Chris Ledochowski

Chris Ledochowski was born in Pretoria in 1956 and grew up in Johannesburg. He attended boarding school at Waterford – Kamhlaba in Swaziland. After completing military service he studied at Michaelis School of Find Art, University of Cape Town majoring in Photography. In the early 1980s he joined the Afrapix photographic collective and Afroscope, its film and video component. He contributed to the Second Carnegie inquiry into Poverty and Development and worked closely with the S.A. Labour Unit at UCT. Apart from documenting the ongoing struggles and strife in the communities on the Cape Flats he dedicated much of his work to documenting the formation and development of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and related worker organizations within the Western Cape. While photographing in the townships he also took on commissioned portraits, which he hand coloured for his subjects. His long standing experience and relationship with these communities drew him further into recording their various cultural and sub-cultural expressions. Since 1994 he has covered the townships almost exclusively in colour for political, aesthetic and documentary reasons.

Apart from his ongoing work in townships and long-term rural projects in Venda and Pondoland, he is regularly invited to collaborate on group projects and contribute to national and international exhibitions. He continues to work as a freelance photographer in Cape Town.