PSSA 70th anniversary – Photographic Society of South Africa

PSSA celebrates 70 years of service to photography

PSSA formed: Together we are stronger Click here

PSSA set benchmarks over 70 years Click here

International role of PSSA Click here

PSSA promotes Youth Click here

On 24 July 2024 PSSA turned 70 and we decided to show the whole country the excellent quality of work produced by our members with a prestigious travelling print exhibition.

PSSA members responded magnificently to the invitation to submit entries for the exhibition. More than 200 members submitted 850 images, from which 70 images by 70 photographers were selected. Click on this link to the publication 70 images by 70 authors for PSSA 70th above to see the images in the exhibition, with the authors’ comments about their images.

It was extremely difficult to select fewer than 10% of the excellent submitted images. The main selection criteria were to show unique images that illustrate the wide variety of photographic genres favoured by PSSA photographers and their diversity of skills. Only one image per photographer who entered could be selected and Printwild, a PSSA Gold Sponsor printed and mounted the images at a discount.

The exhibition was introduced to the global photographic world with an article in the February 2025 issue of the FIAP magazine, FIAP News. Read it on the FIAP website here – scroll down to download the February 2025 issue to read the article on p66.

The PSSA 70th Anniversary Travelling Exhibition arrives in the Western Cape

The Hermanus Photographic Society became the first Western Cape club to host the 70th Anniversary Exhibition during the town’s FynArts Festival, held from 6–16 June. The PSSA prints were exhibited alongside the club members’ prints and elicited many favourable comments from the numerous visitors who attended the cultural events throughout the festival.

Hermanus has been a regular exhibitor at the festival for several years, but this year they decided to accommodate 37 PSSA prints alongside their members’ work. The exhibition was curated by David Wilson of the Hermanus Photographic Society.

Due to a misunderstanding, the lobby and exhibition area could not be used for the pre-exhibition opening function. However, this turned out to be a benefit for the PSSA, as all the additional prints were quickly displayed in the new venue, where the many invited guests could enjoy them at their leisure. In addition to club members, neighbouring Overberg clubs Kleinmond and Gansbaai were represented at the function. Visitors were escorted in style to the new venue by a Scottish piper, Ramon Allen.

In his opening message PSSA 2nd Vice President and Western Cape Regional Director Nicol du Toit emphasised the important role prints play in introducing photography to the public.

The next stop will be in KwaZulu Natal during the regional conference at the end of June.

The exhibition ends its travels to Gauteng

Even though the exhibition at the Central Gauteng Regional Congress on 17th May, only lasted for the day of the congress, the hosting club, IPIP, went to a lot of trouble to create innovative displays. The congress, attended by about 100 members, was held at the Cliffview Primary School in Fairlands, Randburg.

The feedback from club chairperson Saskia Cole is that the congress delegates enjoyed the prints.

Five of the members whose images form part of the exhibition were present: Corine Ross, author of Mama Afrique, Natasha Bird, author of Coming in to land, Alexius van der Westhuizen, author of the image Striking, Anneke Preto, who captured Amsterdam and Sandy van Vuuren, who photographed Spider pearls.

Visiting Pretoria

The PSSA 70th Anniversary Travelling Exhibition spent the 2024 Festive Season and the beginning of the new year in Pretoria.

AFO Fotografieklub celebrated PSSAs 70^th Anniversary on Tuesday 11 December with the opening of the exhibition featuring 70 top images from 70 photographers at the NG Kerk Tygerpoort in Shere, Pretoria. This was the first leg of the Pretoria exhibition. Due to the holidays the exhibition was open every Sunday morning until the end of the year and from 6 January it was open daily.

On February 12th, 2025, the exhibition was opened by PSSA Regional Director for Northern Gauteng, Francois Venter, at the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (Affies) in Pretoria. He highlighted the role played by PSSA in the art of photography.

A special feature of the exhibition was the exhibition of the work of Marnu van Zyl, the school’s photography club’s leading photographer. The school has a very active photography club. Not surprisingly, many of its members focus largely on sport photography. Phillip van Emmenis, art teacher and organiser of the photography club at Affies, said that he hopes the exhibition will show the boys what can be accomplished by the art of photography. The exhibition, staged in the foyer of the assembly hall, was open for visitors until 21 February.

As the representative body of photographic clubs in Southern Africa, PSSA sets the norms and standards for competitions, and thus provides us a benchmark for measuring the quality of our photography, said AFO Fotografieklub chairman, Koos Marais, when he opened the Tygerpoort exhibition. “The exhibition celebrates what has been achieved over the past 70 years and extends an invitation to thousands of photographers to join us.”
It is a visual portrayal of this consensus PSSA, with its 116 clubs, reached about the standard of photography in South Africa. “It is also a visible, almost tangible, testimony to the excellent levels of processing and manipulation (in some genres) in modern photography. Digital photography is inseparable from the almost daily changes and improvements in computer technology, creating more and more challenges for photographers. For these reasons PSSAs role as guardian of photographic norms and standards can never be underestimated,” says Koos. The photos above are by Ingrid Marais.

The first stops of the travelling exhibition in Mossel Bay, Parys and Potchefstroom were highly successful, attracting media coverage, visitor interest, new members for clubs, and making new friends for PSSA. There was also a mini exhibition in Port Elizabeth during November.

Above (top two rows) are images taken by Mejandra Fourie of Mejandra Photography in Klerksdorp at the exhibition opening in the Snowflake Gallery in Potchefstroom during October. It was opened on October 9^th by Southern Gauteng Regional Director Johan Brits and Snowflake Gallery curator Marie Bothma. The exhibition was visited by many members of the public in the newly restored Snowflake Gallery until October 22.

At the 2025 PSSA congress in Parys the 70^th Anniversary Exhibition was very well received and visitors who completed the feedback form gave it a very high enjoyment rating. The images in the middle row were taken by Sydney Truter of PE Camera Club of the exhibition in the foyer of the congress venue.

Eden Photographic Society in Mossel Bay (bottom row) launched the 70^th Anniversary Exhibition during the Mossel Bay Music and Arts Festival during the last week of September. The exhibition was diligently promoted by club members Elizabeth Nicholson and Johan van Aarde on Facebook, WhatsApp and the media. It attracted plenty of interest – and gained the club new friends from photographers in the Garden Route. The photos of Eden club members with their prints on exhibition were taken by Johan van Aarde.

These exhibits attracted plenty of media coverage in the Mossel Bay Advertiser, Parys Gazette (three articles) and Vaalweekblad. Many images from the exhibitions were also posted to the PSSA Facebook page with 12 300 followers.