Winning photo was in this paper

IT WAS the realisation of a lifetime goal for multiple award-winning photographer Phandulwazi Jikelo to have his Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest winning image exhibited in the city centre and around the world.

Jikelo’s work, along with other category winners in the competition, is on display at the Eclectica Contemporary at 69 Burg Street until Sunday. The photographs have already been exhibited in cities such as Shanghai and Madrid.

“I feel really great to know my work is being exhibited internationally. It shows the standard of work people are producing in South Africa. We just have to keep that up and work harder,” he said.

Jikelo, 33, originally from the Eastern Cape, moved to Khayelitsha at the age of 10.

This is his seventh award in three years.

“It (the Stenin photo contest) is a highlight of my life. It is really an overwhelming feeling,” he said.

Cape Times editor Aneez Salie said Jikelo was an incredibly talented photographer.

“We were here a year ago exactly, same venue, when the first André Stenin exhibition was brought to SA. It was an amazing exhibition, so it is mind-blowing that we are back here a year later, and the winning picture is from one of us – Phandulwazi,” he said. The Consul-General of the

Russian Federation in Cape Town, Roman Ambarov, said the winning images were “sincere moments” captured. “The reality of the moment is what we value the most. Cape Town is one of the most wonderful cities in the world,” he said.

Jikelo’s work, produced while on the Cape Times staff before his transfer to the sister African News Agency (ANA), was selected from 5 000 entries from 76 countries. An evocative image from a Grabouw housing protest, the Cape Times used it as a masthead picture.

Others from Africa have been recognised this year, including Kevin Midigo from Kenya, who won second prize in the Top News category for his Anti-IEBC Protests (the Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission).