Pieter Bauermeister

Pieter Bauermeister is a photographer born in 1977 in Cape Town, South Africa. As a photographic journalist and photographic artist, he is largely self-taught and fuelled by his absolute passion for the creative art of photography, as well as the discovery of telling human stories through images.

"Throughout my travels, I became increasingly conscious of the human condition and all its beautiful moments one can find when the eyes of one’s heart and mind are open to truly seeing. For me, one of those poignantly and unforgettably beautiful moments was when – in Madagascar – I was generously invited to share a meal with strangers in the warm humility of their home. Or when I spent time in back-alleys with tattooed gangsters. Seeing mothers cry out in absolute desperation, or being blessed with the trust to share the sacredness of spiritual rituals of a group of Xhosa in the Eastern Cape. Plummeting across the desert on a derelict train in escape fom an attacking hoarde of bandits on horseback.

My eyes were opened time and time again to the beauty and pain of all these people, and the moments that I have been so uniquely privileged to share in and be allowed to capture in my photographs. Sometimes, deliberately with no camera in hand, I would wonder and wander through the streets of strange, new countries to only observe, learn and take in the sounds, smells, textures and souls… to take in ‘life’ itself — the exquisite joys, the devastation of pain… and everything in between.

As the years went by, the ‘life’ I so humbly and patiently observed, began shaping my own. I can only hope it will always continue to do so."

Pieter Bauermeister