Our Featured Artists

Meet Debbie Yazbek :

Debbie Yazbek is a celebrated South African photojournalist whose evocative imagery and unwavering social conscience have left an indelible mark on the nation's visual history. Born in Klerksdorp to Lebanese immigrant parents, she studied photography at Natal Technikon before honing her craft in the UK. In 1985, fueled by a deep sense of purpose, she returned to South Africa to chronicle the fight against Apartheid—eventually rising to the role of Chief Photographer at The Sunday Star. Yazbek’s lens has captured defining moments in the country’s journey, from the raw grief following Chris Hani’s assassination to the profound human toll of the AIDS epidemic. Her body of work stands as a powerful testament to courage, resilience, and the enduring role of photography in truth-telling.

Over the course of her distinguished career, Yazbek has amassed numerous accolades. She is the only woman to be named Press Photographer of the Year twice (1998 and 2003), and in 2002, she swept first place in both the Commonwealth Photographic Competition and the CNN African Journalist of the Year awards. In 2003, she made history as the first photographer—and first woman—to win the Nat Nakasa Award for Media Integrity. Her work has been featured internationally, including in AIDS awareness campaigns across Holland, Toronto, and Washington; at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali; and in the Control Arms Campaign exhibition by Oxfam in New York. In 2016, she published Empathy, a powerful photographic coffee table book exploring homelessness.