Capturing the beau
Despite not appearing in them, Kgomotso Neto Tleane’s photographs are a form of self-portraiture. By trusting his self-taught eye, Tleane has carved a subjective and revisionist path of his experience of Johannesburg. As told to Kwanele Sosibo
Igrew up in Ga Maja in Polokwane. It’s a small village. I was born in Johannesburg but I grew up that side, raised by my gran. After high school I came to the city to go to school, and I wanted to study medicine, funny enough, because I was good at biology.
I got to the Wits and they didn’t want to take me because my science was kind of messed up. They asked me if I wanted to upgrade and I said, “No, I don’t have time for that.”
I went to UJ and applied for optometry because it was still in the medical field, but my second option was law.
In my head, because I was 17 at the time (in 2008), I thought: I’ll study this, get the degree, get the job and I’ll be fine.
They took me for law in 2009. Third year I kind of failed, because I was starting to realise that this thing is not for me and also I was on the NSFAS, I’m like, “Nah.” So I failed, like, a few modules and got out of varsity.
I got a job working at a call centre, trying to study part-time, but that didn’t work. I bought a camera with my salary from the call centre. Two months after buying the camera, the auto function broke, which forced me to shoot on manual and start learning.
Once, we were in Pimville. I took this picture of this lady. She was pushing a trolley and she had a baby on her back. The trolley had a lot of stuff in it. You could see she sold on the street.
After a while of looking at it I was like, “Nah.” There’s this whole thing of romanticising poor people in the hood, so what I saw in that image