‘A window of opportunity to tell a story’

In the sixth instalment of our Through the Lens series, Nathan Adams shares the experiences of African News Agency photographers

THE lockdown was the perfect time for photographers to view the world from different angles and focus their lenses into new spaces.

This is the sentiment of Ian Landsberg, who encouraged a team of photographers he manages to think out the box when lockdown set in.

Landsberg is the head of the photographic department at the African News Agency, which has teams in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

A teacher at heart, he sees photography as just another extension of passing on invaluable skills: “I’m a visual storyteller, I know how to craft stories with words but there is a better way – that is by pictures.”

Landsberg coaxed his team to be vigilant during the pandemic and to keep an eye for the perfect picture, but also to be aware of any danger: “We’re in the trenches like we’ve always been but this time, you are covering something that is unseen and is deadly.

“When you’re out there, there is an enemy and an enemy zone, but the big problem for me was that you could bring that enemy home.”

Seeing the medical personnel at Tygerberg Hospital in their personal protective equipment for the first time was an eye-opener.

At home, his wife and children’s habits changed.

“I’m forced now to not go out and find the pictures but to look for the pictures within (my own home).”

Landsberg photographed his family as they adjusted to working and learning from home as well as their Easter celebrations.

But it was on the frontline where he was confronted with the vast differences between the effects of the lockdown and the fragility of humanity.

“I was in Delft and there was a father who would rather shave outside while his family was inside to keep that social distance. A picture of a family in Panorama tells a different story because they have more space.” It was this inequality that led him to consider the varying experiences of those he was photographing.

The lockdown also allowed him to pause and reassess the beauty in everyday life. Landsberg said he encouraged his team of photojournalists to venture into their gardens and backyards and capture the images that might have gone unnoticed before.

This led him to once again fall in love with macro-photography as he captured a bird, a house fly and a praying mantis in his garden.

“I don’t have to go to work to work. I can now be at work wherever I am and that was good for me as a photographer.”

With a healthy distance between himself and the office, Landsberg said this breathing room was where creativity blossomed. “I started looking at things and everything became a window of opportunity to tell a specific story that is inside there and that is one of the things that I’ve learnt and that nothing is cast in stone and that things can change,” he said.

“It’s almost like a reset button to get us back to why we’re here.

“It was quite a learning curve and it was very inspirational for us as photographers.”

IAN LANDSBERG African News Agency (ANA) IT WAS business as usual at the Bellville taxi rank, left, before the government implemented strict lockdown regulations that heavily impacted the transport industry, right, especially the number of taxis allowed on the roads. |

A PRAYING mantis looking for food. African News Agency photographic head Ian Landsberg has been inspired to look closer – and closer – to home for his next shot during lockdown. Inset: Ian Landsberg

LANDSBERG and his family watch a virtual Good Friday service held by Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba.

A MAN shaving outside his home at the N2 Gateway suburb in Delft while his daughter watches on the first day of the lockdown.

NURSES in protective gear at the Covid-19 quarantine wards of Tygerberg Hospital.