Keeping a cool head amid flying bullets: A tribute to Juda Ngwenya by Joseph Oesi (City Press), 26 October 2016

Your death has come way too soon; none of us could say, with a straight face, that we were prepared for it.

Therefore, please forgive us if we appear too clumsy and unprepared; because we are ill prepared.

Juda, I am sad and shocked to hear of the news of your untimely passing away.

I’m even sadder that I had never had the chance to tell you what you meant to me as a big brother and mentor.

I cannot claim to have known you as much as the colleagues that I found you already working with when I arrived at Reuters, the international agency, even though we had had camaraderie between us even when I worked with what was your so-called opposition television news agency, WTN.

Nonetheless I feel privileged and honoured to have been among your professional colleagues and to eventually have been a friend and brother to you.

As your younger brother, we watched and observed the likes of fearless journalists such as yourself captured the inhumanity of apartheid – how you worked under the most trying of circumstances in our townships when they were under fire or our coverage of ravaged African countries that were casualties of war.

Whatever the circumstances, you had this knack to be able to capture the humanity of those people suffering in conflict and famine.

It shone through in your photography, which I think made you an exceptional photojournalist.

Always there – with a quiet, gentle and happy demeanour about you – to cheer us on when and even if there was nothing honestly to be happy about.

 Photographer Juda Ngwenya. Picture: Janice Keogh Photographer Juda Ngwenya. Picture: Janice Keogh  One of the photos in a Juda Ngwenya exhibition. Picture: Janice Keogh One of the photos in a Juda Ngwenya exhibition. Picture: Janice Keogh  One of the photos in a Juda Ngwenya exhibition. Picture: Janice Keogh One of the photos in a Juda Ngwenya exhibition. Picture: Janice Keogh  South African President Nelson Mandela and American pop star Whitney Houston smile for photographers in Johannesburg in this November 10 1994 file photo. Picture: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters South African President Nelson Mandela and American pop star Whitney Houston smile for photographers in Johannesburg in this November 10 1994 file photo. Picture: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters  FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela hold their hands high as they address the people after the inauguration ceremony in front of Union Building, Pretoria in this May 10 1994 file photo. Picture: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela hold their hands high as they address the people after the inauguration ceremony in front of Union Building, Pretoria in this May 10 1994 file photo. Picture: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters

 Photographer Juda Ngwenya. Picture: Janice Keogh  One of the photos in a Juda Ngwenya exhibition. Picture: Janice Keogh  One of the photos in a Juda Ngwenya exhibition. Picture: Janice Keogh  South African President Nelson Mandela and American pop star Whitney Houston smile for photographers in Johannesburg in this November 10 1994 file photo. Picture: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters  FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela hold their hands high as they address the people after the inauguration ceremony in front of Union Building, Pretoria in this May 10 1994 file photo. Picture: Juda Ngwenya/Reuters 

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We learnt from you to keep a cool head when all about us were losing theirs, amid flying bullets.

I guess it was that calmness in you that allowed you to compose some of those incredible pictures that you would snap whilst around us all mayhem was breaking loose.

You never shied away at showing the naked truth whether it were the human tragedy unfolding right before our eyes or those in power abusing the masses such as marauding and looting soldiers in Monrovia, Liberia.

I truly admired that in you.

Shutter salute to legendary photojournalist Juda Ngwenya who died October 19 in hospital after suffering a severe stroke. Video: Joseph Oesi

A video posted by City Press (@city_press) on Oct 28, 2016 at 6:42am PDT

We would debate, argue about every story – the coverage, the merits or demerits and even analyse what writers, politicians and anybody who put their two cents’ worth in our work as photographers and television journalists would say about it.

We moaned and bitched collectively the way that “we” as black African journalists, particularly in the foreign media, were being disrespected by the way our work was not properly recognised or sidelined.

You were never a man of unkind words or one to dwell on bitterness but would rather get on with the job.

The body of your photographic work speaks volumes; it shows a much deeper understanding than what any pen could put to words.

Though you are now gone, and hopefully out of pain of this cruel world, your work will remain with us and future generations.

You witnessed, and were able to capture some of the most important events in our life time including South Africa’s apartheid past, its attempt to shed itself of its heinous history.

It gives me immense pride to have to say that I was there with you in the trenches of current history where we captured with our lenses (you with your stills camera and we with our television footage) some raw moments of the unfolding history.

Believing that we had seen the worst in South Africa, our work and lenses focused on the rest of Africa where we covered wars from Liberia, the Rwanda genocide, Angola’s civil war and Mozambique’s momentous elections.

I particularly admired the work you produced in Zimbabwe – the war veterans – when it was becoming increasingly difficult as journalists to operate under our British employer whom we used to jokingly refer to as “the Baron” – Reuters.

Even Time magazine honoured your work in Zimbabwe.

I remember how we at Reuters TV Johannesburg celebrated the fact that it was your picture that made it on the cover of that illustrious global magazine.

The only other black African photojournalist whose work had graced Time magazine was our other elder, Peter Magubane.

I am certain that your name will be counted amongst the greatest and brightest photojournalists who came from our African continent during our times.

You will be remembered fondly among the likes of Kevin Carter, Mo Amin, Ken Oosterbroek, Alf Kumalo, Bob Gosani, Ernest Cole, Anton Hammerl, Abdul Shariff, and Walter Dladla.

It gives me small comfort that your demise wasn’t on the battle field; for this would make this goodbye even bitter than it already is.

Juda Ngwenya, my brother, may your soul rest in peace; till we reconnect on the other side!