John Wessels
GRANTEE
JOHN WESSELS (Johannesburg, 1987), started his photojournalism career in 2014 whilst working as a Survey Engineer in Maputo, Mozambique. After which (2015) he completed the Photojournalism and Documentary Course at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg and in 2016 started freelancing for AFP and other media outlets in Southern Africa. Since 2017, he has been based in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he is a stringer for AFP and assigned regularly by NGO's such as MSF, UNHCR and OXFAM to cover humanitarian issues throughout DRC. In 2018 he was invited to exhibit his work from the DRC called 'Trapped In The DRC" at Visa Pour l'image and in 2019 he received two World Press Photo Awards for his work in DRC as well as second place in Picture Of The Year International's(POYI) photographer of the year section. He was also nominated for The Guardian's wire photographer of the year 2018 award.
