Pieter Hugo started off his career as a photojournalist, but being a "fly on the wall" didn't sit well with him. However, his work opened up possibilities to explore his interests and find his own style.

"I was not a particularly good photojournalist. I was useless at being a fly on the wall. I wanted to make work that was more considered. The problem of my presence I made into the crux of my practice—acknowledging my presence, acknowledging the energy and dynamics between myself and my subjects. I think of my portraiture as slow journalism," Hugo told Bored Panda.

We asked Hugo what inspires his photography.

"I think inspiration comes in many forms. The challenge is to cultivate one’s perceptiveness to ideas. I do not have an overt goal. Mostly inspiration for work comes out of a desire to engage with the world. To look at it. To analyze it. To respond to it. Various projects have different ambitions. Some are concerned with the veracity of the portrait, others are born from a curious wanderlust."

Hugo said that his interest in highlighting the reality of marginalized communities across Africa developed organically: "At the beginning of my career, I often had commissions around Africa. While on commission (or while researching a commission), I would often stumble across ideas and subjects that I felt deserved a longer and more scrutinous approach."

Portraits of Africa mark an early stage of his career; Hugo said he now has a much more global worldview and has personal work in the USA, China, Mexico, UK, France, and Nepal, among other parts of the world.

This photo gallery illustrates Rwanda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa through Hugo's lens and consists of portraits from various photography series the artist has collected over the years. Featured in this article are shots from some of Hugo's most popular series: Looking Aside, Kin, Permanent Error, The Hyena and Other Men, Wild Honey Collectors, 1994, and Messina/Musina.

In his project "Looking Aside," Hugo intimately captures people whose appearance makes us look aside: albinos, the blind, the elderly, and even his own family. He makes us confront our prejudice toward people who are unusual and different in some ways.

"Photography was being used by the state as a tool of classification and separation. All South Africans were required to carry a photo ID. My series turns this loaded compositional style on its head to document people marginalised by the glib visual propaganda of the ‘new,’ liberated South Africa," Hugo explains on his website the frame he deliberately chose for the series.

"Permanent Error" depicts a massive dumpsite for technological waste from around the world on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, Accra, and the locals who collect and burn down the components to extract bits of valuable metals for resale, creating toxic waste and putting the area in danger.

"I think it is fair to say that Agbogbloshie is a dark and dirty monument to the digital age, to our faith in technology, and its built-in obsolescence. This idea of surplus and waste, which is key to our digital experience, is not one that many people seem comfortable addressing. Being in an environment like this, where geopolitical imbalances are being exploited to effectively dump waste on poor countries, it is hard not to take a political position," Hugo says.

"The Hyena and Other Men," shot in Nigeria, is the most popular series, which portrays a group of itinerants who perform with hyenas, baboons, and pythons to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The striking photos explore the relationship between people and animals they have taken out of the wild as pups.

"The hyena men are a family and what they do with the animals has a long history and traditions. I don’t agree with it. But I can see the beauty in their relationships with the animals. And cruelty. I guess like all relationships, there are multiple dynamics at play. It's opaque to me. It’s difficult to take a judgmental position towards them. They are also dealing with economic realities different from most people in the world," Hugo told us.

"Wild Honey Collectors" captures men in central Ghana covered in leaves and plastic bags. They perform a very dangerous job of harvesting honey from wild bee colonies.

"Honey is harvested by burning the tree nests. As a result, the honey often has soot in it and can only be sold at local markets for low prices. It is a very destructive form of labour, but it is their only means of earning a living," Hugo writes on his website.

"1994" is a series that captures children from South Africa and Rwanda born after 1994. Both countries were marked by major historical events in 1994 and the series depicts a generation of children growing up in the post-revolutionary era.

"Most of the images were taken in villages around Rwanda and South Africa. There’s a thin line between nature being seen as idyllic and as a place where terrible things happen—permeated by genocide, a constantly contested space. Seen as a metaphor, it’s as if the further you leave the city and its systems of control, the more primal things become. At times the children appear conservative, existing in an orderly world; at other times there’s something feral about them, as in Lord of the Flies, a place devoid of rules. This is most noticeable in the Rwanda images where clothes donated from Europe, with particular cultural significations, are transposed into a completely different context."

The series "Kin" captures the intimate and public South Africa through portraits, landscapes, and still lifes and explores its deeply rooted social issues.

"South Africa is such a fractured, schizophrenic, wounded and problematic place. It is a very violent society; the scars of colonialism and apartheid still run deep. Issues of race and cultural custodianship permeate every aspect of society, and the legacy of forced racial segregation casts a long shadow. How does one live in this society? How does one take responsibility for history, and to what extent should one try? How do you raise a family in such a conflicted society?" Hugo writes.

The artist took a similar approach in his project about South Africa's northernmost town on the border with Zimbabwe, Musina. He reflects the wounds and scars of race, class, and nationality that persist there.

"The most challenging part of my work is editing. Photographers are gnarly, terrible editors," Hugo said. "The most rewarding part of my work is that it very rarely bores me. It keeps me stimulated and curious."

Hugo's controversial work has sparked contrasting reactions around the world, but he remains one of the best South African photographers for his honest and direct approach. 

""I’m always surprised by the issues my detractors take with my work. Dialogue is good, right? Having conversations about difficult topics is necessary. If my work provokes debate, I'm happy. It means it is relevant," he said.

His artwork has been shown in major solo exhibitions across the world's best museums such as Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon, Museum für Kuns und Kulturgeschichte in Dortmund, The National Portrait Gallery in London, the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Fotografiska in Stockholm, MAXXI in Rome, and more as well as many group exhibitions at institutions including Tate Modern, the Folkwang Museum, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, and the São Paulo Bienal.

His photographs have landed in prominent public and private collections, among them MOMA NY, V&A, Centre Pompidou, J Paul Getty Museum, and The Rijks Museum. In 2018, Hugo received the Discovery Award at the Rencontres d'Arles Festival and the KLM Paul Huf Award and in 2011, the Seydou Keita Award at the Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial.