Krisjan Rossouw

Rossouw was born in Cape Town and took up an apprenticeship with a large printing company after school. “Up until that point it was the closest I’ve been to being creative,” he says. A few years later he was cast as an extra in a TV commercial which introduced him to Cape Town’s fashion, film and commercials industry. This led to a series of fashion and commercial industry-related jobs, first as a model driver and chaperone, and then as a model booker, which was when he made friends with the models he photographs today.

His photography career began when his mother bought him a camera. “It was a matter of trial and error. I had no photographic lighting or equipment other than the camera, so my style developed from having to use what lighting there was – bedside lamps, fluorescent tubes – and working out a way to layer their different qualities to be able to make something new and original,” he remembers.

He works with a Nikon D5000 and the basic lens that came with the camera; no tripod, no ‘photographic’ lighting. He explains, “It’s ironic that when I could finally afford professional studio lights, the images simply did not look the same to me. I haven’t used them since that first time.”