South African, 1978
James is an independent photojournalist and visual journalism specialist, currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Recently, he worked as a senior visuals producer at Reuters, where he managed a diverse group of visual journalists across Africa, coordinating coverage, commissioning assignments and shaping Reuters’ visual strategy on the continent. Together, the team captured some of the region’s most significant political, economic and cultural moments.
He graduated from Rhodes University with a Bachelor of Journalism degree in 2000. His photographic work has predominantly revolved around themes of social inequality and people affected by conflict.
He was the former Chief Photographer and Picture Editor of the Sunday Times newspaper (2015) before leaving to pursue a career as a freelancer.
Currently, he is a member of Panos Pictures.
On 18 April 2015, during a wave of xenophobic violence, he photographed the murder of a Mozambican migrant by South African men. The man’s name was Emmanuel Sithole and the images of his death sparked outrage and made international headlines. The South African army was deployed in response and mass demonstrations were held in several African countries.
In 2015 he was named the South African Journalist of the Year. In 2018 his Red Ants project won the prestigious Visa d’or Feature Award at the Visa Pour l’image Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan, France. His work has been received various international awards including multiple Pictures of the Year International (POYi) awards, most recently an “Award of Excellence” in the coveted Photography Book of the Year category, for [BR]OTHER, (Jacana, 2021).
He is co-author of The Battle of Bangui (Penguin Random House, 2021), a non-fiction book documenting one of the key events during the 2013 coup in the Central African Republic.
Formerly, he taught documentary photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg.