Documenting the world in one day — how we did it, Jozi style

Jozi My Jozi, in partnership with the Joburg Photowalkers, put together a team of photographers to join the 24HourProject, an annual global event in which photographers of all levels and ages take to their hoods and post one photograph an hour for 24 hours on Instagram. 

The goal is to create a collective global snapshot, a 24-hour visual time capsule, and raise funds for Children in Conflict Zones and Doctors Without Borders. 

Here’s how we rolled.

In true Jozi style, we kickstarted at midnight on Friday in a Soweto nightclub, the Disoufeng Bar & Restaurant in Meadowlands, self-described “experts in nightlife” featuring Soweto’s only sushi spot, various bars and dance floors and an all-night hair salon. The place was just getting going when the Jozi My Jozi team arrived in a great big bus bearing 20 photographers, backup crew and security, a giant power bank and great enthusiasm. 

Some photographers were fulltime professionals, others were engineers, conveyancers, brokers and students, all united by a passion for photography, and the reason they all gave as to why they were staying up for 24 hours to shoot Jozi.

We met at Con Hill in the afternoon, then travelled to Soweto where we were hosted by Lebo’s Backpackers and three B&Bs for an early dinner and a few hours’ sleep before we scrambled onto the bus and headed into the night. 

We were divided into teams, each with a security lead, and all the places we visited over the 24 hours were briefed to expect us. My job was to photograph the photographers. “You’re the sniper,” someone quipped, “you have to shoot the shooters.”

Disoufeng Bar & Restaurant was a fantastic place to start – Sowetans getting into the weekend groove, all dressed up and entirely convivial. We spent the first two hours there, the photographers too, getting into their groove. Portraits, close-ups, wide angles, exterior shots, black and white, saturated colour. 

The brave and foolhardy shot tequilas, most stuck to soft drinks. We had a nibble of sushi and then, to the increasingly loud cries of “shoot me, shoot me”, (I shot a guy with six fingers, I kid you not) we got back on the bus at 2am and rocked on to the Immink precinct in Diepkloof to capture its street and night life. 

The Immink strip was in full throttle. The Immink Club heaved with happy patrons; cars pumped out sternum-thumping music, the streets were full of people cooking shisanyama. People laughed and bayed into the night. A very drunk man with a silver bottle followed us around for the entire two hours.  

By 4am we were back on the bus, and everyone started to need to charge their phones, line up their hashtags and get their heads around the intensity of the work that lay ahead. The photographer called Sasha in the seat in front of me had a cap on that said: Shoot, Edit, Sleep, Repeat. Everything applied except sleep. A pic an hour for the next 20 hours.

We cruised by Bara Taxi Rank, the city’s busiest, but it was dark and quiet and some of the photographers did a drive-by shooting, very South African humour, before we pressed on to the Orlando Towers for sunrise. 

The two former cooling towers are now painted in a strange combination of graffiti and headache powder and deodorant ads – and it’s an adventure centre offering everything from bungee jumping to free-falling INTO the towers. 

Whoever designed our 24Hour Photo project itinerary was obviously very South African. Stay up all night and then climb into a small cage and ascend to the top of the towers and take the money-shot sunrise pic of Soweto. 

Mostly trembling with either excitement, fear or cold, or a combo of all three, we were all reassembled and reassured back onto the bus in time to hit the 7.30am peak trading hour at Joburg Market, the city’s biggest fresh produce market. 

I have to say it passed by in a complete haze of bananas, avocados, tomatoes, pineapples, traders and machines with long silver claws. Everyone was suddenly wearing sunglasses and reflective vests, the temperature plummeted and when we found the first coffee shop it only served instant.  

Next thing we were in the traditional Zulu Kwa Mai Mai market on End Street, under the bridge in the inner city. Muti, traditional fashion, carvings, animal skins, sangomas, drums, beads. Our midnight kick-off in a funky nightclub seemed light years away. Sithuli, our host at Mai Mai, prepared a small feast of nayama, and out came the beers and Savannahs. Humour was briefly restored. It was 10am, we had 14 hours to go. 

How are you feeling? I asked @mlu_art who was sitting behind me, his head lolling alarmingly. “Critical but stable.”  

Mercifully, South Africa was annihilating New Zealand in the rugby as we breakfasted at the iconic Troyeville Hotel. Good cheer prevailed. The big T-shirt-less guy at the table in front of us gave an exceptional performance. Go Bokke, he implored, at volume, hand on heart, tear in eye, Go Bokke. I don’t think our Sowetan bus driver had seen anything like it in his life. 

It was a victory feast. We had eaten and won, we’d had coffee and dop, some had smoked zol – and now, hahaha, we were going to Yeoville. Our bus driver, who’d also not slept since midnight, did an astonishing job of manoeuvring us along Stewart Drive and eventually neatly into a parking space on Rockey Street. 

The pan-African market here is visually gorgeous and exotic. Fabric, spices, yams, cassava, People spoke French. Inside the market felt deliciously foreign, outside the streets were edgy. A gang of guys next to our bus on return looked far too interested in 20-odd people carrying photo gear. And yet, when it was explained by our security guys that we were the 24HourProject on a mission of goodness, tensions eased. 

Indeed, we were part of more than 3,000 photographers around the world, in 988 cities, in 103 countries all doing the same thing. Onwards and upwards.

Next thing we were trundling along the highway to Fordsburg, a historic Indian area, famed for its culture, food market, fashion shops, local flavours. It was hot and glorious and overstimulating, but no one was making sense anymore and it was a relief to get to the Bannister Hotel in Braamfontein at about 3pm. They gave us a quiet place to recharge, physically and spiritually, followed by a delicious meal. 

At this point, having been up since eternity, and having walked nearly 17km, deadline looming, I bailed. I left the others to shoot sunset pics on the Nelson Mandela Bridge, visit the National School of Arts and then hit the Basha Uhuru concert at Constitution Hill to, amazingly, take their last pics by midnight. 

I gather from the group that we are all still alive. And I gather too that everyone has a renewed sense of wonderment, pride and belonging and commitment to visual storytelling. We love these streets and wish for our city to flourish in all its diversity. DM

See more on www.instagram.com/tags/24hourproject2025 and www.24hourproject.org.

The 24hour project in Jozi was organised by Mark Straw. Check out the Joburg Photowalkers and also www.instragram.com/tags/24hr25_johannesburg