Andile Rada is born and grew up in Mbekweni, Paarl in the Western Cape province of South Africa. After matriculating in 2013, he did a course at AFDA studying Film & Television and he then started working as a Call Centre agent to save up money for himself to buy a camera and to start pursuing his dream of being a photographer/story teller. Although initially his dream was to do short films and to inspire and tell stories of “his people”, he decided to start by telling these stories through conceptual photography.
What type of Photography do you do?
To be quite honest with you I ask myself that question almost everyday, reason being I am inspired by a variety of things and sometimes objects, people, situations and society as a whole. I have to point out though I am absolutely in love with fashion photography because I am a Fashion forward person myself, but I’d say I am a Conceptual Photographer more than anything else because I love telling stories.
What were your influences growing up?
My one big influence growing up has to be the environment in which I grew up in, I mean it is the type of environment that would make or break a person… I grew up only with my grandmother, and she was looking after 11 people in the family. I was inspired and influenced by the people around me, the way they lived and the dreams they had for themselves or for their kids and families.
Also read : Humans of Ghana by Stanley Osei
Let’s move swiftly to the recent series you just released, what inspired it?
Firstly, I’d like to thank the public for the way they received the images and how they took in the message I was trying to convey and bring across. The inspiration behind that series was based on a true story of a close friend of mine who was humiliated, embarrassed and shamed on Social Media, when nude pictures of her were leaked by her ex-lover.
I had a sit down session with my friend, trying to find out how she felt and what was going through her mind, and I realized the pain she was in… She felt like she could hide every time she walked to the shop, people who never knew her all of a sudden acted like they knew who she was, asked if she had any morals and some say she did it on purpose because she wanted to be famous and so-forth.
What was the motive behind the pictures? What were you trying to achieve?
I just wanted to change people’s mindset. I wanted them to stop for a second and think about what this young lady was going through, how her family was feeling but mostly the impact it might have on her future and that of the people close to her. I wanted to bring UBUNTU back.
Do you think you achieve that goal ?
I think I did, because after I released the series it caught the eye of major people in the industry. They wanted to spread the message further, my fellow creatives and people in general applauded and said they were touched. So I am proud of what I managed to do.
Should we expect more from you or are there other projects you currently working on?
Definitely, I still want to inspire and tell the stories of my people, stories that many people are scared to share, stories that are life changing and stories which will grow and better South Africa and Africa as a whole.
Thanks for your time and we looking forward to many more life changing stories
Thanks to you for the platform and I shall continue producing the best I can.
