A CAMERA is Tara Mette's lens to her art and to the world.
As one of 10 finalists for the Sony World Photography Awards student competition, the 21-year-old Stellenbosch Academy student has won a Sony Alpha7 camera and a ticket to London to attend the Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony in London in April.
When she first heard the news, she was "in shock".
"I thought that my lecturer was joking. I could hardly believe it but I was really excited. I've wanted to go overseas for so long."
It will be her first time in London, but she won't be the only South African there.
For the first time in the competition's seven-year history, two students from the same country have won finalist standing.
Russell Bruns, 26, is in his second year of a Master's degree programme at Rhodes University, and said he didn't expect to see his name among the list of finalists.
He photographed a Grade 1 pupil at Courtrai Primary School in Paarl for his submission. During three weeks of photographing the school, he wanted to explore the changes that had taken place in education since he attended Courtrai.
"I essentially wanted to create a photo whereby the viewer decided how far South Africa had come regarding the breaking down of old institutional ideologies."
He said he saw photography as a vehicle for approaching conversations on difficult subjects.
"I'm more interested in images than photography. Photography is just the process... It's just a medium that works best for creating critical discourse."
The theme for the initial competition was an image for a newspaper's front page.
For the second installment, finalists will use their new cameras to capture a series of six to 10 images on the theme "self-portraits".
"When I heard about this brief I was very surprised," Melte said. "But I'm very excited now because I wrote my thesis about how media influences your own identity and how you represent yourself"
For her first submission, titled "Human Nature at its Best", Mette photographed 53-year-old Don Wessels and his family.
Wessels was conscripted into the South African army in 1987 and lost his hands and eyesight in a landmine explosion.
Mette described her work as optimistic.
"We have so many people in this world who have so much and don't appreciate it and then so many people who have next to nothing but then they appreciate it, and that's what I like to capture."
By Madelyn Stone
Source: Cape Argus
Caption: Tara Mette says her photograph of South African army veteran Don Wessels seeks to highlight the positives rather than the negatives of his handicap
Picture: Tara Mette and Russell Bruns