Celebrating Women Through Photography

As a tribute to Women's Month, we would like to introduce you to local female photographers who are rising stars in the local photographic community.

Ashley Marié

Back in early primary school, growing up in a conservative old country town, a friend and I grabbed an old camera and got permission from a woman in our town to shoot in her lovely garden. It was huge and lush and often used by wedding photographers as a location for local newlyweds. The woman was a stern type, very serious. Despiser of children and their mischievous ways... which was exacerbated by the fact that we neglected to tell her that there wasn't actually any film in the camera. Needless to say we had made an enemy that day, but this was my introduction to Photography. My actual affair with photography however, began rather "serendipitously" one could say. It was not something I ever thought I'd go into (in spite of my mom being very trigger happy when we were kids) until I did it at University (starting with pinhole, then moving onto analogue and digital). When it came to choosing our final electives, photography seemed the best, most natural option. I'd grown to love it as both a tool and a medium of art.

Give me a reliable, good quality camera and I'll make good use of it. My personal camera though, is a Canon 5D (classic), but I've worked with most camera brands. If it helps me create what I want, it's enough. Lighting is the same. My own set is a pair of ancient but reliable, second-hand Elinchrom D-Lite 4's.

Currently my gear bag contains my Canon 5D, Canon 430EX speedlight with dome diffuser, some cables, duct tape, a pocket knife (this is starting to sound a bit dodgy...) and one Fujifilm XT2 and two lenses that I borrowed from my colleague and friend SJ van Zyl before we went into lock down.

It's not always easy to stay motivated though, when your home environment suddenly becomes your total work environment too, motivation flies out the window. I've learnt to not rely on feeling or waiting till I feel motivated, as it may never come. The trick is to keep on keeping on in spite of it. Motivation is then rather created, than magically manifesting out of thin air. One of my favourite "self help" books is The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. In it, among many other nuggets of wisdom, he talks of motivation, stating - "At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it". If you can just tell yourself to sit down and get through just 5mins of work on any given day, you'd have done a lot. And often you find that when you do do that, you end up doing it for far longer and feeling so much better for it.

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Nina Zimolong

I have been doing photography for 3 years now. It began when I was living in Europe. I was in marketing and was working for a startup that was creating fitness app. My boss knew I loved photography and gave me the opportunity to take photos for the app. One week later when the App was released I saw my photos on the home screen of the App Store and decided that I want to pursue photography. I realised that a 9-5 job was not for me, so I quit my job not realising that I made one of the best decisions of my life. At that time I had amassed a big following on Instagram and I was "travel blogging" I got paid by brands to travel around Europe to take pictures and also was invited by tourism boards of Eu countries to take photos of tourist destinations. However it was one of my trips when I realised what genre of photography I wanted t go into. I remember so clearly I was in Amsterdam, I saw this beautiful girl. Not knowing that she was a influencer at that time. I took portraits of her and that is when I realised that I love people photography. Directing and taking control of a scene and translating it into a photograph.

Canon is my preferred brand. I was given a Canon 5dmkii with a 50mm 1.4. I fell in love with the brand when I took my first photo of a model and learnt how to use Lightroom.

Currently my gear bag contains a Canon 5dmkiv, 50mm 1.2, Sigma 32mm 1.4, 24-70 2.8, 85mm 1.2 and a 70-200 2.8. I carry allot of random bits and bobs as well, such as materials, a crystal as I like to shoot through things.

I am constantly looking for new sources of inspiration, I am either planning my next shoot or busy editing or networking. If it was up to me, I would be shooting every single day out doors. I am not the type of person who can sit still for more than 1 minute. So I am always busy doing something.


My advice for others would be, go out and improve your skills. Constantly look at what is being released by other artists. Find inspiration through going outside, reading. I will go through online magazines, Pinterest, instagram. Check the latest fashion trends. Find new models to get inspired from. Just keep doing what you normally did and don’t just sit around and wait for something to happen. If you do that, nothing will happen. I won’t lie, in the beginning of lockdown I felt so demotivated as the year was basically cancelled. But I realised that nothing will happen if you don’t make it happen. Go out and do something. Stand out and Create.

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Nobukho Nqaba

I studied at Michaelis School of Fine Art, and I majored in photography. It all began in first year, we were exposed to different art techniques and mediums, but I was more drawn into photography. I was fascinated by the whole process of image making, from pinhole to girl, and to digital. I had never been to a darkroom and it was exciting to capture and develop images using chemicals, and I thoroughly enjoyed the digital process as well.

Another thing that made me interested in photography was the fact that my biological family did not have pictures of me as a child, nor that of my siblings. It felt like there was a huge gap in my childhood which was not visible, and I told myself that now that I have access to this medium, I am going to take advantage of it and take as many photographs as I can.

A bit of context about me: I am a practising artist and a photography lecturer based in Cape Town. I am mostly doing conceptual and Fine Art photography. I tap in between different mediums as well, including sculpture and performance art, because of that, it is quite difficult for me to identify as just a photographer, but I think photography is very much at the centre of my practice.