE ON THE WEEKEND OF THE 27/28 JUNE

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS 17 JUNE

You will be notified by the 22nd June

Have your portfolio reviewed by TTLC director, Michelle Loukidis.

*review is free
*review is remote (ZOOM)...you can be anywhere!
*anyone can apply above the age of 18
*all types are photography are considered for the review
*40 minute slots available.
*time slot will be given to you if selected

Please see details on website for submission -Portfolio review

Thank you to .joe for his image