Life beyond the lens

Selected as one of this year's seven successful emerging artists, photo journalist, Alexia Webster will be exhibiting her Street Studio photographic exhibition which focuses on connections between people and their communities.

After a number of years working as a photojournalist, Alexia Webster, disillusioned by the often cynical nature of a lot of the stories she was asked to cover, wanted to not only represent society's troubles but rather focus on the connections between people and within communities.

"There's an element of impersonality in photo journalism," Webster says. "After reflecting on the most meaningful images to me, I realised that the photographs in my family albums were by far the most precious and the idea of the Street Studio idea was born. It was a project that was no longer just about taking photographs, and feeding the daily pages of newspapers, but about being able to give people photographs that could be meaningful to them now and in the future."

Her first 'Street Studio' was created in 2011 in an infamous part of Woodstock in Cape Town. Alexia collaborated with artist Mike Saal to develop an outdoor photographic studio, similar to West African portrait photography tradition, where families can sit for portraits in a 'street studio' setting.

Alexia's vision was to create a home-away-from-home scenario on a busy street corner without projecting too much of her personal identity into the image but rather to allow her subjects to pose freely. Wallpaper was stencilled onto a street wall, a wooden chair, a vase of flowers and some pictures were all brought in as part of the backdrop, creating a cosy living-room scene.

"Word spread and people from the nearby houses queued to have their photographs taken. Some people brought their kids, some came with their lovers, many were on their own, others arrived dressed up for occasion and returned in different outfits. They all went away with their own photographs printed for free from a portable printer on the street," she says.

"Five more studios have been created around the country since then and hundreds of people have come to have their portrait taken. The most humbling part of the experience for me has been that, irrespective of age or background, they want to affirm their love for each other. They want to be remembered as a part of a family, a community, and to be recognized as a member of our human family tree."

The densely populated cosmopolitan city centre of Hillbrow, where existence is tough and unforgiving, was next. It made a perfect setting for a Johannesburg Street Studio to affirm a sense of belonging and family within the community.

To date, she has received grants from the Artraker Award for Art and Conflict and the Prince Claus Fund, which will allow her to take the Street Studios to different refugee camps around the continent. She is currently based in Johannesburg where she continues to explore the visible and the invisible with her camera.

Webster's work can be viewed at the Ithuba Arts Gallery, 100 Juta street, cnr Biccard and Juta, Braamfontein (entrance on Biccard) from 31 October to 7 December. Admission is free.