South African photographer Marc Shoul has worked for various local and international magazines and advertising agencies. Through his personal work he explores themes of social relevance and change within South Africa, Africa and overseas. Marc studied professional photography at Nelson Mandela University.
Marc Shoul, was born in 1975 in Port Elizabeth. Interested in exploring social issues, four years ago he began photographing the city of Brakpan, which is a 45-minute drive from Johannesburg. Street scenes and more intimate portraits compose a personal portrayal of a place that is “anchored in time, the same, but its own” — as the photographer characterized it in a recent interview — stumbling between a heavy past and an uncertain present. Though he has intensively worked on documenting Johannesburg’s energies and transformations and on informal settlements surrounding Cape Town, this interview focuses principally on “Brakpan”, his latest body of work, which recently received the first prize at the 2011 Winephoto award, as well as a special mention for his series, “Flatlands”.
