[imagesource: Kristin-Lee Moolman]

Africa is often misunderstood in international media, and South Africa is no exception.

The stories focus too easily on negative aspects, with tales of poverty, violence, and lack of education the go-to.

While nobody denies that these problems exist, there’s also a lot of resilience, beauty, “creativity”, and “joy” that the media often overlooks.

One South African photographer is so frustrated by this dynamic, that she’s made her career about capturing the true South Africa and creating a counter-narrative, reports CNN.

Kristin-Lee Moolman grew up as a white person in a “backward Afrikaans town” and is now gaining international recognition for her compelling photographs that include surreal landscapes and gender-non-conforming subjects.

The above, Peau de Chagrin/Bleu de Nuit, was shot by Kristin-Lee in Lusanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

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A post shared by Kristin-Lee Moolman (@kristinleemoolman)

Using a sun-bleached pastel pallette, Moolman explores issues like sexuality and segregation without being overtly political, because it’s more a “celebration of people” to her.

Image: Kristin-Lee Moolman

While she has won prizes for her photographs and worked with big names like Rihanna, as well as fashion houses including Dior and Burberry, Moolman said she found very little satisfaction from these commercial fashion shoots and advertising campaigns.

Instead, she decided to face homeward and inward:

 “It was work that emulated what I thought people wanted. There was no soul there,” she said. “I reached the conclusion that I couldn’t make work that I didn’t identify with.”

“Everything coalesced when I made this mental and physical move to be at home,” she said.

Although, Moolman admits that the political landscape has shaken her sense of identity:

“I felt so much guilt by association of what my people did to other people,” she said. “For a long time, I wanted to get away from being Afrikaans, being White, being South African.”

Since she realigned her perspective on the country through her photographs, South Africa is starting to feel more like home to her:

“There’s this strength of character that people don’t show,” she said, a key part of the counter-narrative her work tries to highlight.

Image: Kristin-Lee Moolman

A big area of focus for Moolman is showcasing the strength of women, especially.

A trigger moment was when she did a shoot with Rihanna in 2019, for the superstar’s Fenty line:

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Rihanna, because of her voice in terms of diversity, women, sexuality. I really like her ideology and her view on the world, so to be able to work with her was really cool,” Moolman said.

Her latest women-focused projects is a 12-minute film called “Banyoloyi A Bosigo”, or “Ultimate Midnite Angels”, which showcases the Autumn/Winter 2021 collection from South African fashion designer Thebe Magugu.

The short film premiered virtually at Paris Fashion Week in March:

[source:cnn]