#5 - Lee-Ann Olwage on documentary photography, dementia in Africa and World Press Photo

My guest today just won World Press Photo Story of the Year for Valim-babena, her project about dementia in Madagascar made for GEO Magazine. Lee-Ann Olwage is a South African documentary and portrait photographer whose work centers on identity, collaboration and celebration, and in this conversation she takes us into the four years and five reporting trips it took to find a way to tell this story with tenderness instead of shock.What you'll learn in this episodeWhy Lee-Ann decided never to take the most shocking image she could have made, and what that reveals about how she approaches a story.How The Big Forget came to be, her long-term project on dementia across different African communities, and why so many local languages have no word for the disease.What changed for her when her own father was diagnosed with dementia, just days before her reporting trip to Madagascar.Why she calls herself lucky, while also having stood outside a prison for six months trying to get access to a story.How nine years of working as a set decorator on film sets shaped her visual style as a documentary photographer.Her advice to young photographers: build your own visual voice, expect a lot of no's, and find other work that buys you the freedom to make what you loveAbout the guestLee-Ann Olwage is a documentary and portrait photographer from South Africa, born in Durban in 1986. She won World Press Photo Story of the Year 2025 with Valim-babena, and previously won World Press Photo Awards in 2020 and 2023. She is a member of Native Women Photograph and African Women in Photography, and her work has appeared in major international newspapers and magazines. Her work centers on identity, collaboration and celebration, using photography as a form of co-creation.This episode is brought to you by Cameranu. They understand better than anyone that as a photographer you need more than creativity, you also need the right tools, whether that's a new lens or a camera you can rely on during a client shoot. Their specialists think along with you and give honest advice. Listeners of De Donkere Kamer get 10% off their next purchase with code DDK10 at cameranu.be.After years of working with top photographers through this podcast, in masterclasses, and in one-on-one mentoring, Kaat noticed something: the photographers who keep growing all do a handful of things remarkably consistently. Not talent, not luck, but a set of patterns that repeat across every single one of them. In this free webinar, Kaat breaks down those five things and shows you exactly how to apply them to your own photography and business, whatever stage you're at. It's free, it's practical, and it's the shortcut she wishes someone had given her years ago. Sign up here. Links and resourcesLee-Ann Olwage's websiteFree webinar "The 5 things growing photographers consistently do"