Luchwayito Vena and Lithemba Nziweni are two creatives from Alice, a small town in the Eastern Cape. The two gentlemen are the founders of a creative company; geminivision.
Geminivision vision was founded and registered in 2016, the gents fell in love with photography in 2017 and they have never stopped developing their craft. Their focus is mainly on digital photography, they are more conceptual based on their art, everything they do has got to do with some sort of creative direction to it, "our narrative behind the style of photography we do is to tell the simple everyday story in a more visually capturing way. The stories about nature, colour, music etc. Turning everyday stories into beautiful pieces of art. We channel all these different forms of art into one creative spectrum that this photography".
geminivision is the coming together of two minds to one. The comprehension of humanity & psychology through photography. We document these values we are trying to uplift in our new series we've just launched on YouTube, titled "Behind The Lens" - the series is to show that there is more to the model than just the images we all admire. These are people with real world experiences, a person with dreams & aspirations. A person with interesting and unique stories to tell. We are more invested in people because we believe in Ubuntu - we embrace the people we work with because we are all trying to uplift each other.
What inspired you guys to become photographers? Music inspiration: from earlier on in our photography journey, music has been the core inspiration. We grew up listening to a lot of music, there was no album that came & went that missed us - so as as avid music lovers, we fell in love with the stories & interpretations we made from the music we listened to. The beauty of music then gave inspiration to our imagination. We listened to all genres, so therefore got to develop a very unique way of seeing the world. We saw our lives the through the music we listened to, our personal stories were told through it, we related a lot to it. We were moved by how other people's stories we told through music - we wanted to do the same, but through imagery. Hence why even our latest work is predominately inspired by one of our favourite South African albums - we believe photography & music are very synonymous. Imagery inspiration: the beauty of imagery. Imagery is a powerful medium to communicate our sensory experience, a comprehension that can only be experienced by the eye, the mind and emotions. Documenting that experience without having to use words but express it visually is creative. Using imagery to leave pieces of an existence - documenting the stories of people and sharing their brilliance and beauty is important for the next generation. Imagery has given us a platform to embrace people and leave pieces of art that will stay for long time. Our narration and style of imagery has grown over the years. We grew inspiration from the people we look up to then developed our own creative style and niche from drawing inspiration and admiration of their craft. Your work has been featured on Vogue magazine, and Luchwayito is Design Indaba 2020's Emerging Creative, please take us through these experiences. PhotoVogue is a photography platform, you submit your work there among other talented photographers & the magazine editors choose the most worthy images to be featured on their website. Having our work featured there 4 times this year has been one of the greatest things to happen to us in 2020 - it not only gives affirmation & validation to what we do, but it exposes our work to an international audience, and as a photographer all you want is to have your work all over the world, Vogue to us in just a foot in the door to something greater. Design Indaba The Design Indaba was an incredible experience. It brought people from all over the world to our work. That meant a lot for us geminivision because it gave us a platform to represent Eastern Cape and our hometown Alice. It was great learning experience as well because it opened my mind and changed the trajectory of how far we could take our photography and creativity. We attended workshops that were hosted by great thinkers and innovators who shared great knowledge to gain from. It introduced us and our work to other young emerging creatives in South Africa and created a great networking platform for us. What does it mean for geminivision? It approved us that we are amongst the best in South Africa at what we do. What is your vision/creative philosophy as visual artists? Embracing being "different". Staying true to who you are, and knowing that is good enough. Also, we want to create a space where people, especially the younger generation are able to express their creative nature. We also aim to shift the general negative perspective of of art and it being something not worth pursuing as a career. We want to change the world with our creativity in the sense of allowing people to express their creativeness. What do you guys love most about being creatives?
Lithemba: personally, what I love most about being a creative right now, at this particular stage in my life is getting to know people, and as a photographer you are obligated to interact with a number of people on a daily basis (depending on how busy you are). And as an introvert, it has allowed me the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and experience a different version of myself. I am also enjoying hearing people's life stories, there is a lot I am learning from each and every person I am meeting through my art. The sharing of knowledge & experiences from people I will probably never see again is just so priceless Luchwayito: what I love about being a creative is being able to use art to express and document my imagination and how i interpret life. I love how creativity has allowed me to make a positive impact on other people’s lives. It has allowed to live out the true essence of my name - ‘Luchwayito’ (A Xhosa name meaning delight) What I love most about being a creative and a photographer, is that photography allows me to create history. Eventually we are all going to die but the pictures of our existence and society will live forever. The pieces of art I create will be used for references by the next generation and that’s the impact that I have. I believe that imagery plays a big and significant role in society - in the sense that through imagery we are able to change representation norms, we are able to preserve history and we able to shape perspectives. What are your future aspirations for geminivision?
Our future aspirations as photographers is to create meaningful work that hopefully brings enlightenment to a generation or number of generations, we would love to do that through exhibiting. We want to create art so bold it will make a statement and also be able to resonate with people. Secondly, as a company, we want to grow geminivision to be a home to a variety of creatives - where we can create an agency that houses different talents.
Follow them on their social media networks @geminivisionZA on Twitter, @VenaLuchwayito and @LithembaNziweni
Luchwayito and Lunathi peace of writing is my fav, I still cant get over it.